Ingnomia Review Summary

A faithful Gnomoria successor blending Dwarf Fortress depth with responsive dev support, but early access is unfinished, buggy, with poor UI, broken pathfinding, and severe performance issues.

Faithful Gnomoria successor with enhancements: Many players describe the game as a reincarnation or faithful remake of Gnomoria, often noting it surpasses the original with more content and features. Some call it a perfect replacement for the abandoned Gnomoria.

High potential, promising early access: A recurring theme is that the game has great potential and a promising start, though it is still in early stages. Players believe it could become really good as development continues.

Fun and worth playing: Reviewers consistently find the game enjoyable, calling it a fun little game and definitely a good game. Several state it is worth the price and provides hours of entertainment.

Active and responsive developer: The developer is frequently praised for being highly active, listening to fan feedback, and quickly fixing bugs. Some mention personal responses to bug reports and daily updates.

Graphical and UI improvements: The user interface has been reworked nicely and looks great, with graphical stockpile settings and improved zoom. The visual style, including new sprites, is often described as pleasant and detailed.

Unfinished and buggy state: Many reviewers describe the game as a barely functional, rudimentary prototype full of bugs and unfinished features. It is still in an early alpha state with a lot of work remaining.

Poor UI and controls: The user interface is widely criticized as messy, hard to navigate, and full of bugs. Menus are cumbersome, buttons don't work, and controls need significant improvement.

Broken AI and pathfinding: The gnome AI frequently fails to perform tasks, ignores priorities, and gets stuck. Pathfinding issues cause problems such as gnomes not being able to pass without floors or not crafting items even with materials.

Missing features and content: A significant amount of functionality is unfinished or missing, such as in-game music, achievements, localization, modding, and basic features like placing furniture. The game feels barebones and incomplete.

Performance and stability issues: Players report frequent crashes, freezes, lag, and optimization problems that make the game unplayable. Some even experience savegames becoming unplayable or the game randomly closing.

Gnome Colony Management Game: The game is a colony management and survival simulation where players build, maintain, and manage a village of gnomes, controlling their jobs and priorities. Poor management can lead to the gnomes' death.

Workshops And Production Chains: The game includes a workshop system with multiple specialized workshops such as Carpenter, Stone Cutter, Brewery, and more, along with resource and production chains for crafting items and buildings.

Job Assignment And Priority Management: Players can assign each gnome to the job they are best suited for, manage priorities, and use a job menu to assign individual tasks. A job and priority window similar to Dwarf Therapist or Rimworld is available.

Controls And User Interface: The game uses a scroll wheel for input, time speed controls, and allows zooming by holding Ctrl and using the mouse wheel. It features a retro isometric view, zoom and free-view, and a UI similar to Dwarf Fortress UI tools.

Farming And Animal Husbandry: The game features light agriculture, farming, and animal husbandry, including the ability to pasture animals, plant crops, clear fields, and slaughter animals via a butcher system.

OpenGL 4.3 required: Several users report the game fails to launch because it requires OpenGL 4.3, and updating OpenGL may be impossible on their systems. This affects older computers and systems without OpenGL 4.2 or 4.3 support.

Severe performance issues: Many players experience low frame rates, heavy lag, and performance degradation over time, sometimes leading to crashes. Performance worsens with camera zoom and over the course of a game, especially by the first winter.

Poor optimization on high-end GPUs: Even on powerful graphics cards like the GTX 970, the game runs poorly, with low FPS, high GPU usage, and fans running at full speed. Users note the game is not optimized in any way.

Good performance on some systems: Some users report excellent performance, especially on Linux with AMD hex-core and 8GB RAM, running large maps without slowdown and utilizing all processor cores. Frame rates are better than 30 FPS in these cases.

Startup failures and crashes: The game sometimes does not launch at all, with no window appearing despite Steam indicating it is running, or it crashes frequently on Linux. These startup and stability issues prevent play entirely for affected users.

Support Active Development: A recurring theme is encouraging players to buy or play the game to support the developer and provide feedback. Reviewers hope this will help the game reach its full potential.

Targeted at Gnomoria Fans: Multiple clusters highlight that the game appeals strongly to players who enjoyed Gnomoria. Fans of that title are likely to find a similar experience here, though some feel it has yet to surpass the original.

Unfinished and Buggy State: Many players warn that the game is currently unplayable or not worth playing due to its early access state and unresolved issues such as resource usage. They advise waiting for further development.

Dwarf Fortress and Rimworld Comparison: Reviewers frequently compare the game to Dwarf Fortress and RimWorld, recommending it to fans of those colony survival games. Some suggest sticking with the established titles until this one matures.

Free to Play Encourages Trials: Several reviewers note that because the game is free, it is worth trying even if it is unfinished. Free access lowers the barrier to entry and makes it easier to recommend a test run.

Community fair range: $10.00 - $20.00.

Session length: 3.0h.

Endgame: 600.0h.

The game becomes fun after players push through a steep, tutorial-free learning curve and the menu-based building system clicks; early confusion and a later content wall are common friction points.

Friction: No in-game tutorial or help; Steep learning curve; Menu-based building system requires time to learn; New players do not understand what to do.

Unlock drivers: The menu-based building system clicks and then works well.

Colony-Sim Veteran: Long-term base building and resource management, expecting hundreds or thousands of hours. Motivation: Deep, complex colony simulation in the lineage of Dwarf Fortress, RimWorld, and Gnomoria. Stance: buy.

Cautious Early-Access Watcher: Monitors development, briefly tests alpha builds, and waits for bug fixes and stability before committing. Motivation: A stable, finished colony builder rather than another abandoned early-access title. Stance: no buy.

Freebie Village Builder: Casual, low-commitment building with little interest in deep simulation or optimization. Motivation: Free, lightweight entertainment and simple gnome-village building. Stance: buy.

Linux and Proton: Linux/Proton evidence is mixed. One review reports severe crashes that make Gnomoria unplayable for Linux users, but other reviewers report running it via Steam Play on Solus Linux and running latest builds fine on SteamOS. No repeated Proton Experimental, Proton GE, launch-option, or community-fix requirement is described, so the overall signal is mostly working with a notable Linux instability caveat.

Comparison to Gnomoria: Many reviews compare this game to Gnomoria, often noting similarities in style and mechanics. Some reviewers who played Gnomoria extensively express disappointment when its development stopped and see this as a potential successor.

Early access alpha: The game is in early access or open alpha, still very early in development and not a finished product. Many features are missing or in the works.

Free to play: The game is offered for free, often emphasized as truly free with no monetization. Some reviews note it is free during early access.

Active development: The developer is actively working on the game, fixing issues, and releasing frequent updates. Some describe it as a work in progress with consistent improvements.

Compared to Dwarf Fortress: The game is frequently compared to Dwarf Fortress, often described as more intuitive or combining Gnomoria's accessibility with DF's depth. Some prefer DF or find this less interesting.