This is something to behold, a wonderfully inventive idle game that launches the title into the top pantheons of the genre. It’s by solo gnorp indie dev Myco.
Well, (the) Gnorp Apologue is available on Steam for £5. Totally worth every penny, as its inventiveness in the genre and push to help the little gnorp community get mega rich is instantly enthralling and ever-rewarding.
It launched in December 2023, but the developer seems to have retreated into obscurity since then. This is a shame as it’s an incredible game he/she has created here and worthy of more widespread recognition. Oh yes!
Guide a Community Towards Excess Wealth in Gnorp Apologue
Gnorp Apologue plays around with the idle game formula, offering a rich narrative experience and lots of fun stuff going on in the society you help create.
It’s right up there with another personal favourite. The cosmic brilliance of Jack Holland’s SPACEPLAN (2017).
Players arrive in the gnorp world and begin clicking on The Rock. You keep clicking for that thing to release shards, which are then picked up by “runners”, who turn the items into hard cash. From there you go on to build houses, scientific research buildings, and keep adding more gnorps until you have a thriving community.
Many of them take to whacking The Rock until a giant mountain of shards, at which point you train gnorps to be little mountain climbers to go up the pile and chuck the stuff down to runners. This sort of inventiveness goes on continuously, reminding us in many ways of the brilliant city builder Dungeon Keeper (1997) and its minions.
Anyway, this is the gameplay in action in all its pixel art perfection.
So, yes, (the) Gnorp Apologue is an idle clicker and city builder genre mashup. One that works very well indeed and is instantly addictive.
It moves at quite the pace and there’s a fair amount of manage at once, but the game is also instantly accessible. The pick-up-and-play quality is hire and the dev has provided useful tips to help ease you into the experience.
There are little additions such as choosing to let your workers rest, which can then speed them up at a later date.
Plus, the great compression event is something of a marvel! A great big blast of rainbow shard mayhem to signify excellence and other things. The graphical is minimalistic, sure, but those moments really bring the game to life—occasional hints of more vibrant colour add atmosphere to this world.
As you really do get invested in this gnorp community. You’re there to get them get rich, man!
Away from that stuff, there’s a neat little score to propel the game along, with this one reminding us of some of PiL’s work from the 1980s. Lots of synth!
It’s addictive, charming, cute, and packed full of little touches that make this an indie gem. And all at the bargain bin price of a fiver.
Don’t waste time, give this a whirl. It’s a brilliant game offering a lot of replayability far beyond its cheap asking price.
