Gnomoria

[Makabb]

Gnomoria just released on GOG.

 

[Hellraiser]

Bump.

What is this like now?

My opinion as a man craving a DF clone worthy of the name: nearly nothing has fucking changed in 3 years. I understand the guy probably did this as his pet project after work, and he had a kid born in the mean time. There's still no *finished* candidate for the title, but two early access titles are coming close, which lack different things to make them complete.

1) If you want deep simulation of a large scale settlement: Clockwork Empires.
Still slightly bugged and needs an overhaul of the overseer acquisition mechanic, but as far as features go it only lacks the promised industrial conduits (pipes to move goods automajically, power/steam/aether lines) and industrial workshops/workshop upgrading, also the related end-game content made available by industrial workshops such as steam powered armor, grenade launchers, machine gun nests and other industrial age defences and weapons of mass imperialism. Industrial conduits are also now the next big feature on the list to do, and despite the long development time, for the past nearly 2 years in early access this project has been progressing steadily towards a state of completion and becoming a proper game. It is quite playable now, although needs some re-balancing and design pass on some mechanics.

Main flaws:
no actual Z-levels and mining through mountains, yes the map is 3d and has different heights, but you can't build a tunnel or bridge.
no weather and seasons, not sure if this is on the to do list, however biome climate does affect the local fauna and flora available and crops are restricted by such (with more crop types for a biome being researchable)

2) If you want small scale deep simulation: RimWorld.
RimWorld actually has the DF feel of Fun. As in there are multiple things that may spontaneously go wrong, between bandit/tribal raids, killer space robots, your colonists becoming maimed (with no peg-legs/implants around, or no supplies for your doctor to do surgery). It also features a very good environmental simulation, with temperature simulation and weather affecting the colonists and equipment (lightning flashes actually cause solar panels to generate some electricity, wind turbine get more energy when there's a storm, meat can be frozen not to rot). World map generation counts both latitude and elevation, not to mention humidity, to the colonization site's climate.

Main flaw:
the map is 2D, at least you can dig into mountains but you can never actually build something on the mountain top.
the industrial chain/resources are very abstracted (steel deposits, wut), unlike the proper industrial chains and minerals of DF and Clockwork Empire.
the developer has made not having a plan his motto (seriously, google some interviews with him), he just adds a feature he feels like adding at this point. He's not a random indie, he has some experience, but for instance he took a 6 months break last years from developing (for no given reason), leaving only his potato sidekick doing some work. They're supposedly back in full-swing since january and just released a big update. But that may be disconcerting.

In comparison the clockwork empire guys give weekly devblogs, even if sometimes short, and going back before they even went EA, and reading the blog posts, you can see that they successively followed their plan. They even have a proper project progress page detailing what is done and what needs to be done, in part because they themselves criticize the lack of transparency early access can have.

Also the Clockwork Empires guys from Gaslamp Games frequently reference Alpha Centauri, the Settlers 2 and other classics, besides DF itself, as inspiration. So they are quite , even if they are fond of their brand of nerd humour.