(the) Gnorp Apologue Reviews

Fun incremental game, it actually has some tactics to think about and is not completely brain dead like other games in the genre.

If you enjoy clickers, this one is pretty good. [h2]What I Liked[/h2] *Really, the best part about this game is the silly, whimsical design - visually, musically, and in the premise *Unlike many clickers, this one offers something to watch with many fun little details to appreciate *It wasn't endless. Having just come from a stint on Cookie Clicker, I really, really appreciate the finite playtime of this game. There is the option to replay or do speed challenges and beat your own completion time, but the overall game took only 24 hours of playtime to complete, which I find really ideal. I was only just starting to get sick of it and then the end was in sight. *While I have (as will be mentioned) mixed feelings about the balance of the strategy and idling, I did enjoy getting to try out different strategies and see what combinations of perks and Gnorp units work best. It was really rewarding to come up with a hypothesis about how something might work and then get to see it come together as you did - or didn't - expect. Several times I was even grinning as I watched things work like a well-oiled machine, getting me past points I had struggled with with other builds [h2]What I didn't Like[/h2] *I have mixed feelings about the Skill Point system. Unlike most clickers where the goal is to get all perks because they all offer advantages, this one is more complex in that there are many strategies that you can employ and which one you want to employ in a given prestige run will dictate which perks you should turn on or off. I didn't find it difficult exactly and I can see the merit in having the perks be strategic instead of just grabbing each one as you go, but it definitely was unexpected and not typical for a clicker. *Because of the strategy required for achieving each new tier in the game, the game does require you to pay a certain amount of attention to it and engage with it strategically, but it's slow-paced enough that some of the wait-times for wealth accumulation are painful. This can be solved by letting it run in the background for a while, but not long enough that it feels like it's a run-in-the-background type of game. It makes the game seem like it has a bit of a balance identity crisis. Is it an idle or a strategy game? I wish it would pick one: go with less strategic prestige/perk system and allow more idle play, or, better yet, simple lower the upward trajectory of prices for certain things to allow continuous and engaged play. [h2]What Could Be Added/Fixed[/h2] *Make things slightly cheaper near the end game. The increases get astronomical and artificially lengthen the game time in a way that feels frustrating and not challenging. This is not a true idle game and the strategy of it all would feel more rewarding without several periods of neither idling nor doing anything - simply staring at the game and waiting. *Add an eye-shaped icon for visual settings and provide separate slider bars for turning down the opacity on certain particles. This game is high contrast and the introduction of additional colors in the shard-spray and the addition of rockets can make people dizzy or imitate strobing. I found the constant shifting movement of pure white on a dark background incredibly straining and felt a migraine approaching on several occasions. Lower opacity on those particles would make them visible but less aggressive in their movement. *Add a Next Song and Last Song pair of arrows in the sound settings to allow skipping or repeating songs [h2]Conclusion[/h2] If you like strategy and don't mind some periods of slowness as you get toward the end of the game, or if you like idles and don't mind one that's more engaging and requires more strategy, this is a worthwhile addition to your library. I don't remember the price I paid, but I got it on sale for pretty cheap. I would say, if you asked me to name an appropriate price for it, I would say $4-$6. So if you catch it for around there and you're interested, just get it.

Neatly balanced, doesn’t take too long to beat, but still fun to try out different builds LONG AFTER that, because you can try for more talent points. I wish it didn’t lag in the ending (I’m talking about 10 seconds per frame-level of lag lol) if I have managed to make ridiculous output, though…

I came in expecting just another idler, but you'll almost always be doing something, and the fact that to make progress you have to overcome the natural undoing of your work means that there's fun strategy and build potential involved.

I'll be honest I don't get this game. The loop is boring. I feel like I never make any progress, there's almost no variety between runs. It consistently makes you restart which means you're just going through the most boring part of the game over and over. There's very little guidance on how to progress in any meaningful way. I don't understand the "overwhelmingly positive" reviews.

Fun little game if you like idle games, I must say that some aspects are a little unbalanced while other upgrades seem a bit useless so it could do with some more fine tuning. Some perks from rebirthing can actually make it harder to progress and in a way it feels like there are only really one or two viable strategies to play the game. Some nitpicking: - Gnorps can't be changed into different types of Gnorps, could use a "gnorp retrain center" with a fee - Reclamation is too aggressive but the upgrades you can get can easily overthrow it (both could use a nerf) - Prestige being only based on collection rate seems a bit weird, as collection rate can be inflated at times with some methods, I think a clear number would be good so the player knows how much he must collect per minute - Runners have a perk that triggers at the half way line but that line isn't visible and not really centered - Sometimes I had weird "half pixel jittering" when you position the camera - garden should state that other stuff grows faster if you disable some of the crops (and hulks seem kinda pointless compared to climbers) - "click anywhere on pile to move stuff" should imo be the first upgrade the player gets from rebirth - clicking cant really be upgraded except for like 1 perk in the entire game, yeah it is an idle game but if people want to click then give them some options I would say - "descent of the king" perk seems like a downgrade in some cases and can sometimes cause issues with pile management - No upgrades can be toggled off, which is a shame because the drone upgrade can permanently "damage" your production as the drones move faster and burn more shards, I think most upgrades should get a toggle - Fire breath perk is a heavy debuff for mini drones and cant be turned off - Housing cost could use a nerf (just like IRL lmao) - Damage should be grouped by source, maybe show white for normal damage, blue for ice, green for acid, etc. so you can gauge how much these types affect some of your gnorps. Knowing that acid does X damage doesn't really help and it would look neater if it was "grouped" together with color coding instead imo Some Features I would like to see: - "upgrade ASAP", option to mark something to be bought as soon as possible, so you can afk/idle better and dont need to watch the game so you can buy that one thing Also found a weird bug where if you have runners you can freeze them in place by ordering them to take a break as they throw their shards and do that little jump, this can be used to freeze one the runners past the halfway line which makes slammers stronger, this allows for easy pile collapsing. Overall I would say it is still a neat game, maybe not worth full price as you only get a few hours of idling before you have seen everything.

I thought it would be really fun but just didn't enjoy it very much. The pacing starts out good then just falls off a cliff and leaves you wondering if you're doing something wrong. The pacing when leaving it alone for a day and letting it idle still felt way too slow. I don't like that there aren't tooltips to see what type of gnorp is doing how much damage. Instead I have to guess from the icon or hover through menus to try to find a match. There were some bugs with the UI too where a box would pop up to say I have a new upgrade available and clicking it would take me to the correct building but no upgrade was available there. Overall, meh. I don't recommend it. It was okay at best, maybe a little interesting. But that quickly turned to frustration and boredom as the pace slowed to a crawl with seemingly no improvements to be made.

If I could give a rating of "meh" I would. Given the Overwhelmingly Positive rating I was expecting something a bit more exciting. I was also thrown off by the screenshots and videos of compression events making me thing the game had a bit more spectacle. If you liked this check out Fill Up The Hole. Inspired by Gnorp it is a faster paced but different alternative. The game was cool, cutesy, fun enough. I think my issue was with the talent point system. You can accidentally brick yourself with incorrect builds and have to reset with no payoff for the next run. Maybe there could have been a secondary points system rewarding you on prestige to quickly boost you past the early game back to where you were or something. The devs newer game Tower Wizard, fixes this issue. Apart from that I felt there wasn't enough active play mechanics, but then also not enough idle play mechanics to be a true idler. Overall I give the game a "its alright"/10

Very fun. A little disappointing in how limited the endgame can be, but the upcoming epilogue might make it shine.

Not sure why I'm recommending this. If you want it, get it on sale. I got it for about $4, which is a little expensive for what Gnorp Apologue offers. Game is a little on the short and easy side for an idle game. I have no idea why I buy and 'play' idle games like this. Most of the interaction with Gnorp Apologue is what I would describe as watching a screen saver that's trying to explode your GPU and occasionally looks like a pride parade doing it. Eventually you'll get enough resource to buy a building upgrade. If you play the long game, purchasing an upgrade can take hours to days. The only real challenge is selecting which perks and zybellium upgrades synergize the best for the most resource production. The perk points carry over between games win or respawn which is the only replayability Gnorp has. I *DO* find the visuals for this game intriguing though. Little men that look like TVs with legs absolutely fucking HATE this one goddamn rock. Their entire purpose and reason for existing is to beat the shit out of this thing. As they attack it, it flakes off into what looks like Nerds candy. The Gnorps collect this candy to make more Gnorps to relentlessly beat the shit out of the poor rock. The grand finale is when the Gnorps build a rocket that looks like a giant match stick or dildo that releases a drill that attempts to screw the boulder to death; Gnorps celebrate no longer having a purpose. The end. A bit of a fun distraction, but I wouldn't recommend buying unless its around 50% off.