Union of Gnomes Review: Tough Rebellion Against Snow White

What would happen if Snow White wasn’t the beautiful or simple girl you remember from the fairy tales? Union of Gnomes investigates that premise but using gnomes instead of dwarves. Snow White is bringing gnomes under her dominion, enslaving them for her own uses. Unable to stop her on their own, the gnomes gather to form a resistance to fight back. You are the leader helping them to succeed.

The variety of gnomes, deck limitation, and available commanders gives you lots of variety to work with. Gameplay is easy to pick up and failure costs nothing, letting you experiment freely. The difficulty is tough and you will fail though fortunately there is no penalty for failing. Finding combinations that work also requires lots of experimenting and some luck. This game succeeds with its dark humor and strategy, making it worth checking out if you want a good deck builder.

Union of Gnomes is available on PC for USD 14.99.

It’s your band of gnomes against the entire land.

Story – Rebelling Against Snow White

Unlike games such as Deathless. Tales of Old Rus, there’s one big narrative for Union of Gnomes. Snow White has embraced her evil side in this alternate retelling and started turning the land against the gnomes. Several of them are imprisoned but someone pulls a jailbreak, recruiting you as the brains of the operation. You must free gnomes with your exploits to gather a force capable of overthrowing Snow White’s tyranny.

Most of the story involves dark humor as the gnomes are put through tough situations. Some are silly like getting addicted to shopping. Others are more gruesome though it’s still presented in a humorous manner. It helps provide some brevity to the situation while reinforcing how nefarious Snow White’s reign is. This also ties in to side quests and wacky situations that you encounter. They are serious but still have roots in fantasy while being silly at times.

Tom Thumb and other characters are assisting Snow White’s agenda.

The combination of dark humor and the goal keep you interested in finding out more. You also have more incentive to take on side quests to experience how messed up the world is. Every success feels like a major breakthrough. Gnomes you rescue are allies towards a shared goal. Freeing the gnomes brings light to the dark world and it is motivating.

Gameplay – Deploying Gnomes to Fight

You start by configuring your teams and choosing a commander to fight. Select the map you want to pursue and then travel through while fighting. Combat takes place with cards as you play gnomes that perform various functions. The variety of gnomes you have allows you to pursue countless strategies against your opponents. However, you can’t use the same gnomes and expect success. You must vary your army depending on the opponents you face.

Choose the units that accompany you into the next journey.

This encourages you to experiment with different gnomes and commanders, figuring out which approach works best. Each commander has different advantages and disadvantages that you must plan for. Gnomes you unlock add to your strategic options and let you try something new. The enemies and events you face in your adventure are random, forcing you to adapt. It’s a great strategic challenge and you are always keen on working with new gnomes.

However, Union of Gnomes is a difficult game. Failure may not have a cost but it takes a significant amount of time to overcome a challenge. While that’s not unusual for a roguelike, you can’t fully utilise some strategies that you have in mind. This often results in frustrating attempts where you must continually suffer failure just to find a winning strategy. Even then, your winning strategy may not work if you are unlucky.

New commanders give you more options in battle.

Difficulty – Lots of Failure

While roguelikes such as Deck of Haunts have failure as part of the process, it’s particularly brutal for Union of Gnomes. You usually only have one copy of a gnome and must hope for extra copies for your strategy to work. It’s also possible the enemy lineup happens to nullify your strategy, forcing you to leave and restart. Experimenting with possible synergies is also time-consuming because you don’t know what works without practice.

Leveling is also a slow endeavour, forcing you to slowly accumulate points or grind on several maps. The process is exhausting and it makes you less likely to continue. Not because the game isn’t fun but you likely aren’t seeing a marked improvement in your experimentations. Even though the variety is a strong point, it becomes a double-edged sword later on. When you realise how much work you need to train other commanders, you may not continue.

Sometimes you need luck to win battles and that is frustrating.

If you are willing to drop several hours into the game, Union of Gnomes can be a good experience. Be prepared to spend lots of time experimenting or figuring out what strategies are effective. Training and grinding through levels may tire you out, with successes just unlocking a few more gnomes. But it certainly is a game that tests your prowess and it is a good feeling when you finally win.

Audio & Visual – Twisted Fairy Tale Appearance

The whole game is in 2D with the gnome appearances ranging from cute to gutsy. Gnomes aren’t natural fighters and they often wield simple tools. This boosts the feeling that you are working with a ragtag army. Your enemies are often twisted versions of fairy tale characters with humans looking dodgy or evil. If you do see memorable fairy tale characters like Tom Thumb, they look as horrific as you expect.

Whenever you aren’t fighting, upbeat music is playing in the background. It resembles motivational army music that doesn’t get your blood pumping though it inspires a sense of duty. Battle music isn’t as loud but it’s subtle depending on the location. You are likely more focused on fighting the enemies and the music never interferes with the gameplay.

Union of Gnomes was reviewed on Steam with a code provided by MMPR.