Union of Gnomes

I've processed enough deckbuilders to know when one is coasting on genre familiarity versus actually solving a design problem. Union of Gnomes, Hoolignomes' full-1.0 release after a stint in Early Access, sits firmly in the second camp. The core hook is that your caravan of liberated gnomes doubles as your deck, and every new recruit you free from captivity expands your card options while simultaneously draining your wiener supply faster. That tension between a fat, synergy-rich roster and a lean party that won't faint mid-combat is the game's real strategic engine, and it runs deeper than the sausage jokes suggest. The three hero commanders each bring a distinct deck archetype and passive set, so run-to-run variety starts at the character select screen rather than emerging purely from card drafts. Cards split between green buffs and heals for your own gnomes and red offensive or debilitating plays against enemies, with mana governing what you can chain each turn. On top of that, your wiener reserve funds a separate layer of power moves: full-party attacks, mana-free card plays, emergency healing. Managing two resource pools simultaneously while watching enemy positioning is where the game earns its difficulty rating, and the learning curve is genuinely steep for the first few runs. The tutorial is functional but it hands you just enough rope. Newcomers to the genre will want to expect some early floor-staring. The fairytale villain roster gives the run structure a narrative shape that pure abstraction games like Slay the Spire skip entirely. You're climbing through six acts toward Snow White, but the bosses in between include the Red Hood, Pinocchio, and a Wizard of Oz encounter, each with positioning tricks and subordinate-summoning patterns that punish passive play. Post-Early Access, Hoolignomes did meaningful work balancing the resource economy and smoothing the rougher enemy encounters, and that responsiveness to player feedback shows in the final product. The Endless mode extends the loop past the story credits for players who want raw replayability beyond the main campaign. The weaknesses are real but compartmentalized. The soundtrack is functional wartime-loop music that does not match the game's vibrant, cartoonish art ambition. Visually the character work is charming, but the overall presentation is a tier below its genre contemporaries. The leveling curve inside individual runs can still feel inconsistent, with certain difficulty spikes arriving before your build has the pieces to respond cleanly. None of these are dealbreakers, but they are friction points worth knowing before you sit down. For strategy and deckbuilder players specifically, this is worth the attention. The supply management layer and hero-as-deck-anchor structure give it a mechanical identity distinct enough from Slay the Spire or Monster Train that the comparison is a starting point, not a verdict. Sixty-plus hours of replayable content, 130 cards across three hero archetypes, 19 bosses, and a developer that shipped a genuinely improved 1.0 after listening to Early Access feedback. That last detail matters more than people give it credit for.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

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