I just released alpha!
Gameplay trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E75mL6R42i0

You can try out the demo or preorder from the website: http://gnomoria.com/?page_id=110

It's been too long since I've updated!  Here's an assortment of screenshots:

Stocks menu
Assign profession menu
Mining UI
Farms and a pasture (at night)
Gnomes busy at work
Mined out copper vein
Furnace, forge, weaponsmith, armorer
Bedrooms
Great Hall
Windmills and gearboxes
Windmills and gearboxes with axles toggled on

SHOW THE GORE-FEST ROB!!! :D

hehe ok.

I walled off an area and spawned 20 unarmed gnomes and 10 goblins with various weapons and armor.  I'm using rocks as placeholder art for the weapons at the moment.



The goblins won.



I turned on short walls in that second image so you can see the inside tiles up against the wall.  If you look closely there is a body with a head missing in the upper left.  It's buried under a pile of bodies in the bottom.  A goblin was using it as a weapon for a while.  Someone's arm is over on the left too.

Each gnome is generated from a few base parts.  Here is a random sample of the first pass on some of the tiles.

This is the best looking dwarf fortress derivative I've seen so far. I love the map generation.
Keep going man! 

Thanks! 

I felt like you guys needed another screenshot, so I made a castle this afternoon.

I've just been working away on bug fixes and cleaning up some things in the UI, so nothing too exciting to talk about on that end.  I just wanted to say that I finally decided to get a website up this last weekend, which you can check out here.

I just started it, so there isn't really anything on there that isn't already here, but there it is if you're curious 

How does it look on me?

Ooooooh, thanks!

I don't have a banner or anything

this could double as a slip-n-slide game, haha.

Maybe it secretly is a slip-n-slide game...

these look awesome!! the different colored tiles represent different ores I'm guessing?

There are different types of ore but in these pics the colored tiles are different stone types.  Just different color options to build with.  Building stone walls, doors, stairs, etc use the color of the stone they were crafted from.

I really like this.
Is it offensive if i'd compare it to a SimCity2000/DwarfFortress/MineCraft-Crossover?

Thanks!  I'm not offended at all :D  There are a lot of similarities, so those are some natural comparisons.

Here are a couple big caverns for you james:

It looks great. Can't wait to see some buildings in there. With a view like that, I suppose most of the village will be above ground?

Thanks!  It depends.  I tend to play mostly underground, but there is nothing stopping you from playing mostly above ground.  You'll need to go to the surface for your farms and trees but you'll find better ore the deeper you go.

For rendering, there is no distinction between above/below ground.  So you can dig a big pit and see it from the surface or carve out large multistory underground rooms.

Ctrl + Scroll Wheel.  It's in the controls menu

I updated the main post with screenshots!  The art is still a work in progress.  It's just some empty terrain to get an idea.  The HUD is also hidden.  It looks like there was some compression in the uploaded images but I think it should give a good idea still.

Since I still haven't posted screenshots, I feel like I should clarify a bit on my comment about comparing it to a voxel world.

The game is definitely rendered in 2D with isometric tiles.  There aren't any meshes or anything.  Although, the game simulation is 3D tile/grid based.  It is a discrete world, meaning game objects have a cell position and don't "live" in between cells.

In general the game simulation can be independent from the visualization.  It's pretty common now to see fighters or platformers with 2D gameplay but 3D visuals.  The Civilization series switched over to 3D rendering I think with Civ 4, but you wouldn't lose a whole lot if someone wrote a 2D renderer for Civ 5.  In a similar way there is Mode 7 for SNES which allows you to render perspective, giving a 3D look.  Games that use that could be on a 2D plane or in 3D, but my point is that simulation and visualization don't always have a hard link.

As a counter example, I worked on Toy Soldiers with 2 other programmers and the game would have to probably be rewritten from scratch to be rendered in 2D.  I mostly say that because gameplay is entirely animation driven.  It's to the point where there are "0 physics" in the game.  If you watch this trailer I don't think anyone could guess there isn't a physics simulation.

Anyways! I hope to post some screenshots soon and I think it'll be less confusing at that point.  Some things are better understood in motion though, so I'll probably follow up with a video later.

Update time!  I've been a bit focused recently and haven't thought to update in a while.  I had another funny situation happen today that I wanted to share.

In the spirit of the game, combat is mostly simulated.  You don't have control like an RTS or a tactical RPG.  There are a lot of factors working "behind the scenes" with some options for the player.  Once the actual fighting starts it mostly plays out on its own.

One thing that happens is characters will drop whatever they are holding if they get hit hard enough in the arm or hand.  Yesterday, I added in the ability to pick up objects during combat.  This is to recover from a dropped sword or whatever but also for the worker gnomes to try to defend themselves somewhat if they are attacked when unarmed.

I was balancing some combat values today and so was doing a lot of testing fights.  A goblin and gnome were fighting and the goblin ended up dropping both his shield and his sword.  He managed to punch the gnome in the throat, killing the gnome. Then before attacking the next gnome he picked up his shield and the gnome's corpse.  He then went on to beat the other gnome with the gnome corpse. 

I think maybe one-handing a corpse might be too much but I don't see why you can't wield an arm or a leg.

Huh. 70% done and no screenies? Not even UI? I'm... confused. And it's voxel based? I'd really like to see something in action.

I was really tempted to post a screenshot at first but decided to hold off.  Rho just recently started working on art and I decided to wait for a screenshot instead of posting one with placeholder art and then having it change right away.

It has almost come down to adding in audio and art assets and the game is finished.  The original artist was doing it in his spare time and it was later than I would have liked when we realized he didn't have enough spare time to get it done.  So right now art is well behind the rest of the game 

I should be able to post a screenshot of some terrain very soon.

Rhopunzel is working on the project now and will be doing the art.  I should be able to start posting some screenshots soon!

You might have noticed mechanisms in the build menu, but it starts out disabled.  It gets filled out as you research.