(the) Gnorp Apologue

What a charming little incremental game. The gnorps are adorable, the flavor text is humorous, the achievements are fun to get (many of them I stumbled upon naturally for simply trying different approaches), and the music is wonderful as a Dvorak fan. Depending on who you ask, the relatively short time to "beat" the game in this genre can be a good thing. In my opinion? I prefer it. While incremental games are generally interchangeable with idling or clicker games, they can differ on how active or passive they feel. This is mainly decided by game length and/or the gaps between attaining new prestige levels. (the) Gnorp Apologue is on the shorter and more active side, especially if you choose to reference an established strategy to beat the game. However, most of my playtime was dedicated to experimenting with the various talents and units, and it did not feel like a slog at any point to simply reset my progress and figure out a different way to reach where I last left off. Once you have an idea of what you are doing, this game can go quite fast. On the flipside, that does mean that the central mechanic (referred to as Compression) is fairly simple, and by extension, has a fairly simple and straightforward solution upon unlocking a certain unit. This may be less satisfying for those who *do* prefer to squeeze more playtime out of games in this genre. I would definitely make a general recommendation for this game because of its aforementioned adorableness, but also because of its approachable progression system and an endpoint that can be reached without the hundreds of hours that is commonly seen among other incremental games. As a bonus, the dev has written about their experience creating the game using Rust and how they kept performance in mind during the process. Love to see it, and happy to support it.