Burglin’ Gnomes Review (PC)

It was never going to be a doddle. Hell, I would have settled for a pinch of chaos, but not full-blown yard-based pandemonium. It was always going to be the latter, though, as where there were gnomes, there was pandemonium, and where there were household objects that weren’t nailed down, there was a window of opportunity for mischief to introduce itself. But that was Burglin’ Gnomes, in a nutshell: a cocktail of mischief, mishaps, and meticulous management of a ragtag team of miniature thieves. It wasn’t graceful, and it definitely wasn’t professional. It was messy, mindless, and just the slightest bit malicious.

It didn’t take all that long for the domino effect to fall into place in Burglin’ Gnomes. In a matter of minutes, the training wheels fell apart, and the “plan” to steal, cheat, and sabotage was in tatters. Theft soon turned into a guessing game, and exploration began to feel like mindless rolling blackouts with no real purpose. But, that was all part of the “experience”—to hopelessly latch onto five people, and to pathetically attempt to complete seemingly simple favors for the ever-famous High Gnome. Oh, stealing from a human was just one of the chores; wreaking havoc and doing the devil’s bidding was, however, the fuel for the fire. Only, none of us knew how to be a gnome, let alone be a good one.

The idea seemed simple on paper — to sneakily enter the inner cortex of a neighborly home, and to collectively “borrow” heirlooms to bring back to the High Gnome. That part was straightforward. It was the part that involved working as a well-oiled machine that skewered the process. Oh, it wasn’t uncommon for friendly gnomes to jackknife through a window, or for sentient beings to manipulate their surroundings to amplify the chaos. Toilets would explode; kitchen knives would rain hellfire from the cabinets; gliders would break in the middle of the air; and humans, being the territorial species that they are, would do all in their power to rock the proverbial apple cart.

If it was solely a thieving excursion, then it wouldn’t have been a problem. Yet, Burglin’ Gnomes had a few extra tricks up its little sleeve. Good surprises, mind you. Tools, upgrades, and homely furnishings, for example, provided a lot of extra space to unlock creative possibilities and further enhance strategies. Entering homes, even, was never a predictable affair, given that the game armed us to the teeth with more clutter, more makeshift tools, and enough nonsensical rules to transform even the most routine jobs into bite-sized bouts of social-driven mayhem. And for when it did fall short on things to hand out to us, it gave us the next best thing: a chance to sit back and smoke a cigarette. RV There Yet? immediately sprang to mind with that one.

Suffice it to say, Burglin’ Gnomes isn’t the next best thing to, say, Thief Simulator. While the concept is fairly similar—to ransack homes and to spend your hard-earned loot on tools, accessories, and furniture for your own cubby—the act of executing it is a far cry from what you would have seen before. Given that it is, first and foremost, a co-op game that favors pint-sized protagonists over cool and calculated thieves, everything that you do here is more or less backed by a boatload of incompetence and mindless destruction. Not that this comes as a huge surprise, mind you.

As I said, prying the goods from the world is a small part of the process here. Completing jobs for the High Gnome, on the other hand, is the crutch from which most of the experience builds on—the procedure that you either live or die for, naturally. And, to some extent, that’s mostly what you’re doing here: fulfilling chores as a team, and evading sentient creatures and human beings whilst working to satisfy the hierarchy. As for how you approach the job and fulfill your duties as a gnome, of course, is entirely up to you.

Without spoiling it too much, Burglin’ Gnomes does have a lot of creative ways for you to hatch your plans. Granted, nothing that you do here will be met with high praise and a standing ovation, given that most of the work you do is either done incompetently, or with the intention to throw your friends under the bus, so to speak. Teamwork is key, for sure. Though, it can be awfully difficult to collaborate in a world that has more curveballs than an extraterrestrial retelling of the movie Inception. Or at least, to work as one in a neighborhood that, well, doesn’t want you.

With plenty of tools—hand gliders, ropes, knives, and flexible arms, for example—and a sizable bouquet of homes, rooms, and treasures to obtain, Burglin’ Gnomes provides a lot of bang for your buck. Does it ever reach its boiling point and begin to feel boring? Not really, no. But then, like all co-op games, the company that you keep is what makes a structurally sound game entertaining. If you lack the friends to turn a routine chore into a fiendish frenzy, then it immediately becomes a little predictable and tedious. But, given the concept and the way in which Burglin’ Gnomes presents itself, even the dullest of people are likely to find something to giggle at here.

Of course, I can’t bring myself to say that Burglin’ Gnomes is a flawless co-op game, as it does harbor all of the usual shoddiness and loose teeth that you would naturally expect to find in a physics-based thief sim. To call it broken wouldn’t be fair not true. That said, it plays as you would expect it to, with chaos and unruly characters intentionally paving the way for a silly sandbox game that knows all too well how to laugh at its own shortcomings. Bad? No. But about as ridiculous as it sounds on paper.

Verdict

Burglin’ Gnomes might shrink the world into a pint-sized playground, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s without the full weight and scale of an utterly bonkers co-op sandbox game. Of course, it’s about as silly as they come, and therefore the odds of it finding a place in the palms of hardcore gamers are pretty slim here. That said, for folks who enjoy ridiculous physics and high-strung theatrics in small spaces, Burglin’ Gnomes can be an ideal place to hang a coat. Or, you know, steal it. Whatever tickles your fancy, really.