Get Ready for Gnome Squad

Gnome Squad is a 1-3 player pocket sized draft battle game. Players draw a random hand of 6 cards and choose the strongest combination and order for 4 of the gnomes in their hand. Your gnomes will get stronger based on color synergies and unique abilities.

The cards are laid out face down as you lock in your roster, then revealed and have their adjusted power levels compared to their opponents'. Once all four matchups have been resolved, the player who won the majority wins the round. Reshuffle all 18 Gnomes and deal them out again. The first player to win 3 rounds wins the game.

A complete game can be played in about 15 minutes, and has a very small footprint of play. Even with 3 players, it can fit on a small round-top bar table! And since the whole game is only 18 cards and comes in a vinyl wallet, it is extremely portable.

I am super excited to be working with artist Ben Fleuter on this project! You might recognize his work from the very successful Kickstarter campaign for Aether Nexus or his webcomics "Sever & Pierce" or "The Sword Interval." The early character designs and sketches that Ben has sent over are amazing and I cannot wait to show them off during the campaign.

This game has been in development since February of 2025. The unique abilities and synergies between cards have undergone several rounds of revisions and are now being fine tuned. It began as a fun project to work on with my 11 year old son. Our design goal has been to create a simple enough game that younger players can grasp the strategic choices while having enough variety to give older players a pleasant puzzle each round.

This will be my 6th published design, all of which are 18 card pocket sized games, and my 2nd crowdfunding campaign. At this stage of my boardgame publishing career, I feel confident in how well I know the ins and outs of the production chain for this kind of game, and I have an established process for domestic fulfillment. The only question marks for me are international fulfillment and tariff pricing, but I will be researching international fulfillment partners over the Winter and intend to have those questions settled before launch of the campaign.