Burglin' Gnomes is a chaotic physics-based co-op game where tiny gnomes sneak into an old man’s house, complete tasks, and wreak havoc. Check out our review to see what it did well, what it doesn't, and our overall impressions of the game.
Overview
What is Burglin' Gnomes?
Burglin' Gnomes is a physics-based co-op stealth and scavenging game where players take on the role of tiny gnomes working under the mysterious High-Gnome, completing daily objectives inside an old man's house while stealing valuables and surviving its many hazards. Using extendable arms and physics-driven interactions, players climb oversized furniture, manipulate objects, craft equipment and potions, and gather materials to unlock upgrades for their floating island hub between runs. As progression opens up new tools, weapons, and enemies, the game gradually shifts from simple smash-and-grab missions into a cooperative experience that rewards planning, resource gathering, and adapting to increasingly unpredictable situations.
Burglin' Gnomes features:
⚫︎ Physics-Based Stealth and Scavenging
⚫︎ Play as Tiny Burglin' Gnomes
⚫︎ Cartoony Yet Unsettling Art Style
⚫︎ Craft Equipment and Hub Upgrades
⚫︎ Chaotic 4-Player Co-op Gameplay
⚫︎ Persistent Floating Island Hub
⚫︎ Dynamic Objectives and Random Encounters
| Digital Storefronts | ||
|---|---|---|
 Steam |
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| $9.99 |
Burglin' Gnomes Review: A Beautiful Mess of a Heist Game
Magical, In a Slightly Broken Way
Burglin’ Gnomes makes it pretty clear early on that it doesn’t take itself too seriously, even if it never really says it outright. You play as a tiny gnome working under something called the High-Gnome, sent into the house of an old man to complete a set of increasingly weird daily tasks. Most of the time, that means breaking in, stealing whatever you can carry, and trying not to die while doing it.
And when I say tiny, I mean tiny. The old man can literally pick you up like a plush toy, toss you around, or just crush you without much effort. Half the time, you’re not even dealing with the house as an environment—you’re dealing with it from the perspective of something that can be held in one hand and thrown across a room if things go wrong.
It’s a physics-based stealth and scavenging game, at least in the most basic sense. You’re stretching your arms to grab objects, climbing furniture that feels enormous, and trying to complete tasks that range from straightforward theft to things that feel like they were added just to see what would happen. The physics system is also where most of the game’s personality comes from, since almost everything you do can either work cleanly or turn into a mess depending on timing, positioning, or just how the world decides to behave that run.
After a few runs, things start to fall apart in ways you don’t really expect. Some objectives refuse to cooperate with the map you're given, while others spiral because somebody accidentally turned a simple theft into a full-blown disaster. At first, those moments just feel like the game breaking in entertaining ways. Spend more time with it, though, and you start noticing how groups naturally settle into roles, work toward upgrades, and somehow become more organized without ever actually planning to.
The rough edges never completely disappear, but neither do the weird moments that make everyone stop what they're doing just to watch things unfold. The longer I played, the more those ridiculous moments stopped feeling like one-off jokes and started feeling like the entire point. Burglin’ Gnomes may look like a game about tiny burglars breaking into an old man's house, but it's really a game about the absolute nonsense that happens while you're trying to do it.
Everything Wants You Dead
Once you’re in a run, the game basically follows a simple loop: get dropped into the house, complete whatever set of tasks the High-Gnome gives you for the day, steal what you can along the way, and try to make it out alive before things inevitably go wrong.
That sounds straightforward until you remember you’re basically a walking accident waiting to happen.
The gnomes are fragile in a way that stops being funny pretty quickly, then loops back around to being funny again. Falling from even moderate heights can break your legs. Pulling too hard on something can rip your own arms off. Step on the wrong object—knives, forks, soap, whatever’s lying around—and you’ll lose limbs or just die outright. Even animals in the house are threats. Bees, rats, roaches, and seagulls all have ways of making your life miserable, while getting too close to a dog's territory usually ends with it launching at you and turning your tiny burglar into a chew toy.
And then there’s the old man.
He’s not just background noise. He actively patrols the house, and when he spots you, it’s usually a scramble to survive rather than a fight you can realistically win. He can catch up fast, he can throw you around like you weigh nothing, and sometimes he doesn’t even need to try that hard to end your run.
The house itself doesn’t help either—it’s just as dangerous as everything inside it. Roombas can suck you in and kill you. Mousetraps are exactly what you think they are. Even slipping on random clutter can turn into a problem when you’re this small and fragile.
And even if you manage to survive all of that, you’re still not necessarily safe. If you fail to complete the day’s objectives, the High-Gnome itself just... blows you up. No dramatic warning, no real escape; just an abrupt end to a run you might have otherwise survived.
So most of the time, you’re not really "playing carefully" so much as you’re improvising your way through a space that constantly feels like it’s one bad step away from ending your run.
Physics Makes the Dream Work
Most of what you do in a run is just interacting with the world through physics—grabbing objects, dragging them around, climbing furniture, and trying to complete tasks without everything going sideways.
Your arms extend with the mouse wheel, which sounds simple enough, but it turns basic interaction into something that’s never quite consistent. Sometimes you’ll reach a door handle from what feels like way too far away and open it without issue. Other times, you’ll be standing in almost the exact same spot and the game just refuses to let you grab it at all.
That inconsistency starts showing up in how the game actually plays moment to moment. Small actions don’t stay small for long. A slightly awkward grab can turn into dropped objects, which turns into wasted time, which turns into a full chase once the old man notices something is wrong. Even basic objectives can spiral into something way messier than they started as.
Co-op makes this even worse in the best way. People bump into each other, pull the same object in different directions, or accidentally undo whatever plan was forming a few seconds earlier. Half the time it’s hard to tell whether something went wrong because of physics, timing, or just everyone doing slightly different things at once.
After a while, though, that chaos starts settling into something surprisingly organized. One person ends up carrying a backpack and pickaxe to haul materials, another starts running around with potions and a blowdart, while everyone else either handles objectives or creates entirely new problems. Nobody really sits down and assigns jobs at first, but after enough runs people naturally figure out what they enjoy doing and what helps the group the most.
So instead of removing the unpredictability, Burglin' Gnomes gradually teaches you how to work with it. You go into a run with a plan, fully expecting it to collapse halfway through, and somehow that's when the game is at its funniest.
Back Where It’s (Mostly) Safe
Between runs, you're brought back to a floating island where everyone regroups before the next drop. This is where you pick the next map, craft equipment, build furniture, and generally figure out what you're bringing into the next house before the High-Gnome spits you back out again.
Progression is simple, but it gives every successful run a purpose. Completing objectives rewards gnomium, while anything you steal gets dismantled into crafting materials that can be turned into equipment, upgrades, and furniture for the island. It doesn't take long before you stop grabbing random junk just because it's funny and start thinking, "Wait, we need more metal," which is a surprisingly responsible thought to have while playing as a tiny burglar.
The furniture also gives the island a bit more personality. The Potion Station lets you brew concoctions for yourself or turn them into blowdarts later on, while an Equipment Stand doubles as storage for your gear and a mannequin you can pose however you want.
There's even other little decorations that make the island feel a bit more lived in between all the chaosm such as a toilet, chairs, tables, and other little decorations that make the island feel a bit more lived in between all the chaos.
I’d also like to make an honorable mention for the Repackager.
It's a machine that turns potions into darts for the blowgun. It also happens to be shaped in a way that made our group collectively stop what we were doing and stare at it for a few seconds before laughing. Burglin' Gnomes has that kind of sense of humor throughout, where even the crafting stations feel like they're in on the joke.
All in all, the island is one of the few places where nothing is actively trying to kill you, for the most part. Walk into the bonfire and you'll still catch fire, and falling off it just gets you swallowed and spat back out by the High-Gnome. Compared to everything waiting inside the houses, though, it's about as peaceful as the game ever gets.
Weird Little World
First thing that really stands out isn’t the gameplay. It’s just how weird everything looks.
The gnomes are very cartoony, almost exaggerated in a way that doesn’t really match anything else in the game. They feel out of place in their own world, which honestly works in a strange way because everything around them is so grounded.
The house itself looks normal enough at first. Just a regular home with furniture, clutter, all that. But there’s this sickly filter over everything that makes it feel slightly off. Not horror-game off, just... uncomfortable. Like everything is a little too grimy, even when nothing is actually happening.
The High-Gnome is probably the biggest "what is this thing" moment. It’s basically a mushroom with a face, and it does not behave like a normal quest giver at all. It spits you out, breathes in this heavy way, and just sort of exists in your space in a way that feels kind of wrong the longer you look at it. It’s funny, but also a bit unsettling once the joke wears off.
Even small stuff adds to that feeling. Bees are a good example. At first, they just look like regular bugs, the kind you’d expect to swat away or avoid. But then you actually look at the face, and it’s literally a human face. Eyes, nose, mouth. Sitting on something that still very much reads as a bug. That combination is what makes them weird in a way I did not expect from a game about gnome burglary.
The scale of everything keeps that same feeling going. You’re constantly reminded that you’re tiny. Doors, chairs, tables, all of it feels way too big, and it turns basic movement into something that actually requires attention instead of just being background motion.
The violence lands in a similar space. It’s still a bit cartoony, but when things go wrong, it’s surprisingly visceral. Limbs coming off, blood effects, all of that. It doesn’t really soften it, even with the artstyle.
So the whole thing ends up sitting in this weird middle ground. Not really funny, not really horror, not really normal either. Just kind of off in a way that sticks with you more than you’d expect.
The Sound of an Almost Empty House
One of the first things you notice once you’re actually in a run is how quiet everything is.
There is barely any music during gameplay. Most runs are just silence, broken up by environmental sounds and whatever is happening around you. Footsteps matter a lot more than you’d expect. You can hear your own gnome moving, but more importantly, you can hear the old man moving through the house. That alone changes how you play, because you’re constantly listening for where he might be.
Outside of that, it’s things like running water, insects, objects shifting around, and the general noise of the house itself. Roaches crawling, bees buzzing, small details like that fill in the gaps where music would normally be.
Music does exist, but it’s only tied to specific things. The TV in the house, or a boombox when it appears. That’s pretty much it. So instead of a constant soundtrack, it just feels like the game is placing music into the world like any other object.
It creates this strange kind of tension. It’s not horror-game silence, but it’s not comfortable either. You’re just in this mostly quiet space where every sound feels like it matters more than it normally would.
A Few Splinters in the Floorboards
Burglin’ Gnomes has a lot of chaotic and funny moments, but there are a few rough edges that become more noticeable the longer you play.
The most obvious one is how tasks are generated. Most of the time they work fine, but every now and then you'll get an objective that simply doesn't seem to match what's actually in the level. One run in particular asked us to kiss two garden gnomes, only for there to be a single garden gnome on the entire map. Whether that was a bug or an unfortunate roll of the dice, it left us with an objective that couldn't realistically be completed.
Most of the time, the game gets away with that randomness. Every now and then, though, it pushes things just a little too far. There were runs where the old man camped a key area for so long that progress practically stopped, leaving us to either wait around or force a risky play that usually ended with someone getting launched across the room.
Interaction clarity can be just as inconsistent. The physics system is fun when everything clicks, but it's not always obvious what you can actually reach or grab. One run I managed to stretch my arms far enough to open the front door from a distance. In another, I stood in what felt like the exact same spot and couldn't interact with the handle no matter how much I adjusted. Moments like that make it difficult to tell whether you're doing something wrong or whether the game simply decided not this time.
Even some of the enemies run into a similar issue. Bees eventually become manageable once you've crafted the right tools, but by that point it's usually easier to avoid them altogether than stop and deal with them properly. The counterplay exists, yet the path of least resistance is often just walking somewhere else and hoping they lose interest.
None of these issues were enough to stop me from playing, especially once the progression systems started giving every run a clear purpose. They're the kind of rough edges that occasionally interrupt the fun rather than define it, even if they can turn an otherwise great run into an unexpectedly frustrating one.
Is Burglin' Gnomes Worth It?
A Mess Worth Making
After spending more time with Burglin’ Gnomes, it’s pretty clear the game isn’t interested in being tightly controlled or predictable. It’s built around letting systems collide, then trusting players to figure out the best way to survive whatever happens next. Sometimes that means carefully coordinating objectives. Other times, it means watching an entire plan fall apart because someone accidentally started a completely different disaster.
Even so, there's more depth here than the first few runs let on. The progression systems, equipment, and hub upgrades quietly encourage players to stop treating every mission like pure mayhem and start working toward shared goals instead. The deeper you get, the more the game throws at you too, expanding beyond the old man with dogs, aggressive wildlife, and entirely new threats that show up once things really start falling apart. Ironically, that only creates more opportunities for everything to go spectacularly wrong.
One of my favorite runs summed that up better than anything else. The old man pulled out a rocket launcher and ended up sitting in the living room with it for a while like it was completely normal. We just watched him, trying to figure out whether we should be concerned or just wait for whatever was going to happen next. Eventually, he blew himself up with it, which somehow took him out of the run entirely.
A short while later, a strange gremlin-like creature appeared after the homeowner died. It didn’t attack immediately, just watched from a distance until we got closer. Naturally, we approached it. Naturally, it abducted us. The run ended shortly afterward when the timer ran out, though considering we were already getting tied up by the gremlin, I don't think we were making it out anyway.
And that moment, more than anything else, summed Burglin’ Gnomes up pretty well. It’s messy, unpredictable, and still a bit inconsistent around the edges, but it’s also the kind of co-op game that keeps turning ordinary runs into stories you end up retelling long after they’re over. The longer I spent with it, the more I appreciated the progression quietly holding everything together, giving every ridiculous failure and unlikely success a reason to jump back in for one more run. If you have a few friends willing to embrace the chaos, it’s an easy recommendation.
Game8 Reviews
