i like the gnorp apologue because it has a lot of cute little guys in it, and because both the nature of the game (being an idler) and its presentation (gnorps and buildings drawn with stark black & white outlines with 'action' creating bursts of color) allow me to use it like a screensaver; a lite-brite diorama that sits in my room. the mechanics of the game are not that dissimilar from most idlers - you click on a circle to increase your numbers so you can buy things to make your numbers increasingly bigger - but the gnorp apologue has a sense of physicality which many idlers lack, as the UI elements exist on top of the game world rather than being the game world, a-la cookie clicker or adventure capitalist or something. you get to see all of your dudes perform their little tasks individually; maybe it's a bit like an ant farm if your ants could produce increasing quantities of ant-resource for you.
the basic idler premise is kept as simple as possible, you click on the rock to produce more rocks, and the entire goal and worldview of your gnorps is centered around further clicking the rock. i like that the gnorp apologue doesn't bother with stretching the game out too much via upping the scale over and over again to infinity, as a lot of idlers do, but instead takes almost this roguelike quality where you work your way towards a clearly defined and quickly achievable end goal, employing various strategies (do i want bombers or mountain climbers more? are drones even worth it?? should i make more pukey guys???) until you find one efficient enough to push you through a clean run. the downside of this is that, once i've mastered my gnorps, what's left? where will all my ants go once i've lost interest in them? perhaps the ultimate message of the gnorp apologue is that man is a cruel and disinterested god