Finally, a fantasy game filled with adorable gnomes that you can punch right in their adorable faces

A peaceful fantasy realm. A lush and gentle forest. Hark! Mythical creatures wander hither and thither: gnomes! Tiny and cute, with their pointy red hats and bushy little beards, gnomes inhabit this serene forest glade, harmlessly communing with nature.

That is until you show up and start punching them in their adorable little faces.

In the Steam demo for Fight-Quest, the titular quest to dome some gnomes is given to me by a wizard, one who admittedly looks pretty evil and is clearly up to no good. He explains to me that he's unhappy the little gnomes have moved into his corner of the forest, and would like me to convince them to scram. His suggestion: punch one in the face. I agree that it seems like a solid plan.

I walk around for a bit, observing the gnomes happily strolling around their habitat, walking amongst the trees, wading in a picturesque pond, being as gentle and harmless as could be. Then I haul off and belt one right in the mouth. His tiny red hat falls off as he tumbles unconscious through the grass.

Haha! He's small and I hit him. It's a rude thing to do, but what's the worst that could happen? It's not like the rest of the gnomes are gonna rush me, right?

Wrong. It's a full-on woodland brawl. Forget the rumble in the jungle, this is the altercation in the vegetation. They swarm me and I punch them and they swarm me some more and I punch them some more. I know I'm beating up a bunch of innocent little mystical creatures, but I can't pretend socking them in their cherubic little faces isn't fun.

In Fight-Quest you're not just limited to punching. You can dodge, which is useful once some taller, more musclebound gnomes begin to appear, the ones that can take a few punches and deliver a few of their own. This being a magical forest, there are also enchanted mushrooms that will fling you up into the air, letting you do a classic "ground pound" when you land that will dispatch any gnome in its radius.

Plus, every so often, a disturbingly sexy Zelda N64-style woodland fairy (video for context if you haven't played Ocarina of Time) will appear and offer you a choice of power-ups, like increased damage or improved health or the chance for your furious fists to do fire damage to your enemies. (Your enemies are, remember, largely harmless gnomes.)

As you pummel your way through the endless number of gnomes, they'll eventually summon one of their friends, a magic frog whose staff attacks hit with the force of an angry Gandalf. You can pummel that frog, too, if it doesn't fry you before you get within melee range, but there are more frogs where that came from. I played a few rounds and it's always some damn frog wizard that winds up dropping me.

Fight-Quest is only in demo form at the moment, but honestly, check it out. Punching gnomes into next week isn't a bad way to spend a few minutes.