Goblin themed card set updated

One of the most common pieces of feedback I've received since announcing Goblin Solitaire was that the Goblin card deck could use a bit more personality.

I've just updated the Goblin card theme with large custom suit artwork inspired by the game's fantasy setting. It's a small visual change, but it makes the deck feel much more distinctive while keeping the cards easy to read.

A big thank you to everyone who took the time to share suggestions and feedback—it genuinely helped improve the game.

Goblin Solitaire launches on July 10.
Wishlist on Steam if you'd like to be notified at release!

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End of the year update

The last time I've wrote in August, mentioning some new levels. Well, it's been a few months since, this year is slowly coming to an end, there's a few more levels in the latest alpha2 build being tested right now, and I'm working on the next one as we speak. So, what's new?

Before the Cpt. Greenbeard boss fight and the shipwreck level, there's a run through the Piratopia. It's a short but hectic level.



After the shipwreck, we continue on into the Dwarven territory, and the first level there is industrial zone where dwarven forges and saws are, where stone is cut and... hammers are thrown. Unlike GnC1, this time hammer-throwing enemies hammers don't hone in into you, they just fly... toward a certain point. Also if a player is too low beneath their platform, they won't throw at all.



If you survive that, you actually get down under into the dwarven mines and halls, where even some unique Easter eggs can be found. Not gonna write any spoilers here, though.



This is the first underground area with real dwarves inside, as previous caves and mines were basically abandoned by them. There are constructs like flying security bot and similar remnants of previously technological civilization that is now trying to survive and live another day. After exiting this area, you'll end up on an ancient bridge that connects it to abandoned halls in the next mountain peak, where otherworldly things rule now and dwarves are no more... But they still hold the bridge, or at least part of it.



That's it for now. I've recently finished "Abandoned halls" level, which will introduce some new mechanics and will is an L sized underground maze. Following that, there's a third boss fight that is in testing phase right now...and that finishes the second third of the campaign map, thus making the latest build alpha3. 

Once I finish all the story/campaign levels it will transform into beta, which might happen during 2023 if everything goes well, and then it's "just" polishing graphics a bit, testing a lot, adding achievements and... releasing at some point. 

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A few new levels...

 A short look through a few GIFs showcasing the details of some recent levels. It's been a productive period and GnC2 is now considered alpha2 with more than 50% content being done and tested. It's early to talk about a release date, but if this tempo continues... Well. Let's take a look.

So, in the Rolling hills you escape the evil spellcasters by entering an unusual portal... Where does it lead?

Desecrated fields, a short visit to an otherworldly dimension. Also an opportunity to meet an old "friend" from GnC1 (not pictured here). After you escape this horrid place...

A long stretch, introducing murder-axe-bunnies. It's what they do and what they are. Are you really back to the "real" world?

Swamps are traditionally difficult levels in GnC series, and this time it's not different. Besides the enemies, you need to avoid projectiles coming from the local unfriendly flora. Not to mention various spikes, sinking logs...

After the Swampland and a few other levels you end up in a BOSS fight with this sail ship in the distance... and after you manage to beat it enough...

You actually get to pay them a visit up-close. Not so tough anymore, ah, Pirates? And after this we'll visit some Dwarven areas of the game, but more about that in the future ;)

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Music and game file size

I've added music to menus and existing levels, and with that, the total game size surpassed 17 Mb of the original Goblin and Coins. My goal is still to keep it under 100 Mb if possible and so far seems very doable. 

 Can't say I predicted SteamDeck back in 2015 when I was working on GnC1, but I did know of 2in1 tablets using Windows and wanted people to be able to download GnC1 and play it while on commute or whatever... and those things had their storage in the form of 32-64 GB eMMC cards most of the time, as SSD's were still expensive for mainstream notebooks, with Windows itself taking a huge chunk. So 17 Mb was amazingly small and convenient download size. 

 It would be a bit crazy to plan for GnC2 blowing up and being super-mega-ultra-popular, of course, but that doesn't mean that some of the people playing it won't have SteamDeck or a similar device... and why not try to keep the game size down to a minimum if it can be done, for them and in general. That way you can squeeze GnC2 in between some larger games and have it with you all the time. 

 Oh, also, hoping to make another playtest this winter. If you've already participated you'll automatically get access again, everyone else will be able to apply through store page during the test itself.

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First quarter of the map done... for now.

 I'm proud to say, with the implementation of the "Downhill" level and a "Cpt. Greenbeard" boss fight, the first quarter of the map/campaign is done. There's an into level, store, 5 regular levels, 1 boss fight and "the underground", so the game is finally shaping into something solid. The plan was never to fill all four quarters at release but only three - some 25 to 30 levels total - the last peace of the map was always meant for additional content some time later, like bonus missions, seasonal content and so on, maybe even an unrelated mini-story. To be decided later. 

Easy boss fight: Cpt. Greenbeard - Indie DB

So, at minimum, I have to make another 19 levels and 5 secret levels to finish the game, not counting further boss fights. In theory, if my day job doesn't get me too busy, I could finish by the next summer... or autumn. Otherwise, hard to say.

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Using the same tile-set several times

This April I've finally managed to take some time away from my day job and create a new tile-set: beach. Sand, dunes, palm trees moving slowly in the wind. As with other tile-sets, this one will be used for several levels and not just one, but this is a good example to showcase that levels using the same tile-set won't be the same, as the tiles used are just the base to build further.

GnC2: Sunny beach (Work in progress) - Indie DB

In the video above you can see a basic "beach" level. There are tile-set based platforms, some small details, animated background (not too animated, don't want it to be distracting), enemies and a "trampoline" in the form of a turtle. Don't jump on real turtles please! Anyway, that's the "Sunny beach" medium sized level, there's some verticality to it but it's not large.

Next, let's take a look at the starting location for the "Fisherman's village" level, which is a small (short) linear level that connects the "Sunny beach" and the next level, which will be the first large level in the game. I'm not promising a maze but I'll try my best to give the player an interesting experience. Anyway...

If you look down, that's the exactly same tile-set that makes the platform Goblin is standing on, the parallax backgrounds are the same (at least for now, I might remove one layer to optimize the level) BUT the additional assets created just for this level make the difference. Here in the picture you can see a fisherman's shack and some nets drying in the sun. There's more of these assets that make this level unique visually and story-telling wise, but you'll have to wait to see them, I can't reveal everything upfront.

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A brand new level and how it progressed

 It's been a while and mostly due to my day job being crazy because of covid. Had some time off lately so I've managed to start crafting the first "variation" tileset and that's snow/ice, and with it, the first snowy level - "Snowy Pass". It's a mountain pass between two peaks, which leads from the first quarter of the map to the second. Easy and short level, specially compared to what's planned with this tileset for the remaining 4 snowy levels.

Goblin and Coins II: Snowy Pass details (WIP) - Indie DB

Initial preview videos show it as a very simple tileset, no variations, details... There's one enemy type, a winter-coat pirate that chases after the goblin after it notices it. There's also an icicle trap that can be triggered by the player to hurt the enemy... or goblin, if not careful.

What I've added now is some... life to this little area. First of all, there are snowflakes falling down slowly. They aren't actually touching the ground, if you look carefully, but that's the intended effect, I want them to pop-out of dark background and not actually go through the ground. Maybe it will look better otherwise but so far I like this. Second, I've added a moving platform. Just because it's the first snowy level you'll encounter in the game, doesn't mean there should be only the most basic platforms hanging in the air. And in the end, I've created 2 animated tiles. There's a bunny hole with blinking eyes inside and... a snow hare, showing up behind the platform edge. Now that I'm looking at the video, I realize it lacks some depth. No worries, I'll fix that with some shading soon.

GnC2: Snowy Pass [WIP] moving platform, snow hare - Indie DB

And with this, the level is mostly done. The way the game has been built from ground up allows me to easily update graphics later if needed or even change the levels without too much hassle about compiling & building future versions.

Next, to the caves and underground mines!

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The Underground

What happens when you lose everything. All the lives gone, no more continues... Well, it used to be "insert another coin" back in the 80's, and more recently, it was "game over, load?" There's no real game over in Goblin and Coins 2... Instead, when you lose all lives and all continues... you end up in the Underground. It's a cold place void of life. 

And yet, it's possible to leave it by collecting golden leaves to form a Golden branch and find your path to the world of the living, and add 10 continues to your save. But, it won't be easy at all... maybe you'd rather start a new game instead?

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Initial alpha test build and bug fixes

Yesterday I've compiled an initial alpha test build and send it to some good people for an early testing and to gather some feedback.

Sales person in the in-game shop (for virtual coins, no mtx here!)

In less than 24 hrs amazing people testing the it managed to find several bugs ranging from one moderate to a few less important and I've fixed them all so far. It's really a wonderful time in a game development cycle when you start getting first feedback and realize all your testing means nothing because one person on one computer can't cover everything, and even more importantly, some testers will try stuff you never thought of doing in a million of years. And it will break things. Ok, let's see.

Moderate

• Flying enemy type had a weird glitch where touching a slope would freeze the game completely. Fixed.

Medium

• The difference between how VM (debugging) and YYC (compiled) version of the game works when using GMS2 made it so stats saving after finishing a level bugged out, so map would not be showing off your previous score, coins, time... This also caused that you would not enter the shop directly after finishing the tutorial for the first time but instead went to the map. Fixed.

Low

• Bullets didn't freeze on pause. Fixed.
• You could double-jump once on a game start even if double-jump was not purchased as an upgrade yet. Fixed.

So happy these were found so fast, and specially with the fact there were not more (well, at least not those that were found so far, hehe). All in all impressions seem positive, people like the art and layout... This is a good start in my opinion

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World map

Before we see the world map (well, part of it) as it will appear in Goblin and Coins 2, let's first talk quickly of the "level end" screen. One of the most criticized things in the first game was that there were no level end screen with a feedback on how well a player did. My idea was to avoid cutting the flow of the game and to focus on the levels, story panels, the experience... Making the coins, time and all of the other "gamey" things sort of unimportant in the process.

But most experienced gamers hated it, couldn't cope with not knowing if they did well or not. So, one of the most wanted features for GnC2:

Now you will know that you have indeed finished a level in a video game, what your time was, how many coins you've collected... It will also calculate and auto-save your level score, and some other things. Mostly because we need to show them later in the map screen. Oh yes, the map!

Here it is! On the left side you can see a selected level's name, relative size, if you've finished it already, how many coins you've potentially missed to collect, and what was your best time. On the right side of the screen you'll see the visual representation of the world map, with a pointer in the shape of goblin's head, and levels represented by... kidney beans, of course.

All you see should be considered work in progress and not the final look of the game. 

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Making of: Plant based platform

I made a short video to show you how an unsafe platform is made from scratch. First, there's a drawing - on paper. Then, I create several sprites in order to animate it. At the end, the easiest part - adding sprites to the game, assigning them to an object and coding it's behavior. In this case, it's a plant based platform for world#3 (Gassy Swamp). You can watch the video here:

Making of: Plant platforms - Indie DB

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