The goblin's quest

After a while, I finally came up with an idea for a game. Of course, this is the easy part, and now I must do the hard work of actually creating the game, the art, and everything else. I think it’ll be fun, because I have no game development experience other than making silly little Twine and Ren’Py text adventure-type games and visual novel experiments. I suppose that’s a little more experience than “nothing,” but it’s still not a lot! And of course, I have very little experience in creating… hm… how do I say it… code that has a visual output? Everything that I work on generally just creates numbers or text, haha. Even working with audio plugins (from my past life) was pretty confined to a one-dimensional data space. For this reason, I’ve decided to make a 2D game with Godot.

Anyway, you may find yourself asking, “That’s all good and fine, but what is this idea for the game?” The answer is simple: An RPG where you play as a little goblin with 1 hit point.

☜ This is the goblin in question. Her name is “Pippi Piposon.” Because I love goblins, and because I love vegetables, I decided that the game would have some sort of farming simulation aspect, and the choices that you make determine the fate of the village: either you can engage in trade (through the power of selling different types of broccoli mostly) and integrate into human society, befriend the locals, do the typical farm sim stuff where you get someone to move in with you, raise little chickens and sheep, craft little machines that turn milk into cheese, etc. etc.

Or you could break people’s fences, steal their crops, throw rotten tomatoes at the windows, and make everyone lock their doors to shut you out! The reward for this, beyond mischief being its own reward, would be the opportunity to unlock different more goblin-y crops and eventually for everyone in town to move out, allowing your goblin buddies to take over the abandoned buildings and create a beautiful goblin society.

And of course, you might just end up in little gobin jail. But everyone knows that goblins are small and tricksy and will eventually be able to escape from any cage.

So in a way I suppose it could be a story about one’s responses to alienation and isolation. But first I have to just make a minimum viable product, which will probably be quite underwhelming! Just the basics of growing crops, running around, getting attacked by a slime and dying in one hit…

Ah, I’m really looking forward to it!!!

Even if it’s a bit of a derivative idea and there are ten million farm sim games, I haven’t played one where you can just be a menace and make everyone hate you. Even in Stardew Valley when you take the Joja route it doesn’t really have a lasting impact on people’s lives. I thought it could be fun to be able to cause real damage… but also not just make that be a sadistic choice with no benefit. Of course this sort of thing will require a lot of careful playtesting and crafting to make sure it’s actually fun or balanced, but first I’ll have to create a functional game in the first place. It’s good to have hopes and plans first though, right? Even if those plans end up changing dramatically, as they often do…

Anyway, I drew another picture of Pippi, because I was considering becoming a Vtuber. (I have to figure out rigging to finish this project though…) I really like this little goblin design and have become quite attached to her, so no matter what game I make, I’d like to have her be the protagonist.

Oh, my beloved goblin character… get into lots of mischief and cause lots of trouble… or find peace and happiness with a simple farming life. The world is yours!

Perhaps she is the manifestation of my id, haha. Maybe I should make a character some day that is the representation of the “superego” to balance things out. I wonder what sort of interesting story could be told with a superego character. Perhaps it’s just my own bias towards stories about chaos and drama that makes it hard for me to imagine this at the moment. There’s a reason why my avatar online is Pippi, after all!

Ah, so much to do, so much to plan. Honestly I think I am easily delighted and would be happy just to make my little goblin run around in a circle with the arrow keys. Maybe if I become good enough at Godot I could make “those” sort of games (the sort of slop games you see in mobile game ads that are nothing like the actual game) but with the goblin. Like… I dunno… the sort of silly match puzzle with the pathos-inducing storyline of a woman trying to fix a house in the cold. But here, it would be the tragic tale of a raggedy goblin out in the cold. Will you save her? (lol) If you buy 500 gems for $4.99, you can save her…! (lol)

On Steam, I’ve found that a lot of games involving goblins are pornographic for some reason.

Or maybe Steam thinks I really want to bang goblins and is only showing me goblin porn games. I really have no idea why this is happening to me because I only play RTS and farming sim games. (And grand strategy games…) Anyway, if you were worried that this is going to be “that” type of game, I don’t think I will add to the growing genre of sexy goblin games.¹ (Though I am not averse to making the goblins more appealing to goblin-lovers in a generally safe-for-work way, so if you are into goblins, please let me know what sort of things you would like me to include.)

Perhaps the reason for my confusion on the proliferation of sexy goblin games genre is because I find myself identifying with the goblin, rather than identifying with the goblin’s lover. Goblins are like little critters to me. They are cute, funny, delightful, mischievous, a little evil-natured, etc. I suppose that is also the sort of thing that someone could find attractive. Much to consider…

Anyway, everyone has ideas, but not everyone turns those ideas into reality. Hopefully I will enter that rarefied class of people who actually completes an indie game as a solo dev! But first I will have to learn how to use Godot, haha. There will probably be a lot of spaghetti code as I learn. But that’s part of the process… 🍝 Eventually I will also untangle the spaghetti, hopefully. But first I must make it. Ah, I’m looking forward to making it! I am the sort of freak who enjoys writing code just for the sake of it, so I have an unlimited amount of motivation for this kind of project. The main problem is finding a “project” or a “direction,” and for now at least, I have a direction. So please look forward to this silly dream of mine.

On a completely different topic, I’ve been thinking a lot about the visual novel “Ciconia When They Cry (Phase 1: For You, the Replaceable Ones)”. It’s so devastating that the game’s second chapter has been delayed indefinitely by the current events of war and the COVID-19 pandemic. I really hope that the game will continue in development anyway. Agh, it’s so painful. There are so many mysteries left to ponder on so I’ll just agonize in the catbox of endless possibility.

I suppose that having endless possibility isn’t so bad though, because it means endless fun thinking of theories! Nothing can be proven or disproven with what we have now, so I’ve been occupying myself wondering about what could happen next and what really has been happening in the story. I’m a big fan of the theories emptysky34 has been putting on their blog every day, so I’ve been religiously refreshing the page to see what wisdom they have. And today I ended up watching a bunch of theory videos by ZAK Magnus. I will figure out the mystery… I really do feel convinced that Miyao is a posthumous character. But I wonder about the nature of the other characters. How much “magic” can be possible in this world? Which parts are the tricks, and which parts are the treats?

Oh, Ryukishi07, please come out with news on the next chapter soon!