Goblin Stone News

We are thrilled to announce that Goblin Stone is nominated for the Best Indie Game and Excellence in Visual Art category along with 5 other games from around the world in the Devgamm Fall 2021 game awards.



[h3]About DevGamm[/h3]
DevGAMM is the biggest game developers conference in Eastern Europe. DevGAMM gives gaming experts a chance to keep up with the latest thinking and developments in making games as well as share their knowledge and experience with each other.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X77Se-uVIpQ
A 3-day virtual game conference will premier on November 17, 2021 (MSK), and will end with the Awards ceremony on November 19, 2021. See scheduled sessions.

[h3]Livestream Showcase[/h3]
Goblin Stone will be live-streamed and showcased by Russian streamers during the event on their Twitch channels. Don't miss them out!



Schedules
Watch Mr Holodilnick on Twitch (Nov 17, 10:00 - 13:00 MSK)
Watch Tomatos on Twitch (Nov 17, 18:00 - 21:00 MSK)

[h3]Join us on Social Media[/h3]

• Facebook
  
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• Twitter
  
• Reddit
  
• Discord

Please FOLLOW and WISHLIST the game, so you won't miss the upcoming news about Goblin Stone!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1521970/Goblin_Stone/

With the new goblin classes joining our adventure, we expanded the lair with new guild rooms to welcome the Mystic, Hunter, and Bandit classes.

Building these guild rooms is necessary so your goblins can switch classes. Later on in the game, you will be able to upgrade these guild rooms to unlock new abilities for your goblins. Each room can be upgraded up to 3 times with each tier unlocking new abilities. Let’s take a look at the concept art for the guild room’s tier progression. Our sample image below is from the Mystic guild room.



We designed thematic rooms where your goblins can train and hang out after a day-long adventure in the wild. The colors and theme of each room are based on the dominant colors found in the costumes of each goblin class. Props are added that fit the class's theme and aesthetics.



For example, the Mystic guild room features magical props such as crystals, magic circles, and caged fireballs. Spend a bit of time in the Mystic guild room and you’ll find a scholastic goblin engrossed in a spellbook.



The Bandit room’s design on the other hand was inspired by pirate taverns and old pioneer wagons. The room is built from wood and decorated with barrel tables and wagon wheel ornaments to give off a rustic appearance. A perfect hideout for the Bandits to plan out their strategies.



And finally, the Hunter guild room where the Hunters show off their trophy hunts. This nature-themed room is filled with ornaments made out of everything and anything a goblin could gather from the wild such as twigs, bones, and animal skins.



[h2]Designing the Guild Rooms[/h2]

During the designing stage of the concept art, we also considered points such as the scaling of the furniture and props compared to the height of the goblins and its functionality.



An interesting tidbit, our artists used the goblin class icons as the centerpiece for every guild room.



After conceptualizing the design for the guild rooms, our 3D artist will use the concept art as a basis for modeling the final look of each guild room. It is still a work in progress, but here’s a sneak peek of the 3D models.

The Mystic guild room The Bandit guild room The Hunter guild room

[h2]STAY TUNED[/h2]

What do you think about the new guild rooms? Please feel free to comment on what development process you would like to see in our next dev blog update. Don’t forget to follow Goblin Stone’s steam page and join our Discord so you don’t miss out on our dev blogs!

This time, we focused on improving the Adventure and Battle visualization of Goblin Stone. We want to make sure that Goblin Stone is not only visually appealing but also lets the player understand the game through the help of visual aids. Here's a preview of what we accomplished.

As reported by our community, branching paths are easy to miss when traversing maps in the current demo. We address this issue by adding subtle wind wisp on the terrain.

Wind wisp on branching paths

In addition to this, a ribbon trail can be seen when the goblins jump down to a path to show the direction of the action. Trails and dust clouds are also present when the goblins or enemies walk, patrol, or turn to switch directions during adventures.

Branching paths allow the goblins to jump down on a hill or climb up on a ladder to further explore a level.

Cloud of dust on terrain

In specific actions such as sneaking, it is now noticeable that there is a brief transition to the animation where the background darkens. This puts the player’s focus on the action being done.

The sneak and surprise mechanic was mentioned in our previous developer’s update.

A similar background effect is also applied during battle wherein the background darkens to make each attack pop out of the screen. To create stunning effects, we added shockwaves, screen shakes, particles, and attractive filters to the animation.

Guard class goblin charge ability

Innkeeper and Cooks abilities

And lastly, when the player hovers over a character or their token on the timebar, an arrow will appear to point at their probable target based on the turn order. All units except the character and the potential target are dimmed as shown in the image below.



Bonus: This handy tooltip shows the possible available abilities of your goblins to help you plan your next move.

We plan to integrate more of these game tips and hints within the game without making the player go through long tutorials in the future. With this update, we hope that you will find Goblin Stone enjoyable and easy to understand.

[h3]For more development sneak peeks, please join us on Discord or wishlist Goblin Stone.[/h3]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1521970/Goblin_Stone/

[h3]Our friends at Lost Pilgrims have just launched Vagrus - The Riven Realms into full release here on Steam.[/h3] Vagrus is a turn-based, open-world, dark fantasy RPG. The game moves out of Early Access with well over a hundred hours of playable content . Vagrus and its haunting world were born from decades of tabletop RPG campaigns played by the founders of Lost Pilgrims, which adds vastly to the game’s unique atmosphere and the richness of its setting.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Vagrus is an award-winning roleplaying game with a narrative focus, open-world exploration, and strong elements of strategy. The player takes the role of a vagrus - a caravan leader who strives to survive in a strange and dangerous dark fantasy world by leading a traveling company on all kinds of ventures.

[h2]Feature list[/h2]

• A DARK REALM
  A vast realm is yours to explore, filled with unique locations, strange factions, lurking dangers, and a slew of characters you can interact with.
  
  
  
• BRANCHING NARRATIVE
  A large selection of longer and shorter stories make up the game’s narrative in the form of events and quests. The choices you make in these can significantly affect the characters and the world around you.
  
  
  
• TURN-BASED COMBAT
  Take part in turn-based, tactical combat that involves your characters and a large variety of enemies, both humanoid and monstrous. Use a range of character skills and abilities to succeed. Fight against outlaws and monsters commanding your whole traveling company in pitched battles for resources.
  
  
  
• RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
  Most journeys have to be planned and prepared for carefully, lest they end in disaster. Manage your supplies, cargo, and crew effectively to survive. Take on contracts and follow rumors or trade opportunities.
  
  
  
• UNIQUE COMPANIONS
  A wide variety of companions can work for you in versatile caravan roles, such as scoutmaster, guard captain, treasure hunter, or beast handler. Each companion comes with unique combat skills, background stories, and personal quest lines that can upgrade them further when you complete them.
  
  
  
• POWERFUL FACTIONS
  Ally yourself with mighty factions that shape the Riven Realms with their influence on commerce, brutal wars, and constant scheming. From prosperous Trading Houses to criminal syndicates and religious organizations, these groups offer powerful rewards and boons to those loyal to their cause. But take heed - befriending a faction will more than likely antagonize others.
  

[h3]Centurion Edition[/h3]
A special Centurion Edition of Vagrus released alongside the full game. This special edition includes the base game, the original soundtrack, and the Patronage Pack at a special launch price during launch week. Those who already own the base game can also purchase the DLCs individually.

Try your hand at Vagrus to see if you can make profit while surviving in the wastelands!



https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660/Vagrus__The_Riven_Realms/?snr=1_5_1100__1100

[h3]Vagrus also has a FREE Prologue available here on Steam[/h3]
If you are interested in getting a glimpse of Vagrus, check it out here.

Since our last update on our demo, we’ve been carefully reviewing our community’s feedback and took some exceptional ideas and suggestions on board for our game development. Take a peek at what features we’re currently working on and see if your suggestions made it into our list.



Surprise battles can put you at a disadvantage during battles by starting a few bars back on the time bar allowing the enemy to have a first crack at your goblins. Previously, this mechanic was only available during surprise encounters with hidden enemies. To give our players another way of strategizing their battles, we added a few conditions to allow a surprise battle with the enemy at the disadvantage this time.



During normal encounters, goblins can ambush enemies by "sneaking" behind patrolling enemies that are facing away from the player. If the player’s goblins sneak up on an enemy successfully, there is a chance to surprise the enemy group. Surprised enemies will start the battle with a 1.5 to 2 time unit penalty. Giving the goblins an advantage in battle.

However, this goes both ways. If the player’s goblins are facing the opposite direction of the enemy while being chased by the enemy, the goblins will be surprised instead. The same time unit penalty will apply to the goblins.



At the start of our demo where you will first encounter an adventurer, you will notice that the goblins do not have the ability to sneak yet, even though the narrator hints at it. In the build we are currently working on, we added the sneak animation to add some personality to our wily goblins, and to introduce this game mechanic.



Not only does the sneak mechanic allow the goblins to move slowly while tiptoeing, sneaking also allows them to trigger a surprise battle on unsuspecting enemies. To sneak, you can either hold the left shift while walking or hold down the right mouse button.





Another fun feature that involves this new sneaking mechanic are hidden loot that are sprinkled across the level. We like to call these types of loot ‘rummageables’. While adventuring, you may notice a very brief glimmer as you move across the screen. These twinkles indicate hidden items are nearby that you can rummage for. These can be materials, junk, or even gold. You can only uncover and interact with the rummageable while sneaking.





In our previous developer’s update, we talked about the Ability deck. This feature is fully implemented in our game and the team is now focused on adding the UI designs for the ability deck menu.



The first photo shows the old design way back when the game only allowed equipping 2 abilities per class. In the latest design, each class can now equip 4 abilities. We also added some animations for flair for when a new ability gets unlocked, VFX are soon to follow.



These are just a few of the things we’ve been working on. Apart from these features, there's a whole lot going on in the form of actual game content and story such as new enemies, new abilities, illustrations, new levels, etc. most of which are unfortunately spoilers.

We hope you enjoyed this sneak peek at the new stuff coming to Goblin Stone! If you haven’t already, please add the game to your Steam Wishlist so you can be notified of new development blogs like this as we journey into Early Access.