Trash Goblin News

this part of the journey is almost over, and it feels like time has flown past. The next post I write will be on the 6th November, and the game will be out in Early Access!? I am actually struggling to wrap my head around this.

And as we keep on working to ensure as brilliant a launch as possible, there's been tons of cool stuff going on and I'd love to share it with you! Naturally we're keeping a lot of it under wraps so you're excited by the launch version, but with that in mind let's go!

[h3]SURPRISE! NEW BETA OUT NOW![/h3]
We have updated the Beta - available for people who backed the Kickstarter at Backer Goblin tier or above - and wanted to give yo some idea of what's in it.

The main focus is the saving and loading we've implemented! Broadly the game now autosaves frequently, and we need to test the crap out of it.

Please note we do not expect your Beta save game to work in the Early Access version of the game. It might do, but we're not committing to that!

And there's more to look out for too:

• Tons of workshop expansion items
  
• Seriously. Just loads of expansion items, some of them practical, some of them cosmetic
  
• More named characters and their quests
  
• All 50 trinkets that will be in the Early Access launch version of the game
  
• Workbench is now smaller, ready for upgrading (and few other things have changed along the same lines)!
  
• Expanded random customer paperdolls
  
• Brand new sales receipt with animation
  
• Misc updates and fixes to audio, camera, UI and more
  
• Removed erroneous 'ultra-widescreen' support options from the settings menu
  

Here's a look at the city view out of the customer hatch - the customer is a randomly generated character, and there are now crowds in the background which really bring it to life!


What we'd love to hear your feedback on - aside from all the bugs you spot, especially with the saving! - is the following few elements, as they're the ones we need wider data on, from a bigger pool of people than our dev team:

• Cost of expansion items. This is in relation to each other, and also if they feel expensive or cheap)
  
• Price of trinkets. How much you get for them, compared to each other and of course how this affects your feelings towards saving up for expansion items.
  
• How long you play for. We've added an amount of handcrafted content, and we want to figure out how long it lasts. So much of the game is semi-random that it's hard for us to know! We don't want to tell you how many named customers are in, nor how many quests they bring because we think it is also important to get an idea of how it all feels.
  

Here you can see some of the wide range of expansion items you can purchase to customise and personalise your workshop, not to mention storage space for all those trinkets!


All of that will let us figure out our balancing (or in other games: difficulty) and pacing, and plan better for launch and beyond!
Of course there are some known issues, head over to our discord for the full lowdown!

[h3]STEAM NEXT FEST WENT GREAT[/h3]
If you're on Steam much you'll know about Next Fests (they're big store takeovers that show off demos for upcoming games... the catch being any game can only be in one Next Fest ever) and Trash Goblin was in the most recent!

In total, we got 10,848 new wishlists which is just staggering.

In fact 11,438 players went and played the demo, of which 2,556 then wishlisted it - which is amazing! 22% of people who played it liked it enough to wishlist it! And that also means 8,292 people wishlisted it just cos they liked the look of it! Wahey!

And we also had some nice chart positions too. For example, on Sunday in the "Popular Upcoming" charts Trash Goblin was:

• #1 in Relaxing
  
• #1 in Life Sim
  
• #8 in Casual
  
• #10 in Fantasy
  

To say we're stunned and chuffed is an understatement!

[h3]WELL THEN[/h3]
Not much time to go between now and Early Access (did I mention that?) so what's left to ask of you?
👍discord - get on over there and join in all the fun!
🌠wishlist & follow the game right here on Steam
🗣️tell your friends! Seriously, let's get this game hyped!

These updates will carry on - don't you worry about that - but we'll be moving to 1 every month after EA launch.

And finally, If you've missed them so far we've been running a Road To Early Access series on our twitch - including an audio deep dive that was not to be missed - we're keeping all of them here so you can watch them at any time.

We got some feedback about an annoying little edgecase, and took the opportunity to fix some other bits-n-pieces - but most importantly now you'll see a lot more varied and interesting customers turning up!

• We added tons more variety in human paperdoll customers
  
• We fixed an issue with localisation. Only English is supported at the moment, and now playing in any other language will not affect the game
  
• We fixed an issue where player could lose sight of a tool by placing it inside a box on the workbench
  

And here are some choice randomised customers to whet your appetite!



If you're enjoying the demo please do wishlist the game and give us a follow too!

With Steam Next Fest around the corner - it starts on Monday! - we've been hard at work making the brand-new demo as perfect as it could be.

Well, as perfect as it could be given the usual constraints of talent, time, effort and the laws of physics.

[h3]BRAND NEW DEMO[/h3]

We're streaming the brand new demo out live on twitch right now! Kieran and Anthony will be touring you through the whole thing, and you should definitely tune in for a few surprises!

And we aren't stopping there - the demo is out right now, ahead of the Next Fest!

We'd love you to play it and tell us what you think, but honestly, if you're waiting for the ideal time, then between 14th and 21st October is the time any true Goblin would play it, as the more people playing it during the Next Fest the more other gamers will have it recommended, which means more wishlists, which means more goblins!

[h3]WHAT'S IN THE DEMO?[/h3]

I don't want to spoil too much but here's a quick rundown:

• The first 20-ish minutes of the game are brand new!
  
• We've reworked the basic controls considerably! Scary, but needed doing!
  
• We've taken the Stash Book off the Workbench and Customer Area... but where is it now
  
• Expansion & Customisation. I'll leave it at that... but this is a particularly cool feature we're excited to have you play!
  
• A big part of the game is intended to be customising your space. In preparation for that, we've dressed down some of the areas in the shop.
  

Basically, if you've played the previous demo then you'll miss a few characters and there are a limited set of 20 trinkets in this new demo, but there's a lot more to do. And worry not, they'll be back before you know it!

[h3]GOBLIN FEST[/h3]

Never one to be outdone by a little company like Valve, we've also been running Goblin Fest this week to drum up interest in Goblin games of all shapes and sizes, and you can check that out on in our discord where we post links and summarise every day!

Monday's was all about Peglin, and the devs of that game went all out and have been making fan art of all the games! Here's yesterday's cutie!

Until next time, please do play the demo and let us know what you like and dislike, and let us know about any bugs too!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

We're so excited to have the launch date out there - we're just going to throw ourselves at making Trash Goblin as great as possible for the launch, and then carry on full speed regardless after that date all the way through to the 1.0 launch which is probably going to be next year!

Tell your friends, wishlist it, throw us a follow, and let's get this party started!

So much has been going on with the game recently, and it's on the cusp of being presentable, but I thought why not give you a look at the state of things literally right now. As in, I wrote this sentence, went away and grabbed a screenshot, then came back here to paste it in and write the rest of this post.



If you've played the demo or seen screenshots you might be thinking... where'd it all go?!


So what, indeed, has changed? Some big things, and some smaller. Rather than force you to guess (though that would be fun) how about I list it all*?!

*except I might forget some and/or leave some out on purpose 😅

No More Cruft
That's right, you ain't cleaning that up, and the HUD ain't counting it either! Basically this was a vestigial feature that had no purpose (yet). And people kept asking. So out it comes!

Decorations-be-where?
Yes indeed. It's rather sparse there, isn't it? We're in the middle of building and testing the expansion gameplay! So yeah, at the start of the game, it might feel a little emptier than you're used to from the demo, but you'll be able to buy all kinds of things to decorate with!

Stash Book In Your Face!
We've moved the stash book to the HUD, essentially linking it to the camera so it's always with you (and right now so are the comically large VFX that moved with it). Makes things easier, and simpler, and declutters the workspace too!

Strange Button, I See You. Explain Yourself.
Off to the right-hand side of the Personal Space navigation button is a little price-tag-looking fella. This unassuming fellow is what gets you into Expansion Mode! Oh boy, what fun you'll be having there.

I'll leave it there - with one or two more changes for ya'll to spot and discuss. Rest assured we are super excited about all of this getting into your hands, and if you're on the right backer tier, we're dearly hoping to get another Beta going in the coming weeks. There's a lot more than just UI and assets being moved around, lemme tell you!

Meanwhile, in the ramp-up to the huge news coming next week - yes, that's right, I said HUGE - I think you might wanna get all up in our discord if you've not bothered yet.

Please do wishlist us, and give the game a Follow right here on Steam too of course 😇

Till next time, stay Goblin, and keep those floppy ears out for the rumbling of that news I've teased about fifteen million times by now, does it even count as a tease or is it just annoying at this point...