Trash Goblin News

We've been hard at work getting this together for a special showcase in Brighton this week - as part of the conference, they run the Indie Showcase; it's a dedicated area within the Expo called the "Indie Showcase" and it features 10 independently developed games that have been shortlisted by a panel of industry experts.

One of these 10 games will be judged overall Indie Showcase Winner by the judging panel and there will also be the chance for all attendees to vote for their favourite game during the event in the People's Choice Award.

Obviously we really want to win one of those awards, so we put the effort into a new demo build... and then thought why not let all you Goblins around the world play it too? It's a more polished, improved and generally bug-fixed version than the last update. Wish us luck in the event!

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

• Redoir is now a returning customer, which is the first step on our way to building proper quest chains into the game!
  
  
• Added a whole bunch of new puzzles and trinkets so there's even more cool things to play around with now.
  
  
• We've tweaked the customer order a bit for a better flow, and so that Upcycling is unlocked earlier than previous builds.
  
  
• Added Camera and Puzzle Rotation speed settings for more accessibility goodness!
  
  
• Various audio tweaks and additions
  
  
• Several bugs fixed with regard to text and general functionality on the Option/Settings screen, with resolution and language drop-downs now actually displaying proper text by default
  

Enjoy, and please do tell us what you thought about it in the forums and on our discord - and wishlist the game if you like it, plus give us a follow if you haven't already!

Where's the summer gone though? Did one of you upcycle it into a sort of crappy Autumnal seasonal trinket?! Fess up! 😅

Oh well. What better to do on a dreary (in the UK at least) day than check out some fascinating behind-the-scenes work on your favourite Goblin game?!

[h3]BTS[/h3]
If you'd be so kind as to press play, you'll be treated to a little look behind the curtain as our Principal Coder takes you through a bunch of cool tools and debug functions they've built for making our dev lives easier, plus a first look at the systems that power the random delivery of Trinkets to your little goblin shop! All work in progress, all prone to change and tweaks.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Be nice about the image quality - this is cropped from our company show-n-tell so the quality is lower than the bottom of a Dwarf's beard.

[h3]DEMO NEWS[/h3]
We're taking Trash Goblin to the Develop Conference Indie Showcase next week! If you're there, pop by, say hi, and vote for us in the awards! If not, just keep your fingers crossed and send us good vibes!

The extra cool news is that because we want to make a good impression at the showcase, we've been fixing a few small bugs and adding a little bit of new content to the demo you're all familiar with! Redoir now has a multiple-step quest for you to complete, and we'll be releasing that demo early next week too, so you can all have a play and tell us your thoughts!

This is our first (and very basic, work in progress) attempt at what we hope will become a much bigger part of the game, where customers don't always just come looking for one thing and then that's it - what you sell them forms part of a small story or affects their life, or brings some humour and context to the next time they come to your little shop!

[h3]GOBLIN ADMIN[/h3]
Meanwhile, help us to help you!

• Join the discord to get more behind-the-scenes and give us your feedback
  
• Wishlist Trash Goblin here on Steam if you haven't already...
  
• ...and if you have done that, throw us a Follow instead. Or as well! As well is good too!
  

Until next time, stay goblin!

Wowzer, it's been a heck of a fortnight over here at Spilt Milk! Hope you're all keeping happy, healthy and chill - we're trying, but the UK summer is doing its best impression of winter so ☔☔☔

[h3]MORE GOBLINS[/h3]

First up, we've expanded the team!

Lesleyann White has joined as our Producer, and Philippa Warr has started work with us as Narrative Designer!

Lesleyann is a multi-award-winning developer, and comes to us from the brilliant team over at Failbetter Games (Mask of the Rose, Sunless Skies, Sunless Sea, Fallen London anyone?! OMG!) so we're over the moon to bring her expertise to our adventures with a certain little Goblin! Also shoutout to UK indies! 🥰

Philippa is someone we've known for some years now, and finally getting to work with her is just so exciting - recently she worked on Little Kitty Big City which is um, too cute thank you, and has a real sense of humour and twinkle in the eye which we think is going to make Trash Goblins's quests and customers 🎵sing🎵.

[h3]GOBLIN GABBER[/h3]
(This title only works as a joke when you get to the next section, my apologies)

So then there's this talk that I gave at Oxford Indies last month, which one of our brillo coders Simon kindly recorded and edited together!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

It's about the journey of Trash Goblin and Spilt Milk Studios so far, features an awful lot about you lovely Kickstarter Goblins, and we think it is full of insight and advice (and some jokes) that will be pretty interesting to ya'll.

I hope it comes across as intended - a really honest look at the business side of making games, and the very real and human challenges of it all, especially in the year(s) we're having - worker layoffs, studio closures, game cancellations and the like.

We'll be pushing it all over the internet before long, but you all get to watch it before anyone else, and I'd love to know what you think in the comments, replies and over on our discord too.


[h3]SUCCESS SASS[/h3]
(nope, not yet, this joke is building on the previous one but also needs the last section header to work - when will I learn?)

We've hit a few milestones recently, helped out by the Access-Ability Showcase featuring, and the Cozy & Family Friendly Celebration too - plus another few videos from some amazing content creators like Blitz, Wanderbots and Imcade.

"But what are those milestones? Stop yammering and tell us!" I hear you cry. well we're now sat at a very healthy 56,000 wishlists and that places us in the top 500 of ALL GAMES on Steam for wishlists... which has left the team feeling giddy and excited for sure. Thanks so much for all your support! We can't wait to smash 100k soon enough!

[h3]TAVERN TALK[/h3]
(hey, we got there!)

TAVERN TALK IS OUT TOMORROW OMG! Go wishlist and follow it, and maybe even buy it! The devs are delightful, they've helped us so much, and the game is excellent too.

Until next time, stay Goblin!

We couldn't resist updating the demo with some fixes for things we spotted in streams and that you all shared with us, plus the features we've been working on! Because we're like that!

[h3]Accessibility Features[/h3]

• Camera transition speed options
  
• Trinket rotation speed options
  

[h3]Gameplay Bug Fixes[/h3]

• Upcycling tool no longer disappears
  
• Can no longer drop/swap tools during chipping/cleaning/upcycling camera sequences
  

[h3]Game Options[/h3]

• Options now fully persist across sessions and scenes
  
• Fixed various options text bugs
  

Enjoy, and as ever please come and talk to us about the game in our discord with all the other goblins!

Well now, here's a thing. We updated the demo, as you know, in time for the Cozy and Family Friendly Games Celebration and boy howdy did it go well!

Here's how we were thinking about it going in!

[h3]CONS[/h3]

• it is a sales festival, so most people will be interested in finding games to buy & play
  
• we're a fair way from launch
  
• we're doing well getting the game out there, but I'm not sure we're as well known as Tiny Glade, Outbound, or our chums over at Tavern Talk (who have a demo out too!).
  
• there are a lot of games celebrated in the event, well over 150!
  
• we knew we weren't going to get a featured spot (that's all arranged ahead of time)
  
• we didn't know what kind of placement the event would get on Steam, if any
  

[h3]PROS[/h3]

• the demo is polished & robust (thanks to all you Goblins out there making suggestions and reporting issues!)
  
• the demo update went live after the festival had started, so maybe Steam's algorithm might impact it positively in some way, being fresh?
  
• this is Trash Goblin for crying out loud, who doesn't love it?! 😅
  
• we've got the lovely folks at Plan of Attack helping with press and streamer outreach
  

Anyway, I'm sure there's more but you can see we felt that the odds were stacked against us having a brilliant event, but were keenly watching our wishlist numbers for whatever bump we might see.

But I don't want that to come off as defeatist by the way! We just tend to assess and settle on what we think are realistic expectations. So we thought perhaps we'd see a few days of a few hundred extra wishlists.

[h3]WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED
[/h3]
Er, we saw the second biggest spike in wishlists since we launched the Steam page, behind only the one-two punch of the Kickstarter & demo launch back in December, and that had the Wholesome Direct boost helping it out too!

Left: launch of the Steam page. Middle: Kickstarter & demo launch. Right: Cozy & Family Friendly Celebration

Ok so technically this was the 3rd biggest spike, but I reckon all those spikes around the Kickstarter count as one; they're certainly as a result of the same event.

Games usually chug along at a low-ish baseline, so we were doing just dandy and then BOOM! It is very exciting, let me tell you!

Seeing this huge uptick in wishlists made the team positively giddy with excitement. There might've even been tears. The past 6 days have seen 6,332 Goblins wishlist the game (compared to the perfectly healthy 221 for the previous 6 days) and now we're sat at an amazing 52,500 wishlists in total!

So it goes without saying we're a happy bunch, and we couldn't have done it without you. Literally as well as figuratively. This is your success, your moment to celebrate as much as it is ours, so at any point in the next few days that the opportunity presents itself please do raise a glass (of wine, or soda, or whatever!) to yourselves. Onwards and upwards!

Stay amazing,

The Spilt Milk Goblins