Goblins and Grottos News

Hey everyone! Well, we have nearly made it through Early Access, more-or-less unscathed. Here's the schedule for the day:

From 11:30 EST We will be running an AMA and key giveaway on
www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming

From 12:00 EST The full version (1.0) of the game will be available on Steam, with a 25% launch discount

From 15:00 EST There will be a Twitch stream of the game run by Alienware at www.twitch.tv/alienware

Goblins & Grottos will be graduating to Full Release next week, July 7th.

The full release will include:
- the complete 22-map story "A Goblin's Tale"
- a minecart and track system
- a new enemy "the priest" who resurrects heroes
- a new enemy "the dwarf" who loves digging
- a new enemy "the paladin demon boss" who comes with a flexible boss battle creation system (similar to the existing cutscene creation system)

Watch out for more announcements between now and July 7th, and details of our release-day celebration plans! :-)

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The main reason for this patch is related to a change on our map-server, to make it more efficient when there are lots of maps with lots of comments and scores attached to them.

This patch also adds a number of new achievements, bringing the current total to 23. It also adds variations on the core goblin 'voice' sounds (grunts, jumps etc.) in the forest and village environments.

This patch adds:
- 16 Steam Achievements. There will be more to come later.
- a 'tactical map' system that lets you see you progress as you move through the maps in the Official Campaign (or in any other multi-map story).

Tweaks:
- The game now pauses when the 'Exit Game' or 'Settings' windows are onscreen.
- Dispensers now supply unlimited amounts of items. When the limit is reached, the oldest item despawns. No more frustration when you need another boulder!
- Game controllers can now exit cutscenes by pressing B
- In the mapmaker, CTRL+click will duplicate the selected object without having to load it into the hotbar
- In the mapmaker, zooming in/out with mousewheel now keeps the camera centered correctly on the mouse pointer

We're just a couple of weeks from a big announcement!

Map Editor
We have been doing quite a bit of work making the Map Editor easier and quicker to use:
- New Fill Tools for platforms, tree trunks, sawblade paths, background woodbeams, railings, village house walls, snow
- New Random Object Tools for various decoration items: background and foreground moss, and various types of background woodbeams
- Stopped multiple layers of water tiles from being accidentally created
- Improved the ordering and categorisation of all tiles and tools.
- Identified the map region (Cave, Forest, Village, Mountain) that tiles, traps, tools and decorations are associated with - so that they can be filtered by region, making it easier to find the thematically correct items you need to build your maps

Maps
- Added the 15th Official Map "14 - On The Road"
- Tweaked and improved various other maps
- We have most of the remaining maps nearly ready to go - see below

Audio
- sounds for bed bounces and mushroom bounces

Graphics, GUI + World Items
- overhauled the main 'Play' window so that the Official story and Online maps are more obvious
- added a new feature for the Official story whereby your best total score, muffin count, and hero kill count is tracked
- added a new 'More Maps from the Devs' section so that additional maps and stories made by the Devs are easier to see rather than being buried in the Online section. For now, we just have the 2-map "Cheap Sheep" story here. Cheap Sheep is a cutting socio-political commentary on the state of the gaming industry. Or something.
- improved the goblin-on-troll's-head animations
- added new roof spikes
- improved the village-end sprites

Tweaks and Bugfixes
- Reduced excessive background tile recalculations
- Fixed problem with incorrect scrolling when mouse is over the inventory hotbar
- The game now makes a special check for people attempting to play with one hand, i.e. WASD with left shift/left ctrl. Yes, people really do this.. we have seen some youtubers complaining that the game is really hard to play with one hand!

Closing in on Final Release
We have been working really hard as we move towards the final release of the game, and we think you will love the rest of the Official Story, as well as a number of cool features and heroes that we're releasing at that time. Logan is our new Marketing Dude and he has been busy lining up press releases and schmoozing all those Important Press People and Influencers (TM) that we want to be aware of the game. Plus some special release day stunts and shenanigans! .. more on this later.. Bjorn, Ian, and Jonas have been putting together a really cool new cinematic trailer for the game. As usual I (Sam) have been tirelessly working away in the background, making sure the game runs smoothly and the bugs are gone.. as a programmer friend of mine said recently - "The job of the programmer is to make their work invisible. You only notice them when things go wrong"