Goblins & Grottos Nears Full Release

It has been a while since my last update on Goblins & Grottos. In the last 2 months we have taken on a new team member, Logan – who will be taking over the bulk of our marketing and promotion activities. It’s critical that each role in the development and release of the game is headed up by a ‘champion’ who has commitment and ownership for it. Marketing was an area that we needed someone extra in, to fill that role. Logan has fitted into the team really well and I’m sure he’ll add great value to our publicity!

There have been lots of cool things added since my last post here. The four ‘regions’ are now complete (dungeon, forest, village, mountain/castle) along with appropriate decorations, interactive items, environmental effects and traps. The main bulk of the game’s development is now complete. We have held back some new features to announce on full release, including a fully configurable boss battle editor for final showdowns with the Paladin, as well as a neat minecart system for Indiana-Jones type shenanigans. Apart from this, I have been doing lots of tweaking and clearing up of bugs, and polishing of the user interface and map-making tools… all the glamorous stuff us programmers get up to, y’know. The game’s Official campaign is nearly complete.. kudos to the fantastic creativity of Jonas and Bjorn, who take the map elements I provide and twist and combine them in all sorts of fun ways.

Ian, Bjorn and Jonas have also been making a really slick cinematic trailer which will be unveiled on full release day.. I’m really excited about that!

My first published game – Space Trader [1984]

I first started programming in the early 1980s – my motivation being that I wanted computer games to play and this was the best way to get them (not being able to afford commercial games, and in any case many of them were not very good).

I used to make lots of BBC Micro games, and sent some to Personal Computer World magazine for publication. In 1984 I had a game listing published (this is how it worked back then.. and actually typing in the code was a great way to learn). This was my first publication and first earnings from computer game development, and has really shaped my whole academic career too.

The Goblins & Grottos Team

Goblins & Grottos continues to roll along at a great pace, and we have now moved to Early Access on Steam. The graphics, audio and level designs are more-or-less 50% complete, with 10 maps completed in the built-in story “A Goblin’s Tale”. Initial feedback from the Steam community is very positive.

A number of people have asked me how we have managed to do so well with a team of people who have not worked together before, nor ever met face-to-face. The main thing, in my opinion, is that we have a committed team with excellent and totally complimentary skills: every necessary development skill is covered, yet there is almost zero overlap between any of our skills. So we’re all totally valuable to the process, and as progress is good everyone feels enthused to keep pushing. I suppose getting this perfect mix may have been luck to some extent!

Björn – is responsible for all of the game sprites and environment artwork. He’s also much more of a gamer than me or Ian, so feeds a lot into the level design, replete with geeky in-jokes.

Ian – does everything audio-related. He is vastly experienced as a musician, but has not done game sounds before, so it’s fantastic how well this aspect is working out. His ability to produce all manner of funny voices is also a huge bonus – I assume his experience in stage drama is helping here!

Jonas- does numerous pieces all over the game. His role might be best called ‘producer’. Specifically he does the interface designs, a lot of the level editing, video trailer design and editing. But in a small team, I think it’s essential to have a jack-of-all-trades who can fill in all the little gaps where other people can’t.

Me – I’m responsible for everything programming-related, which of course is what I’m best at.

The one thing we’re not great at is marketing/PR. Jonas and I have been doing the best that we can in this regard, but we may need to consider a better approach as we near full release.

Holding our Skype meetings weekly has been perfect for us. Typically we run thru our progress over the past week, do a bit of playtesting, and then brainstorm ideas for development over the next few weeks. It’s always a fun meeting and I think this contributes to the stream of fun/silly ideas that we seem to keep coming up with!

For our Steam page, we are using three separate video trailers. This one is my favourite: ‘Goblin Begins’ as a spoof of Batman Begins. Top quality design and editing, plus awesome voicework and music. I think Jonas and Ian had loads of fun making it too, which was an essential part of why it came out so well.

Goblins & Grottos Audio Development


A guest post by Ian Munt, game DJ, noise noodler and voice maker on Goblins & Grottos.

 My Backgound

I have worked as a musician and written and recorded music since I first learnt how to use a tape machine. I got involved with Goblins and Grottos earlier this year and since then I’ve created voices for various characters, made numerous sound effects and written a series of catchy goblin complimenting tunes.

Music: Goblin Dance

Silly Voices

Audio: Knight #1 chat

Each character in the game has a number of triggers and each trigger has to have a number of expressions to choose from to avoid repetition. So the number of sound files soon mount up. Each character needs to sound different to the next and this requires some fairly foolish behaviour on the microphone along with some pitch shifting effects. None of the characters say actual words as these are shown in speech bubbles above their heads so this means that I can’t use actual words. Instead I have to express the feelings they would have in a given situation – EG: finding the Goblin, killing the Goblin as well coming to a sticky end. (Literally! They can fall onto pointy sticks and die).

Audio: Wizard sees the goblin

Noise Noodling

This is my first time working on a computer game. For the sound effects I’ve had to learn quickly. Sounds were needed for the various game elements; a creaking plank, a marching knight, a fireball etc. This has introduced me into the fascinating world of Foley (sound effects). I looked for some sounds online (freesounds.org), but found that these rarely worked on their own. They might be the wrong length, have too much ambient noise or could just be missing a certain something. However, I’ve found they are a good starting point and sometimes work when slowed down, speeded up, cut before the ambient part is heard or mixed with other sounds.

Audio: Paladin uses his ‘holy smite’ spell

Most satisfying of all are the sounds that are completely homemade and these can come from an unlikely source.   For example, I was looking for a sound for the checkpoint statue which, when the Goblin reaches it, ignites 3 flames. I recorded some actual flames igniting and looked online but they all had too much of a thump and not enough whump. So what sounds whumpy? A sheet being shaken open? How about a blanket? Perfect! It’s not a flame but it does sound like one when timed nicely with an animation.

Audio: Checkpoint activated

Thinking this way has led me to listen to everything with new ears – hmm that automatic handbrake on the car sounds interesting and could be useful someday. So more and more I find myself leaving the house with my trusty Zoom portable recorder just in case I stumble upon something that may not work on it’s own but combined with something else might just be what I’m looking for.


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