KickStarter Gobliiins 5 by Pierre Gilhodes - Woodruff "Soon™"?

[Modron]

Tried the demo but was only available in French, not English (or I wasn't able to switch the language). I'm tempted to get the full game, but only if it's in English, as sadly I don't know how to speak frog. I'm also tempted to wait for Steam release so that potential bugs are patched, but the little I played of the demo seemed solid.

Run the winsetup.exe and change default language there to english^

 

[Darth Roxor]

nope, they're completely unrelated

 

[warcrimes666]

The demo is the entirety of part 1 and it is great. So much so that I've just paid the man 50 bucks for his efforts and if I was a rich man I would pay him 5000. In essence, this is a picasso of adventure games.

A labour of love from a true master, it is worth the price of admission.

 

[Darth Roxor]

What could he mean by this?

Finished. Pretty cool game, and while inferior to Gobs 2 and 3, it's little wonder given that this was only one guy working with an unfamiliar engine. With all that in mind, it's still a good effort.

A few thoughts:

- Game is a little uneven, and some parts are much better than others. I'd say it peaks in part 3, that one has the best and most memorable levels by far, while part 2 is largely the most meh, barring the first level with the snail.
- Loved how this game felt like Goblins without constant throwbacks, references and fanservice. I also laughed how much the guy's artstyle remained almost exactly the same over the years in some aspects - the kid on the balloon looks just about identical to Ooya flying on the balloon in G3 in the level where Blount grows wings. However, I'd say this game's colour palette was a bit too browny and could have been livelier.
- It's too bad that everything is self-contained and the only spot in the game where you actually 'change locations' is the mermaid's cabin on the airship, but that was clearly due to the dev fumbling with the engine. Otoh, there were quite a few places where I had to use everything with everything after getting stumped, so maybe that's not so bad after all.
- Part 3 is by far the most Goblinsy, with levels like getting shrunk, turning 2D or fixing Morglot's memory. I really enjoyed that one.
- I think Asgard and Ignatius are a little underutilised. You mostly spend time doing everything with Oops. Meanwhile to me the quintessential Goblins style puzzle is the one from the start of G2, where Winkle grabs a chicken by the throat and Fingus whacks it over the head with a sausage. I missed that a lot. It's also why the first level of part 3, with the 'stealth section' in the kitchen, is one of my biggest highlights from this.
- With 16 levels that each take 30-60 minutes, this is actually quite a big adventure game. Although sometimes too much of the time is spent doing things like returning to the water tap three times to fill up the bucket, and places like these were a little annoying.

All in all, ten dollars very well spent. Hope we get more.

 

[lightbane]

Tried this. The translation is obviously google-assisted, some things are janky (there are a few items you cannot interact with despite looking otherwise here and there), but it's fun, even if it feels barebones. The worst part though is the inability to save anywhere. I know levels are short enough to last 30 minutes tops, but it's still annoying.

 

[Melan]

Tried this. The translation is obviously google-assisted, some things are janky (there are a few items you cannot interact with despite looking otherwise here and there), but it's fun, even if it feels barebones. The worst part though is the inability to save anywhere. I know levels are short enough to last 30 minutes tops, but it's still annoying.

You can save/load with F5. It is an undocumented feature, but it works!

 

[lightbane]

^It seems this feature was disabled in the latest update (which requires you to download the whole thing again, lol, the dev is old-school for sure), or at least I wasn't able to make it work, and I read it was buggy, but I'll give it a try.

EDIT:

Confirmed. You cannot no longer save. Sucks.

 

[Melan]

Despair not, those micro-issues are getting fixed Next Friday.

 

[CryptRat]

I completed the game, thought it was alright. I never got neither really bored nor really enthusiastic about the game.

The art style is good and I like the look and animation of the playable characters yet the ratio is too much in favor of dull environment and NPCs compared to colourful ones for my taste.

Music a bit unequal but rather good.

The story is mostly boring, I wanted to see ogres, giants and sorcerers taking half of a colourful screen of various fantasy landscapes, what I got is potatoes in various clothes and a modern school part, the sense of adventure and fantasy fairy tale were clearly lower than in other games in the series to me.

The characters grimacing, launghing or jumping and screaming from fear is a bit taken to a minimum too, I wanted more of that. All NPCs (but at least not the ones you're playing) are just bored and upset, that's super boring during some parts.

Very few puzzles make good use of the three or even two characters and the interactions are not crazy enough, in this aspect like in others the game feels a bit too much like just another adventure game rather than a Gobliiins one to me. Yet some interactions are funny and the puzzles are fun to solve, and I mean more fun to solve than average. Absolutely no level stands out like for example the black&white one in Goblins 3 though'. Anyway the part where you're flat which is the most original one might also be the best one. Also all item mixing you would do inside the inventory is automatic, that's a weird decision, these are generally fun interactions.

The very first Gobliiins is a mix of colourful traditional fantasy fairy tales and childish cartoon jokes which is what I like the most, the series did evolve but at this point this game is kind of none of that and more like any other fantasy adventure game. I'm looking at screenshots from Gobliins 2 to be sure I'm not just rambling, and no I'm not, clearly a different kind of atmosphere and characters to meet.

Not sure if the game is a good game, not sure if it's a worthy Gobliiins successor either, but it's fun enough, I'll buy the next installement on day 1 again especially at this price.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

shouldn't this be named "gobl(-i)ns 5"?

i played only the third one, it was a lot of fun to watch but some puzzles were extreme/insane, almost impossible to figure out and/or required a hundred attempts to get them right.

 

[Don Peste]

Gobliins 6 (timestamped):

 

[Darth Roxor]

If there's Fingus, there'd better be Winkle too.

 

[Zoo]

It has a Steam page now.

 

[Arbiter]

How long is the game compared to Goblins 2?

 

[Arbiter]

The ship reminds me of the third part.

There was also a sunken ship in Goblins 2. Is that a staple of the series? Were there any ships in Goblins 1 and Woodruff and the Schnibble?

 

[CryptRat]

How long is the game compared to Goblins 2?

It's similar, roughly 10 hours.

 

[Arbiter]

I've been thinking about it for a while now that a max resolution of 640x480 is actually preferable for a lot of games

How does the game work with widescreen monitors? Black bars on the left and right?

 

[El Presidente]

I've just started E3M2, and one thing this game has made me realise is how much I've missed absurd adventure game puzzles.

People nowadays will often say 'it has logical puzzles!' to praise various adventure games, but quite honestly, I haven't played one with absurd ones - or rather, puzzles that are logical within the absurd confines of the game world as presented - for so long that I've forgotten how hilarious these can get, and how much they can get your noggin joggin' vis a vis 'logical' ones that more often than not just end up predictable.

You VILL use ze key on ze door and you VILL be happy

 

[Don Peste]

In reality, the abandonware concept is not legal, unless the authors have been dead for at least 70 years. It's just tolerated. I hope Woodruff will be re-released soon, as it's due to appear on a few platforms.

This was posted 3 weeks ago, and Pierre is so fucking Gilhodes I don't know what the fuck this actually means.

 

[Sordid MCA/Prosper Hybryd]

I'd play a Woodruff sequel.

 

[zapotec]

woaa woodurff and the scnihhle of azhmut

 

[JarlFrank]

French solo game developers named Pierre are such adorable little weirdos

 

[El Presidente]

Release Goblins 5 on GOG goddamnit

 

[negator2vc]

Release Goblins 5 on GOG goddamnit

The game was first released on itchio DRM free so what's the rush for a GOG release?

 

[OracleX]

tnx to this topic I found out there was a part 5 (guess a part 4 exist too?).
Directly went to his Itch.io's page to buy it. So for me it still counts as first day purchase!

Storytime!;

Gobliiins 3 and Woodruff were my first 2 (non shareware) CD-ROM games I got gifted.
That day holds a special place in my heart as I had to pick a game and couldn't choose which.
Guess my folks sow the struggles, so I came home with both. luv ya mum, dad!
Great games, with good memories attached

Fin