Gobs and Gods - Parody goblin warband management

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2506900/view/4660751975604844580

Patch 1.1.1
- player gobs willpower decrease spells effect
- further nerf death magic
- increased athletics hp bonus
- donjon: allow entering directly to lvl 2 if lvl 1 was cleared
- fix rally perks
- increased trollish effect
- saves: making backups (to prepare safely activating autocloud)

 

[PlayerEmers]

Looks interesting and feels like bootleg battle brothers. Imma wishlist for later.

 

[Lagi]

wishlisted

 

[Yeoman]

This game is really fun and addictive. The character building is a mix of HoMM and M&M with a twist, characters are pre-assigned classes and as they level up you get semi-random choices of skills for them to learn. Every other level up, you get to pick one of six skills to learn or upgrade (up to four levels of mastery). The available skills seem to be dependent on the character's class. Learning/upgrading skills may cost resources that are semi-rare which are mainly earned through questing and exploring dungeons. There are always one or two cheap/free options among the six options you are given, but they may not be what you want for your character.

Each level of mastery of a skill provides stat bonuses, but each level also provides special abilities which have to be unlocked by visiting skill trainers for that particular level of mastery of that skill. The skill trainers are scattered throughout the world, and purchasing their services requires the same semi-rare resources mentioned previously, but each upgrade is a one-time purchase for your entire party.

For every other character level up instead of learning skills, you get a random choice of four stats/attributes to improve instead. The choices also seem tied to character class and also cost resources of varying value.

Aside from a character's class, he is pre-assigned two traits, though I'm not sure what effects most of them have. The most annoying trait has got to be the Greedy trait where a character will refuse to let go of equipped items unless they are replaced with one of the same tier or higher.

Speaking of items, the game has tons of fat loot. I can't tell if there are unique items, but the way it is handled is very good. There's a lot of variety and the frequency of getting good stuff feels just right.

The aspect of the game that I feel is lacking is party/resource attrition. It's way too cheap and easy to fully heal your party out of combat. You can camp anywhere for just a little bit of very cheap and common food, and enemies will even stay out of your party's way while they are resting. The dungeons in the game seem quite small, usually only two or three tiny floors (maybe they get deeper later on?), and you can just go outside after clearing each floor to make your party rest.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2506900/view/4506506224332364778

Patch 1.1.3
- increased god max weight && logistic effect
- fix bug with main quest showing quest start dialog several times
- feed menu: better tooltips position + allow to give more food than required, to advance "nurturing" path
- particles around chests and stairs (... to make the quest "hide item" easier to complete)
- worldmap: longer run duration
- sort inventory with most recent items first
- hire window improvement
- give more information about followed path
- lich raise dead spell: raise with half hp (instead of 1 hp)
- item prices: lower reputation impact, avoid ultra low sell prices at producing villages .
- show if current prices are higher/lower than normal.
- traps: range +1
- tradeofalljacks: move parts of apprentice perk to skill, rewrite description. (Should be clearer that it is *both* "trade" and "Jack of all trades")

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.gobsandgods.com/blog/gobs-and-gods-whats-next.html

After the release​

Gobs and Gods have been released since 3 months already​

And while the sales do not allow me to continue full-time, we have gathered a good amount of feedback from Discord and the Steam page. I have been working a lot in my free time since this summer to patch the reported issues and add quality-of-life features that were commonly requested by the community. The easy or urgent patches seem to be mostly behind us, and we can now think about the next steps.

In the coming months, there are two main areas Thierry and I want to focus on to continue improving the game:

• Improving the game balance and allowing better difficulty tuning
• Adding new content.

Game balance and difficulty tuning​

Some important feedback we received is that some players found the game a bit too easy, while others were happy with the difficulty level. We have already made a few balance patches to fix the most broken skills and correct the end-game mobs, which were not challenging enough. We are now working on the next balance patch, which will require more time to test and finalize.

But while discussing with the players asking for more challenge, it seems one key aspect is that the game puts little time pressure on the player. However some players strongly prefer the current low-pressure state. To solve these different requests, we consider adding an option for the level of “pressure”. The details are still a work in progress however.

Adding more content​

We have a few quests we did not have time to finish writing properly for the release, which we decided to postpone. There is also a batch of new items, and the “Alchimecanic” skill, which will allow to use the weird but powerful abilities of some new “half-magic, half-technological items. Finally, we also plan to make several “game start” options, each with a different bonus, malus, and starting goblins, to increase the replayability of Gobs.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.gobsandgods.com/blog/shadows-2d.html

A shader for 2D shadows​

There are basically two cheap ways to get shadows on a 2D game: prebacking the shadows in the images, or using a shader.

prebacked images​

The first solution is simple: just draw the shadows on the sprite. (Or add a specific sprite with only the object shadow.)

sprite with shadow directly on the image

This approach certainly is the simplest, but it suffers a few limitations:

• the required texture is larger, meaning a little more pressure on the GPU
• the shadow is static and cannot be changed dynamically
• it may require more work for the artist. (Or a preprocessing step in the asset pipeline.)
• it does not interact well with other shaders such as contour shaders

outline on a sprite with shadow. Actually not ugly as I expected, but I’m think that’s a bit lucky

• and finally, it does not work when the image casting the shadow is made of several sprites.

This final limitation is the main issue in the case of Gobs: all our characters are made of several sprites, for their body parts and equipped items. Like this:

A NPC components. The equipment can be looted and equipped on player’s Gobs

For this reason, I used a shader instead.

2D shadows with a Shader​

The other solution is to write a shader to compute the shadow directly on the GPU.

The basic computation is actually quite straightforward:

• on current pixel (x,y), the pixel which may cast a shadow here is located at “(x,y) - (y - yBottom) * shadowDirection”
• just read this pixel color and merge it with the current pixel to get the image with a shadow.

yBottom here is a parameter of the shader, which controls where the shadow is ‘rooted’.

This gives us a “basic” shader like this:

shader_type canvas_item;
render_mode blend_mix;

uniform float _yBottom = 0.95; // Bottom of the sprite (in UV coordinates.)
uniform vec4 modulate : hint_color;
uniform vec2 shadowDirection = vec2(0.5, 0.5);

void fragment() {

// height of the pixel
float dy = clamp(_yBottom - UV.y, 0.0 , 1.0) ;
// point casting the shadow
vec2 shadowUV = UV - dy * shadowDirection;

// read shadow-casting pixel color
vec4 shadow = vec4(modulate.rgb, texture(TEXTURE, shadowUV).a * modulate.a);

// read color of current pixel
vec4 col = texture(TEXTURE, correctedUV);

// mix current pixel with shadow behind.
COLOR = mix(shadow, col, col.a);
}

But of course, this naive shader has several issues:

• First, the shadow pixel may be outside of the texture box, and thus would not be rendered.
• then, the shadow angle with this implementation depends on the size ratio of the texture.

To solve this, I needed to expand the area where the texture is displayed in the ‘vertex’ function, and to define the shadow direction in pixel space instead of UV space. The final shader can be found on godotshaders.

Applying the shader on the Gobs​

So I could not precompute the goblins shadows because goblins are made of several sprites. But a shader is applied to a single sprite, so it shouldn’t work either, right? Indeed. But there is a workaround for that in Godot. It requires to make a new viewport, add the different components as children of the viewport, and use this viewport texture on a sprite. Setting the “shadows” shader on this sprite gives the intended result.

Sounds complicated? Of course, this introduce a bit of an overhead, but once correctly packaged it is not so bad. I have a class which looks like the ‘MultiSprite’ one below. Then I just add components as children of the multiSprite.WorldContainer , and I can set a shader on this “multisprite” just as if it was a normal sprite.

public class MultiSprite : Sprite
{
// a sprite using a viewport texture.
// Set subcomponents as children of WorldContainer to view them on this sprite.

readonly Viewport _viewport;
readonly Node2D _container;
public readonly Vector2 _size;
public Node2D WorldContainer => _container;

const int MultiSpriteSize = 256;
public MultiSprite()
{
_size = Vector2.One * MultiSpriteSize;
_viewport = new Viewport();
base.AddChild(_viewport);
_viewport.RenderTargetClearMode = Viewport.ClearMode.Always;
_viewport.RenderTargetUpdateMode = Viewport.UpdateMode.WhenVisible;
_viewport.SetProcessInput(false);
_viewport.TransparentBg = true;
_viewport.Size = _size;

_viewport.Usage = Viewport.UsageEnum.Usage2d;

_container = new Godot.Node2D();
_viewport.AddChild(_container);
_container.Position = _size / 2;

var texture = _viewport.GetTexture();
this.Texture = texture;
this.FlipV = true;
Texture.Flags = TextureFlagMipmapsAndFilter;
}
const uint TextureFlagMipmapsAndFilter = (uint)Texture.FlagsEnum.Mipmaps + (uint)Texture.FlagsEnum.Filter;

}

https://www.gobsandgods.com/blog/goblin-links.html

Goblins on Youtube​

Since Gobs and Gods release and even before, streamers have played hours of our game on youtube or twitch.

Videos in English​

• Special Caesar made to date 9 long videos of the game. Here is the first one
• 5 videos by tobsejoto
• 2 videos by PuggoReborn
• Mr.Delightful was the very first youtuber to cover Gobs and Gods, during the demo early 2024. He also made some videos after the release.
• a blind test by Lord Haywire
• a video by bad-sad
• a short test by RnRClub
• a video of the demo version by Tong Zou
• an early demo video by Wizard Worm

Videos in French​

French YouTubers have been very active and supportive! Is our humor distinctly French, or is it simply because ‘Goboulet’ sounds better in French?

• a serie of narrative “Let’s play” by Quentin Clement , roleplaying and making goblin voices. Magnificent!
• a serie of 5 videos by Xebus from Les Jeux du Cygne
• a game presentation by Jeux1d100
• a video by Fanto
• early game video by Valandryl

Other langages​

• a video in russian
• a japanese youtuber trying Gobs and Gods

In the press​

• a pre-release overview on turnbasedlovers
• a list of “battle brothers like” on turnbasedlovers

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.gobsandgods.com/blog/goblins-backgounds.html

Goblins backgrounds​

Goblins you can hire each have a background which determines the skills they can access and their initial statistics. Each background also provides a unique bonus.

Backgrounds list​

Innkeeper, Lumberjack, Tailor, Smith, Cook, Cheesemonger, Carrier, Tanner, Sculptor, Squire, King, Writer, Banker, Undertaker, Astrocartographer, Joker, Trapper, Engineer, Alchemist, Butchurgeon, Dentist, Prophet, Judge, Welder, Guard, Executioner, Knifegrinder, Jailor, Archer, Spearman, Thug, Poacher, Miner, Beggar, Witch, Minstrel, Herald, ArcaneNovice

Skills and levelling​

Each background has a list of 8 or 9 learnable skills. When a gob levels up, at each ad levels he can pick a new skill form a random subset of the skill lists of his background. Skills appearing at the start of the list have also more chance to be proposed. See also this post on reddit for more details about the skills.

Backgrounds details​

Innkeeper​

innkeeper Bonus: Can give a round of drinks once per fight, giving time units to nearby allies. Requires a beverage.

Skills:

• TradeOfAllJacks
• Trollish
• MeatMagic
• Alchemy
• Engineering
• Gun
• Athletics
• LightArmor
• Alchimechanics

Most common levelup upgrades: Max Health, Max Essence, Range Score

Lumberjack​

lumberjack Bonus: Bonus to hit when wielding a axe.

Skills:

• Axe
• Athletics
• Dodge
• LightArmor
• Shield
• Sprint
• Alchimechanics
• Prophecy
• Sadism

Most common levelup upgrades: Melee Score, Max Health, Melee Defense

Tailor​

tailor Bonus: Bonus to Dodge skill.

Skills:

• LightArmor
• TradeOfAllJacks
• Bow
• Dodge
• Alchemy
• Sprint
• CriticalStrike
• TeethMagic
• Dagger

Most common levelup upgrades: Range Score, Melee Defense, Max Essence

Smith​

smith Bonus: Bonus to hit when wielding a club.

Skills:

• Club
• HeavyArmor
• TradeOfAllJacks
• Shield
• Athletics
• Alchimechanics
• Engineering
• Alchemy
• Trap

Most common levelup upgrades: Melee Defense, Melee Score, Max Health

Cook​

cook Bonus: Bonus to Meat magic skill.

Skills:

• MeatMagic
• Alchemy
• TradeOfAllJacks
• Club
• Prophecy
• ExoticWeapon
• Sadism
• LightArmor
• Sprint

Most common levelup upgrades: Max Essence, Melee Score, Max Health

Cheesemonger​

cheesemonger Bonus: Can Invoke a friendly cheese once per fight. Also get a bonus to hit when wielding a sword.

Skills:

• Sword
• Shield
• LightArmor
• TradeOfAllJacks
• CriticalStrike
• Sprint
• Athletics
• Dodge
• Trollish

Most common levelup upgrades: Melee Score, Melee Defense, Max Essence

Carrier​

carrier Bonus: Increases MaxEncumbrance.

Skills:

• Sprint
• Athletics
• Axe
• LightArmor
• HeavyArmor
• Dodge
• Shield
• Alchemy
• Alchimechanics

Most common levelup upgrades: Melee Defense, Max Health, Melee Score

Tanner​

tanner Bonus: Attacks inflict bleeding effect.

Skills:

• LightArmor
• Dagger
• TradeOfAllJacks
• Alchemy
• Sadism
• MeatMagic
• Shield
• Trap
• Dodge

Most common levelup upgrades: Melee Score, Melee Defense, Max Essence

Sculptor​

sculptor Bonus: Bonus to Club skill.

Skills:

• Club
• Athletics
• LightArmor
• Trap
• Shield
• Dodge
• Prophecy
• Sprint
• Alchimechanics

Most common levelup upgrades: Melee Score, Max Essence, Melee Defense

Squire​

squire Bonus: Can access the ‘help’ perk, which gives time units to another Gob

Skills:

• Shield
• TradeOfAllJacks
• Spear
• Sprint
• LightArmor
• Athletics
• Trollish
• Sword
• HeavyArmor

Most common levelup upgrades: Melee Defense, Melee Score, Max Encumbrance

King​

king Bonus: King of the RockyMountain. Get a large bonus when fighting on RockyMountain

Skills:

• Dodge
• Sword
• Sadism
• CriticalStrike
• HeavyArmor
• Trollish
• Alchimechanics
• Athletics
• Sprint

Most common levelup upgrades: Melee Score, Melee Defense, Max Essence

Writer​

writer Bonus: Get a defense bonus when wearing a book or a scroll.

Skills:

• Dodge
• Dagger
• Prophecy
• Trollish
• Alchimechanics
• HeavyArmor
• CriticalStrike
• DeathMagic
• Sprint

Most common levelup upgrades: Max Essence, Melee Score, Melee Defense

Banker​

banker Bonus: Once per fight, pay 10% of your teeth to cast a powerfull lighting blast.

Skills:

• TradeOfAllJacks
• TeethMagic
• Gun
• ExoticWeapon
• Prophecy
• Sadism
• CriticalStrike
• Trap
• HeavyArmor

Most common levelup upgrades: Max Essence, Range Score, Max Health

Undertaker​

undertaker Bonus: Bonus to Death magic skill.

Skills:

• DeathMagic
• Prophecy
• Spear
• LightArmor
• Athletics
• Sprint
• Trap
• CriticalStrike
• Dodge

Most common levelup upgrades: Max Essence, Melee Score, Melee Defense

Astrocartographer​

astrocartographer Bonus: Give access to the reveal order once per fight

Skills:

• Gun
• Prophecy
• LightArmor
• Sprint
• Dodge
• Athletics
• CriticalStrike
• TradeOfAllJacks
• Alchimechanics

Most common levelup upgrades: Range Score, Max Essence, Range Defense

Joker​

joker Bonus: Random bonus at the start of each fight

Skills:

• Trollish
• Dodge
• TradeOfAllJacks
• Sadism
• Trap
• Sprint
• Alchimechanics
• LightArmor
• CriticalStrike

Most common levelup upgrades: Melee Score, Melee Defense, Max Essence

Trapper​

trapper Bonus: Bonus to Traps skill.

Skills:

• Trap
• Sprint
• Prophecy
• Axe
• Dodge
• Athletics
• LightArmor
• Shield
• MeatMagic

Most common levelup upgrades: Max Essence, Melee Score, Melee Defense

Engineer​

engineer Bonus: Bonus to Engineering skill.

Skills:

• Engineering
• TradeOfAllJacks
• Alchimechanics
• Trap
• Alchemy
• CriticalStrike
• Spear
• LightArmor
• Sprint

Most common levelup upgrades: Max Essence, Range Score, Damages Multiplier

Alchemist​

alchemist Bonus: Can feed potions from his inventory to neigboring Gobs

Skills:

• Alchemy
• TradeOfAllJacks
• Athletics
• HeavyArmor
• Gun
• Trap
• Alchimechanics
• Shield
• ExoticWeapon

Most common levelup upgrades: Max Health, Range Score, Melee Defense

Butchurgeon​

butchurgeon Bonus: Turn killed enemies into meat cubes. (up to 3 trigger per fight)

Skills:

• MeatMagic
• Axe
• Athletics
• Prophecy
• HeavyArmor
• Shield
• CriticalStrike
• Sadism
• DeathMagic

Most common levelup upgrades: Melee Score, Melee Defense, Max Health

Dentist​

dentist Bonus: Collect teeth for each killed enemy.

Skills:

• TeethMagic
• TradeOfAllJacks
• Club
• Prophecy
• Alchemy
• Alchimechanics
• Dodge
• MeatMagic
• Engineering

Most common levelup upgrades: Max Essence, Melee Score, Damages Multiplier

Prophet​

prophet Bonus: Each dodged attack recover one essence point.

Skills:

• Prophecy
• ExoticWeapon
• DeathMagic
• Bow
• TeethMagic
• Dodge
• MeatMagic
• LightArmor
• CriticalStrike

Most common levelup upgrades: Max Essence, Range Score, Max Health

Judge​

judge Bonus: Counter attack on the first attack received each round

Skills:

• Athletics
• Club
• Trollish
• CriticalStrike
• LightArmor
• Alchimechanics
• Sadism
• Dodge
• Prophecy

Most common levelup upgrades: Melee Score, Melee Defense, Max Health

Welder​

welder Bonus: Once per fight, Mend the armor of a neigbouring gob. Requires an Ingot.

Skills:

• HeavyArmor
• Shield
• Gun
• TradeOfAllJacks
• Alchemy
• Athletics
• Trap
• Alchimechanics
• Sword

Most common levelup upgrades: Range Score, Melee Defense, Max Essence

Guard​

guard Bonus: Bonus to Shield skill.

Skills:

• Shield
• Spear
• HeavyArmor
• TradeOfAllJacks
• Athletics
• Trollish
• LightArmor
• Engineering
• CriticalStrike

Most common levelup upgrades: Melee Defense, Melee Score, Max Health

Executioner​

executioner Bonus: Get time units back when dealing a killing blow.

Skills:

• CriticalStrike
• Axe
• Sadism
• LightArmor
• Athletics
• DeathMagic
• Prophecy
• Trollish
• Alchimechanics

Most common levelup upgrades: Melee Score, Damages Multiplier, Melee Defense

Knifegrinder​

knifegrinder Bonus: Bonus to damages when using a dagger, when the current encumbrance is less than half the maximum encumbrance.

Skills:

• Dagger
• CriticalStrike
• Dodge
• LightArmor
• Alchemy
• TradeOfAllJacks
• Sprint
• Prophecy
• DeathMagic

Most common levelup upgrades: Melee Score, Melee Defense, Max Essence

Jailor​

jailor Bonus: Bonus to Sadism skill.

Skills:

• Sadism
• Shield
• LightArmor
• Trollish
• Athletics
• Dodge
• Trap
• Sprint
• HeavyArmor

Most common levelup upgrades: Melee Defense, Melee Score, Max Essence

Archer​

archer Bonus: Reduced malus from obstacles when using a bow.

Skills:

• Bow
• Dodge
• Prophecy
• Sprint
• CriticalStrike
• LightArmor
• Trollish
• Athletics
• Alchimechanics

Most common levelup upgrades: Range Score, Damages Multiplier, Max Essence

Spearman​

spearman Bonus: Increased attack score with a spear on targets at distance 2.

Skills:

• Spear
• LightArmor
• Sprint
• Dodge
• CriticalStrike
• Alchimechanics
• Alchemy
• Athletics
• Prophecy

Most common levelup upgrades: Melee Score, Melee Defense, Max Essence

Thug​

thug Bonus: Increased damages with two handed weapons.

Skills:

• Club
• Sprint
• LightArmor
• HeavyArmor
• Athletics
• CriticalStrike
• Trollish
• Sadism
• Alchemy

Most common levelup upgrades: Melee Score, Max Health, Melee Defense

Poacher​

poacher Bonus: Collect meat from killed enemies.

Skills:

• Bow
• Trap
• TradeOfAllJacks
• Sprint
• Spear
• Dodge
• LightArmor
• Alchemy
• Athletics

Most common levelup upgrades: Range Score, Max Essence, Range Defense

Miner​

miner Bonus: Increased damages to armor when using a club or a hammer

Skills:

• Club
• Athletics
• Alchemy
• Shield
• Dodge
• HeavyArmor
• Sprint
• Trap
• Prophecy

Most common levelup upgrades: Melee Defense, Melee Score, Max Health

Beggar​

beggar Bonus: Once per day, this gob can escape death; and it receives a bonus to hit when it is your sole follower

Skills:

• Dodge
• Dagger
• TradeOfAllJacks
• Prophecy
• LightArmor
• Shield
• Sprint
• TeethMagic
• Trap

Most common levelup upgrades: Melee Defense, Melee Score, Max Health

Witch​

witch Bonus: Bonus to Exotic Weapon skill.

Skills:

• Prophecy
• Dagger
• TeethMagic
• TradeOfAllJacks
• DeathMagic
• ExoticWeapon
• Alchemy
• Dodge
• CriticalStrike

Most common levelup upgrades: Melee Score, Max Essence, Melee Defense

Minstrel​

minstrel Bonus: Bonus to Trade Of All Jacks skill.

Skills:

• TradeOfAllJacks
• Bow
• Dodge
• Trollish
• LightArmor
• Sword
• Sprint
• TeethMagic
• Prophecy

Most common levelup upgrades: Melee Defense, Range Score, Max Essence

Herald​

herald Bonus: Give the rallycry perk, improving the moral of demoralised allies at range 4

Skills:

• Trollish
• Prophecy
• Sprint
• Sword
• LightArmor
• Athletics
• Alchimechanics
• CriticalStrike
• Shield

Most common levelup upgrades: Melee Score, Melee Defense, Willpower

ArcaneNovice​

arcanenovice Bonus: Bonus to damages when using a staff or a wand, and wearing a mage robe.

Skills:

• ExoticWeapon
• LightArmor
• Sprint
• TradeOfAllJacks
• Alchemy
• Prophecy
• TeethMagic
• DeathMagic
• MeatMagic

Most common levelup upgrades: Range Score, Max Essence, Range Defense