Goblin Trail by tukisboolukis
Goblin Trail
Welcome to Goblin Trail!
The prince's gold mine has been beset by goblins for weeks. The miners' only hope is the safe delivery of a shipment of defenses from the city. Watch out, the road to the mines is poorly maintained and crawling with greedy, green goblins!
PLAY: https://tukisboolukis.itch.io/goblin-trail
Load the wagon and set out for the mines. The prince's gold supply depends on you! If you can feed the miners, they'll grant you some of the gold they've dug up. The city merchants will trade gold for upgrades to your cart. You'll need them and some strong oxen, if you're going to haul the defensive supplies out to the mines in time to protect the workers.
Controls:
W & S: Move up and down to avoid obstacles
A & D: Pan the camera to look ahead or behind
Spacebar: Charge / Exit Settlement
Left Click: Shoot arrows
Right Click: Pick up objects
Tab: Toggle UI in cities
Drag objects into the cart to load it. It's critical to reload cargo into the moving wagon if it's knocked out on the journey! Only an empty wagon will take damage from impacts. The ox will always pull the cart forward, but can be steered. Many things can slow the wagon down. Be careful that you don't let the goblins catch up with you.
GOAL
Deliver cargo worth at least 10 food, 10 defenses, and 10 arms to ensure the mine's self sufficiency in the face of the goblin menace.
Haul the ore back from the mine to get gold you can spend on upgrades. More weight capacity is always good!
CREDITS
Tukis Boolukis: Code, Game Design
The Smell of Oxygen: Art, Sound, Game Design
RESOURCES
Godot 3.5.2
Aseprite
Bitdragon
BFXR
Audacity
| Link | https://github.com/tukisboolukis/Delivery |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/goblin-trail |
Ratings
| Overall | 377th | 3.765⭐ | 53🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 626th | 3.39⭐ | 52🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 454th | 3.5⭐ | 52🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 417th | 4.08⭐ | 52🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 423th | 3.94⭐ | 52🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 457th | 3.41⭐ | 52🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 517th | 3.209⭐ | 45🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 555th | 3.574⭐ | 49🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 74🗳️ | 98🗨️ |
Also it was a bit frustrating to try and return fallen boxes and shoot arrows at the same time, but I understand that that is a core mechanic that makes this game unique and makes it engaging to play!
Would love to see what a final product could look like.
Things that I liked:
- Needing to balance your inventory and decide between delivery vs defense.
- Earning upgrades for the wagon. Although I wasn't sure what "Oxen" did.
- Delivering gold on the way back
Things that could've been better:
- I was stuck in the beginning for a bit not knowing what to do. I tried to click on everything, press tab, and nothing was happening. Took me a bit to realize I needed to right click to pick up stuff. I would suggest displaying more of the controls in the game, especially since there are quite a few of them. Maybe draw an outline around the interactable objects to differentiate between static art vs interactable, and show the interact button when hovered.
- I didn't like that I needed to pick up the coins after killing the goblins. The cart is going so fast that it feels like I don't have time to at all unless I drive onto the grass. Maybe add a slowdown button, or just make coin pickup automatic.
- Unsure how I feel about the delay in the shooting. It just felt a little clunky, especially with multiple archers. I wonder if maybe a hold down to charge up arrow control scheme would work better. Also I didn't really like the press A/D to pan the camera, I think it's too much cognitive load and doesn't really need to be in the game. Worrying about dodging rocks, fighting off goblins, picking up dropped loads, is already enough.
Overall, nice job! Liked the art style and aesthetic too :)
I agree with @francis that picking up the gold didn't feel right. Maybe this was more of a problem since I was playing fullscreen?
The inventory system was cool, but took a second to understand. I liked how different things had different stats and you got to decide what to take.
I'm sure that if u'll add some music/sounds the game will be even better!
There is a notable visual bug as well right now where if you try Hardmode and die, the box appears unchecked, but remains in effect on future runs until you toggle it again. That mode IS very hard.
I like the pixel art and the sound effects.
It took me a while to figure out what I was supposed to do, and I still didn't totally understand how it worked. I think I wanted more challenge in deciding what to put on the cart. There seems to be a tradeoff of having more people to defend it vs cargo, which is nice.
The overall idea has a lot of potential if you wanted to expand it even further (routes to different cities, etc.)
Nicely done!
Having to avoid obstacles on the road while also aiming at and retrieving coins from goblins created a hectic but fun experience during each trip. It's cool how you can recover dropped resources if you're quick enough to grab them and plop them back in the cart before they get left behind. Not a fan of the camera controls though. It feels unintuitive having W/S for moving the cart but A/S for the camera. perhaps the camera could be moved based on the mouse cursor's position?
Finally, the presentation is also really good. The pixel art is great and has some nice detailed animations. Having the cart be dragged slightly between the movement of the bison was a nice touch. The music and sound effects are great and are used well.
I died once when I realized I accidentally overloaded the cart and couldn't bring enough archers, and then the second time I got through it :)