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[Adventure Byte]

Welcome to the devlog for Goblin Frontier!

Goblin Frontier is an open-ended adventure RPG game which focuses on exploration, base building, and survival in the harsh wilderness of a mysterious land. The game seeks to bring together the excitement of adventure games such as the Legend of Zelda with the satisfaction and reward that can be felt in Harvest Moon games or Stardew Valley when you create a homestead out of a once overgrown and wild piece of land.

The game will allow for houses and farms to be built by the player, these can even become home for both animals and NPCs alike. Crops will need to be planted and harvested if one expects to survive on the Frontier.

I also plan on making it fully playable cooperatively with a friend on the same machine so you don’t have to adventure alone!

The game features procedurally generated terrain so that you will always have a chance to experience something new and discover interesting locations. The frontier will be full of unique, handcrafted places and you will never know what lies around the corner!



Follow the devblog here or on goblinfrontier.com, subscribe to our email newsletter, and follow @AdventureByte and @GoblinFrontier on twitter for updates!

Everyone is welcome to join the official Discord server

Let me know what you think and feel free to discuss what you like about these types of games!

[Davi Vasc]

Love the Link's Awakening vibes, nice work    Looking forward to seeing more!

[foofter]

I love all the Harvest Moon-inspired games on here lately, and I always fantasized about co-op Harvest Moon! AND I like the simple, bright, graphics of yours. Good luck! Looking forward to updates.

[JobLeonard]

Yeah the general rise of games that are more about building stuff and collaboration is kinda heartwarming. Local coop sounds like fun too!

[Adventure Byte]

Thank you all very much for the support!  It really means a lot and I appreciate the interest.

I wanted to show off a quick update for you so here is a screenshot to celebrate working splitscreen!



Stay tuned for more screenshots this weekend and feel free to let me know what you think!

[michelmohr]

Charming visuals, I'd love to see it with a beautiful UI.

[Ninety]

Posting to follow, looks cool!

[Acius]

Bah, it has all the magic words. Following. This looks awesome.

[Adventure Byte]

This week I have been experimenting with weather effects and I wanted to show off one of my favorites. Weather is something I hope will make the game world come to life. As you explore the frontier you might find yourself caught in a thunderstorm and if you are far from the homestead, you had better hope it doesn’t last!

[Adventure Byte]

First Harvest!

Today marks the official start of functioning crops that grow over time. They also yield seeds among other resources that goblins will collect for survival on the frontier. One of the exciting parts about this system is that it allows for more crops to be added rather easily. Stay tuned for more crops!

[breakfastbat]

Wow this actually looks like something I'd be into. Following you on Twitter! What kinda overall gameplay mechanic are you going for? Something like Factorio for example? Or much more like Stardew Valley? Like how much will the RPG / exploration aspects come into play, will you have to defend your base? Will it be infinite procedural or pretty local? Will it be like Dwarf Fortress in any way? Or more of a simulation like Banished? Or a little more active like Minecraft / Terraria?

[Adventure Byte]

Wow this actually looks like something I'd be into. Following you on Twitter! What kinda overall gameplay mechanic are you going for? Something like Factorio for example? Or much more like Stardew Valley? Like how much will the RPG / exploration aspects come into play, will you have to defend your base? Will it be infinite procedural or pretty local? Will it be like Dwarf Fortress in any way? Or more of a simulation like Banished? Or a little more active like Minecraft / Terraria?

I'm glad it sounds like something you'd like to play!

I have long been a fan of Terraria and Minecraft in that you get to explore a unique world every play through, both heavily inspire Goblin Frontier. In Terraria, I really enjoy the sense of accomplishment felt after defeating a boss or getting that better tool that allows you to progress further underground. I would like to bring that sense of excitement into this game by similar means of large enemies that can be slain and dynamic events that play out in the world around you. As the player you control a single character, your very own goblin, who then interacts with the world much like in the Legend of Zelda Link's Awakening.

There will be simulation aspects to the game that dictate how other groups you meet in the world behave (both friend and foe). They may be on a mission themselves, seeking out a specific person or thing, or merely passing through on their way to the nearest town. You will be able to set up a homestead and attract settlers to it, who will then perform actions to help the homestead prosper. This would also mean defending it if it were to come under attack. The goal is to be able to create this homestead anywhere you like in the world and then see if you can make it into a settlement.

In terms of the procedural generation, the game is currently set up to create an infinite world like in Minecraft which continues in every direction, however I am experimenting with smaller worlds in order to create a more meaningful experience like in Terraria. The world generation will definitely be changing but there will certainly be large worlds to explore!

The RPG and exploration elements are planned to help bring meaning to the homestead, so you don't have this great big world but lack a sense of adventure and purpose within it. Oh, there will also be animals to befriend!

[qMopey]

Very cute! Loving the art and tiles so far. Any chance of releasing a playable demo at some point?

[RujiK]

!! NICE GRAPHICS !!!!!!!!!! (!)

Also I like the graphics because I like them.

[Adventure Byte]

!! NICE GRAPHICS !!!!!!!!!! (!)

Very cute! Loving the art and tiles so far. Any chance of releasing a playable demo at some point?

Thank you for the kind words!

I would like to release a playable demo but there are still quite a few more features I would like to put into the game before that point. Rest assured though I am hard at work on the game and will be sure to keep you all posted on the progress!

[JobLeonard]

Weather effects are cool!

How did you implement the darker colour? Just a filter, or did you manually redo the sprites?

One thing you could try: if you make the raindrops fall at different speeds it becomes more convincing (although maybe that's already happening, the low frame rate of the gif makes it a bit hard to guess) - there are simple tricks for that, like just using three layers and moving them at different speeds (it helps if the slower ones have smaller raindrops too).

There's a few nice rain animations in this old-school palette-cycling that might help as examples, although they are trying to go for more depth than you are so it would take a bit of mixing and matching to make it fit the 2D tile-mapping look:

http://www.effectgames.com/demos/canvascycle/

[foofter]

Now wait a minute, at first you said HM and Stardew, now you're saying Minecraft and Terraria...but for me those are polar opposites in terms of gameplay (scripted farming fun vs. procedural open world without scripted events or non-generic NPCs). Is your game gonna fall somewhere in between? Either way I love the graphics as I said before!

[Adventure Byte]

Weather effects are cool!

How did you implement the darker colour? Just a filter, or did you manually redo the sprites?

Thank you for the compliment and the tips! I'll see what I can do to improve upon them. To get the darker look I drew a separate semi transparent colored rectangle over the view in the room, in this case blue for the rain. In this way I can use this technique for making other effects as well!

[Adventure Byte]

Now wait a minute, at first you said HM and Stardew, now you're saying Minecraft and Terraria...but for me those are polar opposites in terms of gameplay (scripted farming fun vs. procedural open world without scripted events or non-generic NPCs). Is your game gonna fall somewhere in between? Either way I love the graphics as I said before!

Thanks! The goal is to bring the two together and land somewhere in between. I feel that some procedural generation games lack more of the handcrafted feel like the fun NPCs and events you mentioned, and I would like to combine what is great about both of those game types into one game.

[whistlerat]

The idea of a HM/SD game with the urgency and danger of Terraria/Minecraft is incredibly exciting, especially with the multiplayer aspect. I love Stardew but personally the multiplayer prospect for it doesn't appeal to me, but I like struggling in my games, and struggling in a team is the best. You don't really have many hardships or challenges in HM/SD.

Also loving the fact that the main character is a goblin, that is so great - should give you lots of room to make unique-looking buildings, come up with unusual resource requirements and industries and crafting.

And the whole build-your-homestead from the real wilderness (not just some pre-designated and size-limited patch of earth) is also awesome. Basically I love everything.

Will there be NPC goblins that live with you, or will all the occupants have to be played by humans? One of my bugbears with farming games is the necessary repetitiveness; I'd love to be able to assign tasks (like watering) to some NPCs so that I can spend time doing more interesting things.