Goblins and Grottos

this is the closest thing to MarioMaker that we have on PC, and for that reason I give it 10/10.
It's not perfect, but it's cool, and I wish there were more games like this, with levels that you can make and share with your friends.

Cute art but tries too hard to be funny, the cringe is real on this one. The physics are terrible and floaty which is a dealbreaker since pixel art platformers require a solid and snappy engine/gameplay to be fun.

I regret buying this and not refunding it in time. So, to punish myself, I got all of the achievements. It sucked, don't do it yourself. This game pissed me off. The platforming is awful and the physics are awful. Your character moves way too slow. Don't buy this game. There's a reason it's obscure. The art style is pleasant, but doesn't save the game. Spend your money someplace else, this game is awful. 3/10

This game is one of those where you can play through it once and laugh at the jokes and get through the normal route of the game with minimal head scratching, but then go back for secret areas which will take you a fair bit longer to find. I really like how it plays with platformer conventions, and with the exception of one part which was kind of dev hell levels of unintuitive the game gave a nice sense of satisfaction after working them out. I'd defo say buy it on a sale if you just wanna try it out, but if you're the type that likes level editors and the bonus content thereof then it's well worth the full price.

It is a cute concept, and humourously executed, but it failed to hold my attention, unfortunately. I keep thinking I will go back and give it another go, but I never do. Maybe someday.

Possibly worthwhile at a deep discount (likely the circumstances under which I bought it) but probably not at full asking price.

Had a fair bit of potential, but I just found it to be 'meh.'

A tedius physics platformer with floaty controls. The concept of the game is a lot more appealing than its execution.

Life as a mob in a MMORPG

This game is pure charm! Some puzzles can get somewhat frustrating and the fact that everything shatters into a million pieces and then hinders your movement is the biggest gripe I have with this game. That being said I still love it.

If you played MMORPGS then I think you will enjoy the banter that comes from the heroes even if it's a little corny. There's nothing much else to say. It's a pretty basic platformer with the usual puzzles, only the setting is what separates it from the rest and like I said the charm is off the charts (at least for me).

The map editor function is a bonus.

Reasonably high quality indie graphics, sound, and concept disguise a poorly coded frustrating mess. A classic example of a team of developers that doesn't understand the difference between challenge and difficulty. Don't be fooled by the slick trailer -- the story is thin on the ground and the voice acting is a straight-up misdirect. Half the time speech bubbles are triggered off screen where you can't even see them.

Loved it. It's puzzles are very fun and grow in complexity as the story progresses. The plot is also fun. I recommend taking your time to do the extra puzzles to find muffins that are not required to unlock the door to the next levels. I only wish the story campaign was longer.

Seriously, who puts limited respawn checkpoints in a game like this? Half of the respawn locations are directly in the line of fire resulting in multiple deaths before I could move. The game seems alright but this is such a bad design choice I don't know if I'll be able to finish the thing.

It's a physics-based puzzle platformer. While the images/videos might hint towards a slightly more open-worldish type affair, the levels themselves are fairly straightforward with the exception of side areas you can muck around with for the sake of increasing your score... Which is just a score, there doesn't appear to be anything interesting associated with the number other than that deeply satisfying feeling of watching something get bigger because of you.

...*ahem*.


Now, from my handle and profile picture, you might presume I have a certain appreciation of all things goblinoid. This is true. I suppose I just feel a natural sense of connection with small, green, warty little beasts that are regularly and often deservedly reviled... So seeing a game where you play as a goblin, surrounded by other goblins, beating up entitled tin-can heroes using deviously improvised traps and pitfalls felt like Steam had finally answered my prayers and delivered an indie title that wasn't completely terrible. The charming art style only added to that impression.

The problem is... The art style is pretty much the one good thing here. The player controls are manageable once you get used to them, certainly, but there's always the occasional hiccup associated with being something that tries to obey the fickle laws of video game physics. The main problem arises from the fact that you don't have quite as much, if any, control over everything else in the game that is also having issues trying desperately to not exist in the same physical space as something else.

Dragging a massive boulder will of course be slow going, until the boulder suddenly and inexplicably flips into the air and sails over your head if you're lucky, or onto it if you're unlucky. Crates and barrels will sometimes be perfectly obedient, other times they will bounce just high enough to count as being lethally dangerous when they touch you again.

Unpredictable, bizarre and frequent deaths are really just part of the fun with doing anything in a game with a physics engine though, and the game is kind enough to have a mercifully short turnover time in regards to respawning.

However, you can't just run around willy-nilly and smash your bristled little green head against the puzzles until you find the right solution, despite several of them only being solveable by doing just that.

The reason you can't use trial-and-error is that, first of all, respawn checkpoints are limited. I mean this in the sense that you can only respawn at a specific checkpoint a certain number of times, after which you get sent back to the last checkpoint before that one, and so on until you're respawning at the very start of the level again.

This doesn't make the game more difficult or challenging, it just makes it more tedious. The only thing you have to do is just run and jump a bit more through old territory to get back to where you were, only to die to the same puzzle again and have to make the trek one more time. Or, if your luck's particularly foul, you get sent to a checkpoint that was before a point-of-no-return, so you actually CAN'T get back to where you were and need to restart the whole level from scratch.

Second, even if you don't have a particularly fatal puzzle at hand, it is entirely possible in far too many circumstances that you end up accidentally pushing something too much or not pushing it enough, in which case the thing you needed for the other thing gets irretrievably jammed into some spikes somewhere, and you have to start the level over since no amount of blood sacrifice will make the spike-gods relinquish their prize of a small throwable pebble.

Now, again, there's a chance for redemption here. Games with puzzles that can lock down like that will generally have fairly short levels and a quick way of resetting the puzzles so you can give it another try... Not so in Goblins and Grottos. The game shows off its really quite wonderful art style by having these large, sprawling maps for you to explore and maneuver around... Which is great in and of itself, and was really what I was looking for. The problem is when you combine that with tricky puzzles that can permanently stick themselves to the point where you need to do all the exploration all over again. This is particularly irritating when the only reason things got borked was because the physics engine shat itself while doing a routine calculation, and sent something inexplicably flying (which, let's face it, is one of the biggest reasons we love physics engines in games).


The game basically needs to decide what it is... Is it a casual, quick little puzzle platformer with difficult trial-and-error puzzles? Or is it a slightly more open exploration game for fiddling around? Trying to combine the two just results in a puzzle platformer that takes too long to get anywhere and that you're too scared to explore for fear of accidentally jamming the system again. Considering the game has already been released and doesn't even bear the cautionary label of "Early Access", I think it's fair to assume that Goblins and Grottos isn't going to be making any particularly big changes to its fundamental gameplay anymore.


I really, really wanted to like this... I really did. Again, the art style is fantastic, and the humor wasn't nearly as irritating as it potentially could have been... But it's all just a bunch of polish on a game that isn't there.

You can't make a game that requires tight controls and exact reactions, then throw in a chaotic physics engine to make things interesting. You can't make a puzzle that demands trial and error, and then punish the player for not getting it right the first time.


On the plus side, the game does have a map editor... So I guess you could just make your own maps that have nothing to do with how the rest of the game runs, and then just marvel at how pretty it is.

I tried to like this game , I really did. But i cannot recommend it.

At its core it is a platformer with push puzzles , traps and physics.
Problem is , the difficulty stems not from the game design but rather from the lack of it.
Some puzzles require you to jump on chains but the chains move without logic , sometimes catapultig you randomly around the room , into spikes.
There are purple mushrooms that act like springs , but they seem to ignore gravity and intertia and just catapult you as they will into spikes.
The final straw was a room of cannon enemies , their shots bounce like a pool ball , completely unpredictable , and explode on top of that.

I've had the broken mechanics work in my favor at times when i tried to push a treasure chest up a lift to distract some knights , it got stuck , bounced off a wall and crushed both of them.
Another time a cannonball took out three enemies for no reason , they all just bounced into one another and died without taking any fall damage.

If you can forgive frustrating mechanics the concept is unique enough to check out , but right now , as far as I am concerned , the challenge is not designed as much as a chaotic physics engine that doesn't know whether it's coming or going.

I picked up this game for about $10 which I think is a fair price. I love the concept of being the anti-hero, and found the enemy players banter humorous. The puzzles are interesting and rewarding when solved.
I died a lot, many times from things I had no control over, or at first had no idea what hit me. My logitech gamepad works, but with the game it is stuck in permanent sneak mode, so I couldn't use it, which was a big let down. At one point a clicked a lever and got ported outside of the map, so I had to restart the level. For me the biggest issue is the pour framerate I got on the Elf Queen level. If I can run games like ESO at 60fps I should certainly be able to run this game without a hiccup.
Overall I give the game a 6 out of 10. The concept is great, the puzzles are intersting, the graphics suit it well, the story is funny, but the coding needs work.

My measure of a great game is when it's buggy as hell, and seemingly unfinished in others, but it's still so original and fun you can't stop playing it. As of writing this, they're on v 1.0.4 and, it's my favorite new platformer since Broforce.

Unlike BroForce or most other platformers, don't go into this one expecting to massacre enemies. I mean, you do massacre enemies (and friends) but in a long, drawn out sort of way, because you play as a tiny goblin with no weapons and only you Spiderman-like ability to cling to walls. (you're so weak, you can't even open up doors) It's basically Trapt or Tecmo's Deception, in platformer format.... with muffins.
There are pretty much only three ways to kill something in this game, crush them, make them fall, or blow them up. Every enemy in the game will one-hit kill you, but lucklily you can endlessly respawn at the beginning of the level or from restore statues scattered throughout (which gradually wear out and break, encouraging you to not screw up too often)

Pros:

* Fun stealth/trap-based platformer, where you play as the weakest monster in the dungeon.

* Very open ended exploration in a dungeon feels bigger than it is. There are lots of path choices, and it doesn't feel like the game locks you into a set course or holds your hand. You just keep exploring until you find the exit. It is possible to totally screw yourself by pushing the wrong crate or failing to take out an enemy with a barrel of explosives, but you can always reset and try again, and *most* of the time when you spectacularly screw something up, you're only depriving yourself of a cool secret area and some tasty muffins.

* Incredibly funny, and absolutely chocked full of secrets. Watching the other denizens of the dungeon interact is often nearly as much fun as playing the game itself.

* You can ride a sheep *AND* design your own levels!

Cons (as of v.1.0.4):

* Controls are slow and annoying in parts, especially with the "cling" and "throw" buttons on a controller, that can't be remapped (currently). It's also very hard to anticipate where objects will land with the throw mechanics, and there's no visual wind-up "tell" that you are actually about to throw an object, or how far it's going to travel. It would also be nice to be able to throw/drop while clinging, or when standing next to other objects. (being unable to throw or drop a bomb close enough to a brick you want to destroy because there happens to be a brick on the floor.) There's also no way to bring up the menu or restart the level from the controller.

* Physics/graphics fails. Mainly invoving projectiles, chains, and bombs. Nothing game-breaking but you do sometimes end up with explosions or projectiles flying off to get stuck in walls, or a perpetual sparking bomb animation that never goes away.

An interesting little game and a nice way to while away an hour or so. Puzzle games are fun and they can be played in short little bursts. The game play still requires a bit of work (swinging, etc) but the humour is there and that makes up for it; for now. Hoping to see a bit more work and an even more polished product soon.

Great original idea, but overall game a bit poor designed. One button/key to interact, attack, switch items, trigger switches, and light barrels doesn't work in a game which seems like it's designed to be quick footed.

What seems to be nice pixel art gets lost in big bland surroundings with lots of unused space which only exists to be trekked around.

Shame.

Good premise poor execution, the idea of the game is good but so far most of the levels have been rather dull add to that the rather crappy controls meaning you'll end up dying way more to bad controls then to any actual threats in the game.

Also despite recognising my controller i couldnt actually use it as it didn't respond to any input made using my controller despite showing it actively was recognising it.

I've been obsessed with this game for the past week or so, and I think it's high time I tried to put into words all the things I enjoy about it.

Goblins and Grottos is an engrossing puzzle-platformer with a sense of humor that will appeal to anyone who is familiar with MMO culture or fantasy tropes. You play as the nameless Goblin, whose entire family was slaughtered by a level 100 paladin who appears to have been power-levelling his n00b buddy. On your quest for revenge you'll make your way through caves, dungeons, and forests inhabited by adventurers that call to mind every sort of MMO player you can think of -- and all of them are trying to kill YOU for phat lewtz and xp. You're only a weak little unarmed goblin, unable to gain levels like the adventurers do (and they do -- if you die they gain experience and can level up and gain better abilities!) and unable to really fight back except through your own cunning, using the environment to either make your escape or defeat those who would hunt you.

The traps work well and are incredibly satisfying to deploy. They can either be very simple -- a spike pit or a lever that drops a barrel, for instance -- or more complex -- knocking down a chest of loot in order to distract a knight and set him up for something else. Right now there are stationary spikes, lever-operated spikes, flame traps, boulders, slippery surfaces, arrow traps, water, chains to swing from and climb, and probably a lot of things that I'm forgetting (plus more coming all the time, as the game is still in Early Access and the developers are actively working on it and update it regularly). In addition, there are explosive kegs, throwable bombs, an ever-expanding variety of adventurers who attack you in many different ways, and a ton of props and pieces that are moveable or even throwable (small rocks, skulls, boxes, barrels, tables, etc.). There are potentially multiple ways of completing levels, and your final score is based on how fast you complete it and how many points you earn (or lose) by defeating adventurers, eating muffins, or dying along the way.

The Official Story is currently ten levels long, but will clearly be continued in the future (as I said above, the game is currently in Early Access). I found it a good mix of entertaining and challenging, and I'm eager to see where the simple but fun story goes.

The real meat of the game, though, is the custom level editor, which is a blast to fool around with. It's fairly simple to figure out, and you can make your own levels as simple or complex as you want to, then upload them for other people to play. All the tools used in the official story are available to you here, including music, dialogue, and even a cutscene editor in case you want to make a more complex story for your levels. There is already an active community uploading custom maps, and I had a ton of fun playing them all and then trying to perfect my approach to each of them. Some levels are quick and simple and give you the same rush as playing a game of Sonic the Hedgehog or just screwing around in Assassin's Creed -- you know what I mean, that thrill of just running through as quickly as possible, trying to hit all the right spots in just the right way to shave fractions of a second off of your time. Others are intended to be story-focused, or silly impossible challenges, or my favorite: incredibly difficult, punishing levels designed to push your skills to the max. The only regret I had was that I ran out of maps before I ran out of desire to play more, but players and the developers are sharing more maps all the time. I'm working on one of my own right now, and the design and building process is very satisfying.

The music in this game is excellent. There aren't a ton of tracks yet, but all of them are quirky and fit the "feel" of the game perfectly. I have yet to get tired of ANY of the music, which is really important in a game like this I think, and a real accomplishment. The developers have also made the soundtrack available to you to download for free, if you are so inclined, and that's another small gesture that I really appreciate.

The sound effects are one of my favorite things. None of the characters "speak" coherently out loud -- their dialogue goes into speech bubbles, but they all make various nonsense noises (sort of like the Sims): chit-chat, alarm, chasing, dying. Each type of character has a unique sound and feel, from the brutish warrior type to the hoity-toity "speech" of the Elf Queen. I personally never get tired of listening to the wizard adventurers jabber away in the background. It's almost a shame that I have to kill them so I don't get a fireball to the face.

Overall, I absolutely would rate this game 10/10. It's addictive, with just the right blend of fun and challenge, skill and humor, good for long sessions or just a quick run-through or two. The devs have real love for their material, and it shows. The game is worth the price even in Early Access, and it's getting better all the time, with regular updates from devs and player-made maps (or maps of your own) to keep you occupied in between updates. The devs are also active on their forums, very helpful if you have any questions, and actively consider recommendations and ideas from the community.

If you like platformers, or goblins, or MMO humor, or, y'know, FUN, pick up Goblins and Grottos and give it a try.

Two thumbs up for this game. For RPing geeks like us who sometimes mindlessly slayed goblins, orcs, and monsters by the dozen, here is the situation seen from the other perspective: you get to play the little green guy, this time. So you'd better avoid the big armored adventurers who'd slice you in half in one single swing from their sword or axe and you've got to find indirect (and sometimes devious) ways to lead them to their deaths...

I like the humor of this game (some lines made me laugh out loud). The pixel art is full of charm, and what starts up as an unassuming game soon shows its subtleties. Variations and subtleties of control let you do more things in more ways than you'd think possible at first. The more I'm playing it, the more fun it gets.

It's still an early access game: you'll go through some part of the story without thinking twice and you'll be stalled for a couple of hours on some other levels.. But the developers are constantly working on it, rebalancing things, readjusting levels, fixing minor issues. They reply almost in real time on the forums and they work hard on their game levels and on their game mechanics.

So, the game is already good and it's likely to get better. If you think you're into this sort of game, you should really give this one a try... :)

When I first got this game, I was disappointed to find there was a glitch that wasn't allowing the game to open no matter what I tried. Went to the forum boards for help, and the developer themselves contacted me and fixed the problem on the spot. That's freaking awesome integrity to say the least. More to the point to anyone that reads this, games really fun, handles well, and really makes you think rather than just allow you to bumble through.