Miguel 🦑 Sternberg
I haven't implemented choices yet but plan to do that in the future, which will really unlock the power of yarn/Chatterbox.
Having access to a rich narrative design tool like this has already sparked some great ideas for future features in this game.
For #screenshotsaturday this week, I have a mockup of a campsite area. If you discovered enough secrets on the floors before, you'll be able to bank your new items and use the camp as a shortcut/save spot. If not you can still continue on to later floors.
A thing I want to try to preserve from Druaga, or to use a more modern example, the chains of secrets in Spelunky, is the idea of an exploratory run. A session where the goal might not be to make permanent progress or win, but to poke at secrets you haven't solved yet and add to your knowledge.
Cozy little goblin camp. I wonder what's for dinner?
🐛🍳👩🍳
Didn't quite get this out in time for Screenshot Saturday, but still surprised that I managed to fully implement my mockup from last week in so little time!
Including a bunch of stuff I'd put in my "polish this later" list, which I promptly ignored and implemented.
Experimenting with using my script expression tags to give character mouth flap animations while dialogue is drawing.
Going to automate and improve this later by hooking directly into Scribble's typist object, so the mouth will also automatically close during delays mid dialogue.
Bonus thinky goblin girl.
Bluesky has started an important ship building project.
https://bsky.app/profile/spookysquid.bsky.social/post/3lxsmistgq22f
Really happy with these little action emote pop ups for examining and talking.
Is she REALLY that forgetful?
Going to dive a bit into the code for this one 🧵
I mentioned awhile back that I'd come up with an idea for a way to automate dialogue animation with basically no extra work. The above is the result!
My original plan was to just have a static open and closed version of each facial expression depending on who was talking.
Here's what the script for the new conversation looks like. A mix of native Chatterbox/Yarn and Scribble markup plus some of my own custom stuff. Details in alt text.
The real driver of all the portrait stuff is the markup:
[character_name,expression]
Which runs this GameMaker GML function.
Breaking that function down. It's designed for both flexibility and laziness.
First look for stage direction keywords. Right now that's just "exit" which lets me force a portrait to exit the screen before the conversation ends. I plan to add more.
if the typist isn't typing text this frame, it sets the mouth to the closed frame and pauses the animation, but lets the bob tween complete.
This means that the mouth flaps match up with the text typing and the result looks pretty close to hand keyed animated mouth flap without all the effort.
Obviously in a world in infinite art resources, fully animating these with proper phoneme shapes would look even better.
But realistically that's completely out of scope for a one artist game. I think this strikes a nice balance between that and just doing simple static images!
Bonus #screenshotsaturday!
After you talk to the elf you'll get this extra bit of text when examining the stone egg again.
Chatterbox makes it very easy to add little hidden bits of dialogue like this. Great library!
#goblingirlgame #gamemaker
Talkin' about something tasty!
#screenshotsaturday #monstergirl #GoblinGirlGame #pixelart #ドット絵
BUMP COMBAT!
#goblingirlgame #indiedev #gamemaker #pixelart #ドット絵 #bumpcombat
Have enough game now in #goblingirlgame that I made a little demo with a tutorial so I can throw it in front of friends.
I do a regular library work session with
@matthammill once a week, and we've been referring to this state as our respective projects being "game shaped now"
New character for #GoblinGirlGame. Why are humans so tall!?
Late night #screenshotsaturday!
Getting back to some gameplay portrait fun, adding this quick toothy grin for picking up chests and other important items.
If you're wondering, did I animate a version of this grin with all her portrait damage states, for both attacking and defending? Yes, yes I did.
Haven't posted about it, but I was able to work full time on #GoblinGirlGame over the summer thanks to a grant from Ontario Creates.🍁
I submitted my final report this week, so I'm back to balancing dev on #GoblinGirlGame with contract work. That means updates will be a little slower for awhile. Though I'm hoping to keep up the regular Screenshot Saturday posts if I can!
Been mostly doing behind the scenes work on #GoblinGirlGame this week. Stuff like refactoring most of the in game text to work with Chatterbox. So here is a set of cute cactus enemies from my "enemy ideas sketch file" for #screenshotsaturday.
Razor Shroom, the next enemy I'm animating for #GoblinGirlGame
This week I'm sharing an older mockup I haven't shared in full before for #screenshotsaturday. This is 1/2 of a two screen character respec menu you access between dungeon floors in #GoblinGirlGame
Gaze into the fire and think of home...
#screenshotsaturday #GoblinGirlGame
#indiedev #gamemaker #pixelart #ドット絵
This fall continues to do everything it can to slow down dev (RSI wheee!) so for #screenshotsaturday here's another #GoblinGirlGame early mockup I haven't posted, showing off a potential outdoor tileset for the dungeon.
For #GoblinWeek: a whole bunch of the portrait expressions I've drawn of the goblin girl protagonist for my still untitled, Tower of Druaga-like. Love drawing her so much!
Humans, officially too damn tall.
#screenshotsaturday #GoblinGirlGame #indiegame #indiedev #gamemaker
Had to add a new function to my Chatterbox/Yarn based dialogue system for this. I can now interrupt dialogue to have a character portrait perform an animation. In this case the human kneeling down to the goblin's height.
As usual here's the yarn script for this scene:
3:06 PM · Feb 14, 2026
She switch from defense to attack!
Mushrooms grow in dank dark places... like dungeons!
#screenshotsaturday #GoblinGirlGame #indiegame #indiedev #gamemaker
The feeling when you have to touch the collision code again.
#screenshotsaturday #GoblinGirlGame #gamedev #indiedev #gamemaker
Me a fool.
Clarissa | making Enigma Heart
Alexandre Marcati
Evelyn Estelle@spookysquid This is the cutest goblin I have ever seen. I love the mix of "cute" and "absolute troublemaker" energy.
She has a lot of instantly palpable personality a lot of RPG characters lack.
Followed to see future updates.
@spookysquid Would definitely play this game.
While looking trough your profile I noticed that you also developed They Bleed Pixels. I played it, excellent atmosphere. To the point that it was a bit too much for me, so I didn't finish it.
And now that I looked at your projects, I'm heartbroken about Guerrilla Gardening Seeds of Revolution. I hope you manage to make it one day.
JulieR
Ratsnake Games 🔞
Lyons
Dave Dawkins (D. Harrigon)The bangs *chef's kiss*
Farbs@spookysquid Soz that got a little harsh :)
I've worked with a handful of people who _did_ refuse to learn source control, or do any asset integration or even run the game, and that always became a huge drain on everyone else.
The worst were the people who'd endlessly argue and debate design, only for you to realise they hadn't actually played the build and were just banging on about the vague imagined version in their head.
@Farbs Wow that sounds like an absolute nightmare.
I can't imagine having access to the game and not actually playing builds. I've often been in the opposite situation when doing contract art, making all the assets but unable to play them in game, and just kinda hoping it's all coming together ok.