Miguel ๐ฆ SternbergFor #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!
#GoblinGirlGame #pixelart #ใใใ็ตต #indiedev #monstergirl
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:
Because Chatterbox custom functions trigger as soon as the next line of dialogue is received this required a bit of an awkward rewrite of my system, but I think it'll be worth it. Opens up the possibility for some fun performances in the future that use "gestures" in more dramatic ways.
3:06 PM ยท Feb 14, 2026
3:06 PM ยท Feb 14, 2026
She switch from defense to attack!
I'd usually add a bit of follow through/secondary animation to something like this, but since this has to run forwards and backwards at multiple speeds (sword drawing speed is based on a stat!) that wouldn't work.
Getting ready to switch back to goblin girl game play stuff soon, and figured getting in one of the gameplay portraits I've been thinking about for months would be a good step in that direction.
Mushrooms grow in dank dark places... like dungeons!
#screenshotsaturday #GoblinGirlGame #indiegame #indiedev #gamemaker
These were a "happy accident" addition to the game. I'm in the middle of adding mobile monster mushrooms at the moment, but realized while testing that I only needed a couple lines of code to also have regular variety mushrooms that act as walls you can destroy with your sword.
There are some other super easy to implement variations on this idea I'm going to add soon, mostly just need to draw the art!
The feeling when you have to touch the collision code again.
#screenshotsaturday #GoblinGirlGame #gamedev #indiedev #gamemaker
"I'll do bump combat! How hard could it be?"
Me a fool.
Me a fool.
At some point I need to do a detailed breakdown of how I'm handling #GoblinGirlGame 's bump combat. The unique needs of Druaga style maze gameplay combined with the fact that in bump combat, attack hit-boxes and character hurt-boxes are a single shared box has been an interesting design challenge.
A small part of that is that every attack has it's own separate I-frame counter. That's why in the video above you see her flinch twice, then a pause while the I-frames run down for each of the spike walls, then two flinches again as she becomes vulnerable to each again.
Hitting the spikes is technically considered combat since every bump is a round of combat regardless of whether the player or enemy/hazard is visibly attacking. The goblin is just bump attacking with a 0 damage attack and the spikes with a 1 damage attack.
The feeling when you wake up and completely destroy that pesky collision bug.
#screenshotsaturday #GoblinGirlGame #gamedev #indiedev #gamemaker
It's funny the contrast between how low-key a screenshot Saturday video can be vs how productive the work behind it was.
Eg. This week's simple spiked barrier represented:
That'll be a big head start on some much more complex enemies I have planned for the future, plus allows for a bunch of simpler enemies and traps I hadn't even planned for.
Made a little zoo to test out enemy pathing for my #GoblinGirlGame!
I don't want most monsters to block each other's movement, but I also really want to avoid long periods where they occupy the same tile. So I came up with a few tricks to avoid that!
Bonus version with some debug visualization turned on. I like that each monster type already feels pretty distinct just from how they move around the map.
Mushrooms can kill! Learn the signs!
Proper fungi identification can save your life. ๐โ ๏ธ
#GoblinGirlGame #screenshotsaturday #gamemaker #indiedev #gamedev
Smart goblins know when to come in swinging, and when to use their shield!
#screenshotsaturday #GoblinGirlGame
#gamemaker #indiedev #gamedev
The initiative stat determines how quickly you swap between attack and defense.
This can have a big effect on how easily you can take out some enemies!
#screenshotsaturday #GoblinGirlGame
#gamemaker #indiedev #gamedev
Doing a double Saturday post today because these two mechanics are so linked. Getting missile attacks and shields in has been a big milestone I've been looking forward to. Up until now there wasn't much risk to constantly running and attacking. Now you have to be strategic!
Also in big, kinda related news, you can now play the NES version of Tower of Druaga if you have Switch online!
#GoblinGirlGame is more inspired by the newbie / home console friendly, PC-Engine remake of Druaga, while the NES version is closer to the original arcade game.
Just remembered I'd started pixeling a mocking up for a Cave Noire-like a few years back. Some of the ideas I had for this are ending up in #goblingirlgame now.
Also I guess I've been itching to create a micro dungeon game of some sort for over half a decade now?๐ฌ
The dawning horror that this probably would have been a much more manageably scoped project. Too late now!
Didn't manage to have a #GoblinGirlGame screenshot Saturday ready this week. But just made a big improvement to my object spawning system. Can now easily do stuff like spawn a bunch of mushrooms in specific locations and have 2 of them randomly be monster mushrooms.
Everything can be set up for stuff like this in the room editor without needing to write any custom code. I really want to avoid having to write a custom level editor and have had a surprising amount of luck figuring out tricks to leverage GameMaker's built in editor to act a lot like one.
Made new hint screen dioramas for #GoblinGirlGame and decided the hint screen intro needed some JUICE!
#screenshotsaturday #GoblinGirlGame #gameui #gamemaker #indiedev #gamedev
Getting some playback issues with that video for some reason, also the downside of posting video of a screen intro that fades from black is that the thumbnail is just a black screen.
So here's a close up of that new diorama!
Posting another recent #GoblinGirlGame hint screen diorama for #screenshotsaturday.
I deliberately designed the side tower to have multiple "theatrical stages" I could pose the characters on and it seems to be working well so far!
Here's the close up of that hint screen diorama.
Remember! "A healthy goblin, is a stealthy goblin!"
#GoblinGirlGame #screenshotsaturday #monstergirl #pixelart #gamedev
Long week, sleepy goblin.
#screenshotsaturday #GoblinGirlGame #indiedev #gamemaker #pixelart
Introducing the treasure moth!
Acquire this little friend to help you locate secret chests when they spawn off screen.
Cute little insect buddy!
๐คค .oO( I wonder what it tastes like?)
Oh no. That is WAY too many mushrooms!
Designed a new level, which also means I need a new riddle diorama screen! Close to finishing up a modest #GoblinGirlGame demo for #torontogamesweek
I hadn't originally intended these as a way to foreshadow the upcoming level visually, but turns out they can also do that!
I'm going to be sending out a Spooky Squid Games newsletter about Summer events in the next week and plan to include some writing about the inspiration behind #GoblinGirlGame as well.
Subscribe if you want some in depth Goblin dev insights!
Almost forgot because I'm eager to run off to TCAF. Detail of the diorama section for smaller screens!
AHHHHHHHHHHH! I got Goblin Girl Game fan art over on Bluesky! Sharing it here so y'all can see it!
Original artist is DollBlank here's a link to the post.
https://bsky.app/profile/dollcomics.bsky.social/post/3mnps6rqqrk2l
There's also a 3D rotation video!
https://bsky.app/profile/dollcomics.bsky.social/post/3mnpsa6gmn22l
"Yaaaaaaaaaaaawn!"
Super sleepy goblin!
#screenshotsaturday #GoblinGirlGame
#monstergirl #indiedev #pixelart #gamedev #goblin
Now that the full yawn->sleep->wake animation sequence is finished this is the longest portrait animation yet! Most of what I have left for gameplay portraits are longer sequences with bigger pose changes like this, so may not stay the longest!
Really feeling that sleepy goblin energy but I'll be at the Indie Game Emporium today for #TorontoGamesWeek2026 selling merch from our previous games Russian Subway Dogs and They Bleed Pixels today!
Allen Gardens 4pm - 9pm
(Goblin Girl Game demo secretly playable if you ask!)
Anne O'neam@spookysquid This looks like it was made in Heroforge! Heroforge is pretty cool.
@anneoneam Huh! I haven't seen Heroforge before, if it was created with that I'm impressed by the flexibility it must have.
@anneoneam wow yeah poking at Heroforge it's super impressive!
@spookysquid It's awesome! I bought two models from them, one that I'm still using in a Pathfinder campaign.
Eniko Fox