Goblin Colony is a 2D game with hand-drawn pixel graphics viewed from a top-down perspective (or a mixed top-down oblique perspective, I guess, if you want to get real technical).

As everything on the screen is a flat image (sprites), there really is no concept of mass like there would be in a 3D environment. This makes it tricky to convey a sense of depth, and things can look a bit flat (because they are).

While I’m using shades and baked-in transparency shadows for most sprites, I always wanted the environment to have a bit more depth but couldn’t find a good way of doing it without sacrificing performance. Until now.

Now all walls cast shadows, and objects get an added effect similar to ambient occlusion.

before/after

The effect isn’t final as I’m still fine-tuning the intensity, but I’m very happy with this change. I think it’s a dramatic improvement that sets the mood for exploring dank caves. Hope you like it :)

As always, thank you for your support! Until next time.

As a gamer I'm tired of all the buggy unfinished games released these days so naturally I want my own game to be as bugfree and polished as possible. As this is my first comercial release I want it to prove the quality of my work.
Bugfixing isn't fun and can also be very time consuming but obviously this is very important work.
If you're lucky it's an quick easy fix like a typo or some temporary test code left in by accident. It can also be something so obscure and rare that even replicating the conditions were the bug occurs is difficult. Also as more stuff gets added, previous code might become unsuitable. In Goblin Colony I've redesigned the combat system 3 times as an example.
Basically "fixing a bug" can take anywhere from 5 seconds to 5 years. Sometimes you might not even find the bug at all.

With that said, I'm happy to report that currently, there is 0 known bugs in the game!
Of course this doesn't mean there aren't any, but it should tell you how serious I am about bughunting.

I've also been working on the ballistas. They are the only ranged unit in the game and needs a goblin worker to operate. As such they can be quite expensive and tricky to balance. They now have true line of sight making terrain and digging potentially even more important. This could enable some interesting "tower defense"-style scenarios.

Ballista firing at the enemy across a river.

Please check out the updated store page as I've included some new gifs to showcase gameplay features.
Thank you for your interest and support!
Until next time.