Gobs and Gods

This game is like King's Bounty but with an RPG party instead of an army, and procedurally generated encounters and quests instead of fixed encounters. You build up a party of characters while fighting turn-based battles and exploring an open world with various regions of increasing enemy difficulty. - Overall Impressions: The game is highly addictive because playing it feels rewarding almost from moment to moment. You're constantly making progress and building up your characters. Even if you only have an hour to spare in a day to play the game, it feels like you can accomplish much. The character growth system, learning skills and increasing attributes feels impactful. Exploring the world is fun because you can find all sorts of small items/bonuses scattered about, and you also find traders selling good gear or skill trainers that can strengthen your characters. There's plenty of equipment for your characters and finding good equipment to loot or purchase from stores feels very balanced. 20 hours in and I often find myself with almost no money, which is a sign that the game is doing things right because there's plenty of items and upgrades that are attractive to buy and they're priced appropriately. There are plenty of difficult encounters if you play on the hard difficulty setting, which just makes you want to explore and build your characters up more to come back later and kick ass. - RPG System: You start with a max party size of four and unlock more slots as you play the game (up to 10? or 12? not sure). You recruit goblins with random combinations of a pre-defined profession/class and two traits. A character's class confers one unique perk and influences the skills and stat upgrades you can choose for the character. You cannot change a character's class. As for the traits, some of them are beneficial, but most seem to be either useless or harmful. You usually find and recruit these gobs from settlements scattered throughout the world. There are many classes, and you will only encounter some of the advanced ones in farther regions. Unlike most sandbox RPGs where only experience and gold matters, other resources such as wood and gems are required for learning and upgrading skills or buying stat upgrades. These resources are often found in dungeons, given as quest rewards, bought from time to time in shops, or simply found littered throughout the map. Every odd-numbered level of a character, you get to choose from 1 out of 6 skills to make him learn or upgrade. Some choices cost resources, some are free. There are 25 skills but each character only has 4 skill slots (a 5th unlockable slot later in the game). Every even-numbered level, you get to choose 1 out of 4 stat upgrades instead such as max HP increase or melee to-hit chance increase. The available choices for skills and stat upgrades are dependent on a character's class. There are also skill trainers scattered throughout the world that unlock perks for your skills. You need to find specific trainers for specific levels of mastery of specific skills, similar to Might & Magic games. These trainers only unlock perks/bonuses attached to skills, you can still learn and gain benefits from skills before you purchase their upgrades. Purchasing their upgrades also requires resources, in addition to money. - Exploration: The game comes with a pre-built world, but you can choose to generate different ones for repeat playthroughs. The world is divided into kingdoms with borders. Each kingdom has a few settlements, some establishments (inside and outside settlements) that offer services and quests, some dungeons, and miscellaneous sorts of locations that offer bonus XP or other benefits. There are roaming hostile and neutral parties. Hostile parties either chase you or run away from you depending on their strength compared to your party. The dungeons are rather simple and small. They usually have only 2-3 floors, but really it's more like 2-3 rooms because each floor is THAT small. The difficulty of enemies and quality of items you encounter are dependent on the level of challenge a kingdom offers. You gradually fight tougher enemies in larger parties and gain better items the farther away a kingdom is from where you start. - What Could Be Improved: I think there should be more randomness in what skills a character class can learn. It seems that each class has only a narrow set of skills that they can learn and I feel as though this really limits the "bigness" of the game. I don't see myself building characters of the same class differently if they only have the same small set of learnable skills to choose from. Obviously some skills should be practically guaranteed to be available for a class, but it would be more interesting if there were more random choices even if they don't necessarily fit. I want my Carrier goblin to have a sword skill which doesn't seem out of place at all but it seems like he can't learn even that. I think having more randomization of skill choices will lead to more imaginative and distinct characters. I feel that the difficulty per kingdom feels too artificial and makes what sort of encounters to expect very predictable. I think there should be more variety and randomness, such as suddenly encountering higher level enemies in a low level kingdom. Having more complex and maze-like dungeons with more varied hazards and obstacles would be incredible for this game. Resting to recover your characters' health feels too safe, cheap and easy. It's tricky to balance this one without making the game feel too restrictive or tedious, but I think there could be some improvement in this area. There are healing wells and essence (mana) wells throughout the world but considering how cheap and easy it is to heal via camping, these seem redundant and pointless. In-game tooltips say that essence recovery is really slow but it seems you can recover a lot just by camping, I think it would be better if essence recovery was actually slow as the tooltips seem to imply.

I love the music in this game, i might even download the OST if the developer sold it on steam. However, mechanically, the game is very uninteresting from the start. Its like its trying to be 2d fantasy Mount and blade. Walk around fight enemies, collect loot, sell it. Recuit a bigger possie, kill more enemy, sell loot. Good gameplay loop, but gets repetitive quickly. Also, if you have the high ground, you win. That easy, should work on balance. Another strange concern that i see often with indie developers, is the tendancy to run to online communities and beg them to bully anyone who dissents with their game. Unfortunately this seems to be the case here as well. In particular the Godot Discord community and sub-reddit, basically using their large community size to attack others. Anything to make their game engine community not as bad as it has been i cannot recommend this game. im sure the developer will seek to attack me as well, but i can block them its fine.

[EDIT] I wrote my original review when I was at about 140 hours. I am now at 1,300+ hours. This was my favorite game of 2024 and after many months of play, I am still firing it up every day and exploring this awesome game even more. The developer is very responsive and has continually been expanding the content with new visuals, items, quests and etc. The game's features and interface have also been updated over time, making the experience more robust and always with respect to player input. New updates continue and I simply can't recommend this game enough. Thanks. [END EDIT] I have found "Gobs & Gods" to be a lot of fun and has a great sense of dark humor. It's a true sandbox experience in which you are a mysterious and deified figure trying to figure out who and what you really are after a giant foot falls from the sky into this fantasy world. You will recruit a team of goblins, face a wide variety of enemies and embark on lots of quests (mostly to kill something or find a lost item). I haven't seen all the enemies yet and I've play more than 100 hours! There is also great variety in the amount of gear you can equip and just as much variety in the type of goblins you can recruit and train. I found the team building aspect of the game one of the most interesting parts. You'll have to balance out how many range units you want with how many melee units and then you will want to equip your gobs for diverse damage output, such as slash, blunt or pierce. The main mechanism of the turn-based combat uses time units. Every action uses up an amount of time, which limits how many actions you can take on a given unit's turn. You can plunge your time units into the negatives, but that negative time reduces the amount of time you'll have in the next turn. The overall balance of the game is good, although sometimes you will get a quest that is way too difficult to beat at the moment. You'll have to level up your goblins and their gear before beating them. There are a lot of hours to spend in this game trying to beat the campaign and I think for most players, it will be very replayable. I find myself wanting to try all the different classes and skills and items, so I am sure I'll probably play this through a few times. Also, don't worry about units dying. When you recruit new ones, they level up fast and become an even stronger part of your team. The game is, in fact, designed with the expectation that your gobs are gonna bite it. You personally gain experience from each goblin that gives its life fighting against blocks of meat or wedges of cheese (yes, you will battle meat and cheese). No pressure and no rage quitting! Death of a unit is sometimes welcome as you now get to recruit and build an even better unit to take their place. You can also walk (or run) away from fights with no penalty at all. Your gobs will even encourage you to do so if the enemy looks too strong. I'm having loads of fun. Hope this review helps you decide if the game is for you or not. P.S. The game has been very stable for me. It crashed once and froze once in all the time I've been playing.

Everything about this game, from graphics to writing, screams it's just some Battle Brothers parody. That could be alright, but still one trick pony to maybe grin a bit and immediately forgot. But Gobs and Gods actually builds up on it's role model and offers pretty robust strategy game on it's own. Even with some neat ideas to stir the formula. The best one is: when your minions die, you eat their souls. Sounds crunchy, doesn't it? Practically it means you absorb their XP and use it for upgrading your godly powers. Therefore, when your favourite veteran got smashed by random troll, instead of rage-quit, you start drooling over newly acquired possibilities. Thank you, troll! Want a dessert? Got a spare mage here somewhere. I even caught myself hiring gobs just to stuff them with some xp boosters and immediately sacrificing them when I really wanted that upgrade for another minion slot or something. That's what I call proper role-playing a god: slowly becoming fickle tyrant. Second cool thing is real-time mode you can activate in otherwise turn-based battles. It's chaotic and useless for any tacticising, but it considerably speeds up easier battles! Once again solving cleverly another ancient pain of turn-based strategies: slow slog of endless filler battles. Campaign thus always maintains brisk momentum that carried me all the way to it's end without getting tired. Writing is obviously bonkers with a healthy lick of Montypythonesque surreality and black humour. It holds together though, couse devs didn't took an easy way of "comedy can bear any laziness and negligence". Gobs and Gods has well-thought world and obvious amount work was put into it. Even though humour can be hit-or-miss and din't make me laugh out loud, little green buggers were a pleasant company. And of course there is tactical depth and richness worthy of way more prominent games with many options to how shape, equip and use your minions. Being also less hardcore than Battlebros, I think it's great choice for strategy / rpg gamers of all shapes and sizes. P. S. If you want to discover other less known gems, you're welcome to visit my curator page: [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45655021-Nods-for-Underdogs/]Nods for Underdogs[/url].

Finally, you can play Battle Brothers as the good guys.

You have to be willing to accept wasting rare resources on units that die really easily. The units die as quick as units in an rts, and this is not what I am looking for in a tactical game. After going through about 12 units in 2 hours I decided its not worth my money.

Its a silly goofy little game with a bit of strategy. The little quest dialogues are funny, not in a kneeslapper wheezing kind of way but in the way that provokes a lil' chuckle and sometimes a headshaking grin. I didn't expect much when I picked it up but I'm pleasantly surprised, there's a bit more to the gameplay than throwing your gobs into the fray. Kitting them out and levelling them up is a tad more thoughtprovoking than I'd anticipated. Doubtful that people with some experience in strategy and RPG's will struggle a whole lot, but its worth paying attention to the tooltips. Its a great game that's well worth the price.

I love this game. Relaxing and fun, brilliantly done. edit: there are some issues I'd like to mention: the UI needs some work, for example it is way to easy to accidentally move units when issuing attack orders because often the direction arrow is hard to see the balance is way off: I've been playing my first run on easy to learn the game and even on the lowest difficulty level the game tends to get extremely hard. This is due to the multiplier which is used for determining the strength of enemy groups dynamiocally created when taking quests. This multiplier increases each time you win a battle without losing any units, up to a value of ca. 2, as the dev explained. So, you may end up being confronted with enemy groups double asm strong as your own party. The only way top control this is by losing units which I find extremely unsatisfying. This also causes a duality of balance: The groups on the map are extremely easy, while those quest created tend to get extremely hard. The other issue imho is the way magic is implemented: Depending on the skills units have access to some magical abilities which need essence which in turn needs to be recovered. The player has also access to a spellbook which requires to find specific spells which can only be used at night and just once in a month. Overall, the magic system feels very limiting. Encumbrance needs also some tweaking: Gear weighs way too much. You have a single handed axe with a weight of 18 kilos, to give an example. Such extremely high values seem strange in a game where the players's party is composed of goblins which are supposed to be small creatures. I had a squire with not so low STR and END stats who was not able to wear any armor when equipped with just a shield and a sword. Finally, the game needs some more content, esp. more quest variety.

[h1] General Overview [/h1] A “thumbs up” is an inadequate reflection of how amazing this game is. A sandbox party-based turn-based tactical game with so much to offer. It’s hard to avoid comparing it to Battle Brothers, but I’ll say that if you’re a fan then this is going to scratch the same itch. If you’re not a fan, then know that I found this a bit easier thanks to a good tutorial that’s baked into the early game and a general ease of replacing fallen gobs. Fresh recruits are cheap and readily available, and there are skills that give them free levels upon recruitment. My first playthrough took ~35 hours, and I immediately started a 2nd. [h1] The Good [/h1] [list] [*][b] Graphics/art style [/b] – I like the vibrant colours and comical style. It fits really well with the world- it takes place in what could easily be portrayed as a grim and gritty fantasy world, but the presentation here is much more light-hearted. [*][b] Combat [/b] – Engaging and strategic. Each recruit has a primary “job” which gives him access to bonus and a skill tree with a good amount of variety. The choice of weapon will also give some useful abilities. [*][b] Respects my time [/b] – I like how fast you move on the world map (esp after upgrading), how fast travel exists, how I can accept multiple quests, and how during the enemy turn in battle they all move at once. Also like the “real time” option for dungeon exploration and battles, esp for the late game [*][b] Story [/b] – Lighthearted with constant violence. Isn’t heavy or intrusive. [*][b] Progression [/b] – Definitely felt like I was getting increasingly powerful- the skills you get make a big difference, as well as the equipment. There’s no level cap (that I reached, at least), but in later levels the progression is less impactful. [/list] [h1] The Bad [/h1] [list] [*][b] Ending [/b] – The only crash I got was a consistent one upon ending the game. I assume this will be fixed. [/list] [h1] Suggestions [/h1] [list] [*][b] Start Options [/b] – I’d like to see different campaign starts. A new game+ with some things carrying over, removal of the initial tutorial quests, or different themed starts (a party with different jobs) like BB would be cool! Ooh, or starting as dwarves, minos, etc. [*][b] Recruiter [/b] – In the midgame I wanted to try out different backgrounds, but had a hard time finding a crossbow user (engineer, I assume?). I went to every town and engineer NPC, but never found one. A dedicated recruiter that you can pay to source gobs would be cool! [*][b] Quirks [/b] – Some quirks are really, really bad. The “exhibitionist” one is funny, but high-risk. I lost armour that I didn’t pick up when I fled a dungeon, which was unfortunate. Monomaniac is the worst- a gob with that trait is fodder, at best. Some are a bit cryptic in terms of their impact. Ironically “boring” seems to be the only positive one :D [*][b] Battle log [/b] – I’d like one. [*][b] Comparisons [/b] – I’d like to compare equipment more easily. Be nice to see both cards at once. Same with selecting skills at level up- how much health will I gain if I level Endurance? Would be nice to see the impact on my character sheet when I hover over the ability. Comparing different gobs when recruiting would also be nice. [*][b] Recruits [/b] – I think each skill tree is determined by the starting job, but I’m still not certain. It’s a bit of a guess when recruiting for a role whether or not the gob will be suitable for it, particularly at the start of the game. Could you show the skill pool for new recruits? [*][b] Damage estimate [/b] – In battle, before I take a swing it would be great to see how much damage it might do (some game show this by having part of the enemy’s health flash) [*][b] Battles [/b] – I’d like to be able to see who can still act in battle. I don’t think there’s a way to do this currently, other than cycling through the gobs. [*][b] Skill progression [/b] – For my 2nd run, knowing that I have a maximum of 11 skill points means I’m going to be more careful when allocating them. I don’t think I’ll have anyone select 5 skills, because that limits my growth in the other 3 or 4. It would be fun to be a grandmaster in all 5 though! Maybe that could be a new game+ option? [*][b] Balance [/b] – The only battle I couldn’t win was an epic quest right before I finished the game, and it was against 30 of those giant cheese elementals, the ones that are ranged and spawn tier 2 versions. I got absolutely swarmed and then worn down with chip damage until my gobs started to fall. I think the spawn rate should be toned down. [*][b] Shields [/b] – Shields are really heavy, and require a dedicated skill to effectively use. I think this could be rebalanced by allowing more than 11 skill points, and making the shield skill more dramatically reduce the weight of an equipped shield. [/list]

It's hard to top Battle Brothers for deep challenges. This game makes a valiant effort and comes close. The combat system tries, but it just doesn't have that BB feel; maybe there's not enough options for the player's characters as compared to BB, and maybe it lacks the smoothness and importance of terrain in the battles. The locations (dungeons, towers, etc) that are located here and there need a good bit of work, as mostly all seem the same. As the developers continue to work on this game, improvements are slowly coming along. If player support continues, I can see that this could very well be a top-notch game. I would recommend GnG for those who enjoy BB and are patient with the development process of games like this. I enjoy the goofy, Pythonish art style and the occasional gags found sprinkled around the map. If player doesn't mind work-in-progress games and a bit of satire and parody for a change, this is a good purchase.