We’re excited to delve into the journey of Trash Goblin, from its successful Kickstarter campaign in 2023, through its Early Access launch in 2024, to its full release earlier this year! You can see how it’s had such an impact in a short time.
To celebrate the game’s 1.2 update this week, we had the pleasure of chatting with Andrew Smith from Spilt Milk Studios about all things Trash Goblin.
BRB: What is your role within the company, and what does it involve?
Andrew: I am the Creative Director at Spilt Milk Studios, and I am responsible for making sure everyone is pulling in the same direction when it comes to the creative and gameplay goals of our games. Day to day it varies, and I can be writing some documentation to define a brief for a new feature, or I could be feeding back on the emotional arc of a character… and when I’m really lucky I get to pitch in with in-engine work… making a trinket puzzle here or balancing the cost of an unlockable there. Because we’re a small studio we all get the chance to contribute across all kinds of areas of the game.
BRB: Could you tell us how the concept of Trash Goblin came about? And why a goblin as the protagonist?
Andrew: It’s a story with two separate threads. The first is that long ago (we’re talking like, 2014) I was playing Picross and thought how ace that mechanic would be if combined with a game about archaeology. Fast forward too many years, and for one of the student briefs we run with Anglia Ruskin University, I remembered this idea and used it to set the team a challenge. They did an amazing job, built a really fun 3D Picross-type game with a light-hearted Archaeology frame, and we ended up hiring two of their team because I had another flash of inspiration. This inspiration has roots in a really old prototype we made internally, around 2012. The gameplay was irrelevant, but the world had the juice. People would ask about it years later. In fact we developed it twice more, once as a VR prototype. And then as I said, after the student demo had proven the concept (although read on below for a surprising twist in how different Trash Goblin would end up being in the end) we hired two of them.
At the time we were making a tower defence-ish game set in the same IP as the 2012 prototype, although I was keen to try to ship something smaller and sooner. I’m not sure we managed that, but we had an opportunity to spin up a second project and explore Trash Goblin – we had a ton of species, art and lore to draw from and even use in the game, and as we started building it, the team fell in love with it so after we couldn’t get a publisher to sign Sellswords, we moved over to Trash Goblin!
And why a Goblin? We love goblins! Of course, it helps set us apart from other similar games, but the name was a play on the affectionate slang for raccoons – “trash panda” – that really stuck and from that moment, you simply had to be playing as a goblin or it would make no sense.
BRB: The game was originally Kickstarted back in December of 2023. Was that a smooth process? And would you go through that route again?
Andrew: We loved running the Kickstarter – it was a lot of work, but we didn’t underestimate it and took it very seriously. It went smoothly in that we prepared properly, had gotten a lot of professional advice, and had realistic expectations. And obviously, the success meant we got the money to make Trash Goblin, but that money came with the best kind of upside – a supportive and tremendously generous, kind community.
Running it over Christmas was quite stressful, and that’s not something I’d like to do again given the option – checking in on the drama of a backer giving us $5000, then taking it away, then backing again for the same amount all on Christmas Day was one hell of a way to pull me out of the post-Turkey haze… but we’re very excited about running a Kickstarter for every project that we think fits. Which, with any luck, will be all of them!
BRB: How long did it take to develop? What parts of development are the most memorable?
Andrew: Trash Goblin took around 3 years to make – from the first day to the 1.0 release. There have been so many exciting moments and incredible achievements across that time that I’m sure I’ll be forgetting some and remembering others for the rest of my life. One moment that really sticks out to me was when we took numbers out of the game.
Right back at the start, the chipping gameplay was essentially a version of Picross 3D (or nonograms) which is a type of simple(ish) logic puzzle. Conceptually perfect for a game about revealing what’s underneath dirt, these puzzles see you deducing which blocks to remove using numbers as reference across the columns and rows. Sort of Minesweeper-ish, for anyone old enough to remember that game.
Anyway, we took it to some shows in demo form, and people loved everything about the game, but 9 out of 10 players would hit the first or second puzzle, and walk away. Turns out, the cosy community and goblin fans do not want puzzles spoiling their flow.
It was a turning point for us as it marked the moment where we understood how much complexity or traditional gameplay to put in the game, and we went from being a more classic ‘shop sim’ in that sense to something more relaxing. We vowed to introduce no stress in the game. There is no risk of doing anything wrong (this is why trinkets will not break). And there would be no minmaxing. Trash Goblin’s purest form was achieved that day.
BRB: The game went through Early Access at release, why was this done? And did it help the game more or less than expected?
Andrew: Part of it honestly was wanting the game to start to make money, and part of that was so that we had confidence that it had an audience before we committed to spending loads of cash and time on making it.
But the bigger part was to do with the kind of game, our team, and the way we want to make games. We believe in being open and communicative with our players, and because Trash Goblin wasn’t a traditional ‘shop sim’ (there’s very little stress, min/maxing, or even risk), we had to learn what people wanted from it, and what people didn’t want from it.
The best example of that was when we asked our community about haggling. A lot of Early access reviews mentioned it, mostly asking for it to be included – it seemed that a lot of people wanted to have control over selling their stock at different prices and interacting with the customers. Totally understandable. So we did some paper design, and did two things. First, we asked the players if they wanted haggling – the response was a very loud and emphatic “No, thank you very much”.
Basically, haggling is a win/lose situation, and one that plays with or lives in (at least in a lot of Western cultures) social awkwardness, sense of guilt or value, and the interactions that would create with the customers in the game were something our players felt would ruin the game. The second thing we did was ask the team what they thought, and they hated it too. so it was an easy decision to make, but one that we wouldn’t have engaged with in the same way – you can play with the game’s design and
feature set in a really fundamental way during Early Access, as long as you’re transparent about it, and as long as you listen.
BRB: What is your favourite part of the game? And do your fellow colleagues agree with you?
Andrew: I am such a fan of how scritchy, tactile, satisfying and endlessly entertaining we made the chipping gameplay. My favourite block is the Fragile Block (the one that shatters along any connected rows or columns), but it’s just all so fundamentally correct-feeling that I am always super proud of it. When we got the balance of audio and visual feedback just right, with the size of puzzle being not too big and not too small, and the whole thing just came together… you could play with that thing over and over for hours and never notice the time pass, let alone get tired of it. It just makes my brain feel good.
I think everyone on the team has a different part of the game that they like the most – I know at least one person’s favourite thing is just seeing what hats they can give the Turt! It’s part of the magic of the game and, in fact, was a guiding principle for the development – “Be your own goblin” was the mantra. We don’t want to get in the way of anyone having fun, however they want to. Heck, we even added a feature at player request that lets players close the shop, for as long as they like. I guess you even need time off when playing a shop sim!
BRB: The Grandma Egg… I made the comparison that it looked like a Beherit (From Berserk manga/anime universe). I believe your reply was “hehe we think of ours more like a weird Matryoshka doll… and certainly less demonic”. So if it’s more like a Matryoshka doll, is it filled with other smaller grandma eggs or did aspects of the grandma’s life?
Andrew: Oooh, now that would be telling! Donoval’s storyline certainly sheds a little light on what’s going on with Grandma Eggs, but I think we’ll keep our cards close to our shell on this one…
BRB: What is your favourite trinket? and why?
Andrew: I have a weird sense of connection with the Drinking Horn – mostly I think because it was one of the very first trinkets ever to exist in the game, so I guess it feels old like I feel old! But my favourites are a tie between the various Eyes in the game (because sticking eyes on stuff is always funny) and the Wooden Fist because it makes people spit-take when they first see it. Every. Single. Time. I can’t imagine why.
BRB: Who is your favourite customer? And why?
Andrew: It’s got to be Donoval. I know it’s a cliche, but his face is so brilliant when he gets a deal, he’s such a positive person in general, and his story arc is just all kinds of fun and weird. But then, because he’s everyone’s favourite, I have to say I also have a soft spot for Virgil. A very caring individual, and one who has a much darker back story than perhaps Trash Goblin lets on…
BRB: What is next for the game?
Andrew: The 1.2 update is out now! This is our big Steam Deck update and we love playing it on that device. It also means the game works really well with controllers plugged in to your PC – there’s a bunch of other bits and bobs in there too, but people have been asking for the game to be made Steam Deck ‘native’ since the demo, so we can finally say we did it! After that, 1.3 (imaginative name I know) is going to be something special. We’re hoping to add a ton more quests, characters and trinkets, as well as some new gameplay. Things are still up in the air as to specifics, but I know the existing players are going to really get excited about the continued story, while newcomers will hopefully feel like the game is even more richly featured than it is right now.
BRB: You worked on the Wallace and Gromit DLC for Powerwash Simulator. How did this come about?
Andrew: We’ve known and respected FuturLab for a very long time, so when they approached us about helping them out, we were delighted. Not only was it a sign of confidence in us from a studio who’ve made some of the best games of recent times, PowerWash Simulator itself was a huge reference point for us as we figured out the gameplay in Trash Goblin, so it felt really exciting to be invited inside that project. The usual process for this kind of thing is to brief a few companies on a project and then pick the best one – a bit like interviewing multiple candidates for a role – so while I don’t know what the competition was like, I do know that when we got the go-ahead we were completely over the moon and did everything we could to deliver the DLC to the quality they would expect.
BRB: How much cheese (Wensleydale) and crackers did the team go through during the creation of the DLC?
Andrew: We ate so much we had to build a rocket and visit the moon for a picnic! Honestly, with the varied dietary requirements across the team, I think a safe guess is about 900kg. You know, the same as any development team.
BRB: If you could, would you do a Powerwash Simulator crossover with Trash Goblin?
Andrew: Oh my god we’d love to do that! The gnome is such a perfect trinket to clean, and I could even see a super-upgraded spong looking a bit like a power wash hose!
BRB: Finally, what is next?
Andrew: Well, we’ve got some merchandising plans that we’ll be announcing soon, we’re figuring out how and when to localise the game, plus of course if it sells well enough on Steam (so far so good) we’d be delighted to get Trash Goblin onto consoles.
In the meantime, we’re working on even more big updates for Trash Goblin (hoping for at least 1 more before Christmas) and whatever Game 2 might be…
Trash Goblin is available now for PC via Steam, and it’s currently discounted by -25% until October 06.
