Hi,
I like where you are going with Lord Goblin! This is my contribution into realizing its full potential by reporting some bugs and saying what I feel was hard, easy or just right in the game balance. I have the 0.23.2 version of the game for Windows downloaded from Itch. I didn't find any file named "save" in the game folder, so let me know where it is if you'd like me to share it to see my game state and better understand where my recommendations are coming from.
Game mechanics and balance
The difficulty and pace at which I gained resources and stats ..
- .. feels just right (would keep the current balance) for the following:
- Legitimacy
- Villeins
- Artisans
- Laundry - At first when there aren't many other activities for the maids, laundry takes up a sizeable portion of the morning orders and then becomes less demanding and frequent thanks to the laundry room upgrades.
- Lust, love and obedience
- .. is too hard or almost impossible to obtain or too easy to lose for the following:
- Soldiers! I've only had a few events that lose a few soldiers and no events to recruit new soldiers. If Clione could train villeins into soldiers instead of helping out at the smithy, that would be awesome. It would also suit her character background more than smithing.
- Dirt! OMG. I like that there's no laundry room analogy to sweeping that would make it easier to get rid of dirt and instead it just needs more (wo)manpower. Here are suggestions on how to balance it:
- I would make it possible to hire villeins on my own initiative (not as a rare random event) from town to sweep the castle. It should have the same cost in gold and a little security just like in the random event. That would free up my maids for gathering whatever is currently most needed for development.
- Another, more exciting option is to add random events that turn into a series of encounters that let me meet and win over one or two more maids during the game. It would be great to have one or two more maids in the late game to unlock scenes with and to focus them on sweeping, patrolling and milking cows. They don't need a specialty job, as their whole point would be to help more experienced maids focus on their specialties instead of sweeping. One thing a new maid could specialize in is training villeins into artisans.
- .. is too easy for the following (I gain or get rid of them much faster than I use or need them during the game):
- Gold - just a little bit too easy. It would be enough of a change, if Clione's specialty would be training villeins into soldiers instead of earning gold in the smithy.
- Food - If you make milking an exclusive job for a new maid, then that might make food already just hard enough to gain.
- Alcohol - I would increase the amount of alcohol that the current random events require.
- Security - It's not too easy, but rather too static. I would increase the amount of security reduced by random events and increase the amount of security given by the watchtower, as it is currently pointless to survey the lands in the watchtower for only 1 or 2 security.
- Portal Power - The current scenes should reduce portal power by around a half or a third as much as they currently do. I'd introduce new sex scenes that require higher levels of obedience and reduce portal power by as much as the current scenes. This way the player would have to do more rituals in the beginning of the game and as many as currently in the late game. This would also give a reason to go beyond 50 obedience, as currently there isn't much reason for that. This would also prolong the time it takes to earn levels of love and obedience needed for the rituals, as instead of doling out compliments and spankings the goblin is busy with rituals in the early game. But that should be fine. Then as this would increase the frequency of rituals, the amount of lust each ritual gives should be lower too. Otherwise lust will progress faster than love and obedience.
Bugs
- I can't interact with a character that's sweeping the dungeon room in the evening. I should be able to, just like with other castle rooms.
- Sometimes a maid's thumbnail is not shown in the castle when sweeping. When I click through every room, she's in none of them. I believe that the reason is because she's placed in Az'ea's study and as Az'ea is already there, another maid can't be shown at the same time.
- There's an HTML tag for text colour visible when the watchtower is built and you hover over the button to survey the lands.
- It's a bit creepy when at the end of an animated scene a character fades out organ by organ and you can see their eyeballs and tongue hover after their head has disappeared xD
- In some scenes the animation doesn't match up with the text. E.g. during Beth's boob job it's said she uses her mouth repeatedly, but she only does once at the start. Or that Delia's foot job speeds up, but it doesn't.
- During dialogues between maids, they are often shown on the same side of the screen, overlapping with each other.
- When there was a court event where two lords of neighbouring lands had a conflict and I asked Az'ea to investigate and on the next day she came up with an alternative proposal, that proposal was shown as a new option for me to select, but when I hovered over that option, the bubble that showed its effects on the right from the option was hidden behind Lord Goblin's image on the right of the options. Character images should always be behind the reward text bubbles.
- On the village map it's weird that some houses only appear on hover, while others are already there. While I haven't built either. If a ruined version of the house was shown instead of no house at all, then the player would at least know where to hover to see new building options.
- I'm not sure if it's a bug or a feature, but during court rulings, some choices explicitly say that they might cause a future event, but some choices cause a future event without there being a warning and I don't like that. It seems to try to reward me for choosing less optimal but more morally just options. But if 95% of the time the future effects are exactly as shown and only 5% of the times there's a hidden effect, then I will prefer to rely on the explicitly stated effects and just get annoyed at the surprise consequences. If the game wanted me to always choose based on what I feel would be better as a ruler, then any future effects should always be hidden, not just in 5% of the cases.
Other feedback
- Art quality is great and really suits the game! Keep it up! I'd put some beautiful background on the menu screen that's currently white next to the yellow buttons.
- Voice acting is really good. Would be great if more lines were voiced during repeating scenes like the rituals.
- I really love the flashback scenes - they bring the game to life and I want to keep playing to uncover more about the characters.
Good luck!