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Leave behind your broken home, and live out your dream of becoming a merchant! As luck would have it, there's a Merchant Guild in a nearby village looking for fresh talent. Haggle your way into riches and prove to everyone that even a Goblin can be a great merchant!

Features

Haggle with the customers - To get the best deals you'll need to use your dice to pressure your customers into losing their composure and making it easier to push the prices in your favor. But be careful, they just might return the favor! Losing composure will force your shop to close early (can't have you yelling at your customers).

Customize your dice pool - Successfully selling an item multiple times will grant you effects that can be used to improve your haggling dice! When attached to your dice, these can change your roll values and/or add bonuses when used under certain conditions.
Build your shop - Not enough space? Tear down some walls! With your handy Build Kit, you can change your shop walls and floors until you've got just the right layout! Update your look by purchasing new walls and floor tiles from your local Merchant Guild.
Decorate - Fashion is the real end-game right? Show off your amazing taste to all your customers or sell it all and live in the woods. We won't judge! (Villagers might though)
- Recruit new merchants to the guild - Invest your hard earned coin with the guild to help attract other merchants! Each new merchant will use their expertise to improve the village and bring new merchandise for you to sell in your shop.
- Hang out at your local tavern - Relax at your local tavern every once in a while. Buy some food, relax at the bar, and chat with the locals! You might just learn about upcoming market trends.

Goblin Log #2 - Concept Cores

Here goes another entry to the Goblin Log series, the official format for me to ramble on about game mechanics with extra details the other merchants don\'t want me to tell you about! This time we\'re taking a quick look at Concept Cores, which are Gobutiko\'s effect system for haggling.

Introduction

A Concept Core is an item you attach to your register that can change what your dice can do in the middle of a haggle. All you have to do is equip them to your shop\'s cash register and they\'ll apply to any haggling session you trigger (even when you shop at another merchant\'s store!). Though you\'re only allowed to equip 3 cores at any given moment, they\'re never consumed so as you unlock more of them you\'ll be able to experiment with different sets freely.

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45538267/5894cb05375ffdc105d3cffad97ccc9f9e6f2142.png\"][/img]

Types

There are 4 different types of Concept Cores:

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45538267/c7b776c8e412801fd1162948bee3eb14c6fa9c10.png\"][/img]Attack Cores:
[list]
These are effects that revolve around attacking your opponent\'s composure. Things like increased damage, composure stealing, composure break bonuses, etc.
[/*]
Geared towards a more aggressive haggling style that aims for quick sessions, sometimes at risk to your own composure.
[/*]

[/*]

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45538267/6f22eec52eae10afb73654ba55cd2b6f185d49fc.png\"][/img]Recovery Cores:

This one is pretty straight forward, it focuses on maintaining your own composure. Examples include increased recovery, sacrificing specific rolls for a heal, emergency heals.
[/*]
This is pretty much the turtle play for sustaining longer sessions with some passive affects on prices.
[/*]

[/*]

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45538267/4c88399219ee33e5a78dd693f471f7a6ca64ca60.png\"][/img] Profit Cores:

A greedy merchant\'s best friend, these are just what they sound like. Get that price moving at any cost, here you\'ll see effects like charging your opponent for pip bonuses, sacrificing high dice rolls for a bonus push on the price, pushing the price whenever you trigger a pip bonus.
[/*]
These focus a lot on sacrificing options for profits.
[/*]

[/*]

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45538267/06f5f787b779975e854058d96a2c131db3bf94ef.png\"][/img] System Cores:

These have no specific affinity, but instead focus on granting specific situational abilities. Things like: Increasing/decreasing the haggle round limit, additional die rolls, control over the order dice are played in.
[/*]
Not much to look at on their own, but really shine when paired with other types.
[/*]

[/*]

[/list]

Some Concept Cores are pretty simple, while others might have significant drawbacks

Trigger

For the most part the effects are automatic, so as soon as you meet their condition (i.e. assigning dice to a specific action) then you\'ll see the trigger message appear on screen for the effect applied! Each effect will clearly describe what their trigger conditions are when you equip them.

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45538267/90c57ee28aa25409465c210fd0a067f02ea07abb.gif\"][/img]

Customer Effects

As you unlock more effects, you won\'t be the only one using them to your advantage. Other merchants and some customers will also be able to use concept cores of their own! You\'ll get a handy notebook summarizing the effects your customer is currently using so you\'ll have a chance to decide how to handle the situation or if they just aren\'t worth dealing with (time is money after all!).

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45538267/9d999e5e7e68d439d45b9760289ad68b3b6759dc.gif\"][/img]

Closing

That\'s it for this entry. If you made it this far, thanks! For the next one we\'ll take a look at something outside of haggling, maybe in the decoration side of things? Let\'s see how it goes!

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45538267/4c03a1525b38291c01967b7a80a67351ec642289.gif\"][/img]

[ 2025-09-30 14:24:34 CET ] [Original Post]

Goblin Log #1 - Haggling Mechanics

Welcome to the first entry in our Goblin Log series! These are going to be brief overviews into specific mechanics you\'ll find in Gobutiko to give you an idea of what you can expect while running your little shop. This time around we\'re going to jump right into the central mechanic, Haggling!

Haggling is all about using your dice to manipulate the price and land the best deal by the end of the session.

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45538267/b89848c8ce41492a30ba9130b4a84eebc3d2db99.gif\"][/img]

That\'s great, but if all things are equal and both sides just push the price in their favor then how do you guarantee the deal ends in your favor? That\'s where composure comes in!

Composure

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45538267/9ce4e191bb7e7af76a88e31b113796aa7357e9eb.png\"][/img]

This is the most important part of landing a good deal. Manipulating it effectively will impact how well you can push prices. Think of it as both your health and power, since running out of this will immediately end the haggling session and having more than your opponent gives you an advantage in pushing the price. When both sides have an equal amount of composure then they have equal influence over the price of the item.

So, how can we move the needle? Easy, you beat your opponent with your dice until their composure drops enough to affect influence!

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45538267/4055b18474899422cf3b098c35d225109f2508da.gif\"][/img]

You could also use your dice to regain some of your own. It\'s important to keep your composure when haggling, not just for it\'s affect on price but because that composure will roll over into your next haggling session. It may be worth taking a slightly lower price to ensure you have a good amount of composure going into your next deal!

Influence

So we covered composure and how it affects your influence, but what exactly does that mean? This is a multiplier for your dice when they\'re used to push price. Whatever value your dice[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45538267/a0e0fb16ab1c52e57e71af378ef035f0ae1c8cd4.png\"][/img] shows is multiplied by influence and that\'s how much the price will move.

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45538267/239ab611327f6a9c3f756c6d821ccb16fe313d40.png\"][/img]

Composure isn\'t the only thing that affects your influence though. The original value of the item also determines your base influence. This makes it so haggling over expensive or bundled items is more volatile than if you haggled over a cheap rock. Keep this in mind when deciding whether haggling is worth your time or not.

That\'s it for this entry! Next time I\'ll go into Core Concepts, which are modifiers you can equip to change the way dice work during a haggling session. Stay Tuned!

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45538267/4c03a1525b38291c01967b7a80a67351ec642289.gif\"][/img]

[ 2025-09-15 15:44:53 CET ] [Original Post]

Playtest Ending - June 3rd

Our first play-test session will be closing on June 3rd @ ~11pm UTC!

If you haven't had a chance to participate, don't worry! I will be setting up another session later this summer with new content added based on all your great feedback! I appreciate everyone's help and patience with testing these early builds as we work our way towards the ultimate vision for the game!

I look forward to sharing more of this goblin's journey through capitalism!

~See you soon!

[ 2025-06-02 16:25:42 CET ] [Original Post]

Playtest 1 is Live!

We're live(-ish)!

The first playtest session is now open to play! If you've previously signed up, you should be able to install the game now. If you haven't, don't worry, I'm flipping the sign up over to open access so you won't have to wait.

How long is the shop open?

This session will run for about two weeks, so you'll have until Monday June 2nd to take it for a spin. There may be minor updates during that time to address significant issues if necessary. Don't worry, we'll be back later for more test sessions after taking in the feedback and making adjustments.

How can I submit feedback?

You can submit feedback in-game by clicking the Feedback button found in the pause menu. Feel free to submit more than once if you have additional comments to make later. You can also submit a bug report at anytime by pressing F9 on your keyboard or Select on your gamepad (or whatever your gamepad calls the "-" button these days).

You can also submit feedback directly on this form . It'll be the same questionnaire.

Have fun!

[ 2025-05-20 02:24:31 CET ] [Original Post]

Playtests!

Calling all goblins!

Hey everyone, I'm currently hard at work crafting the game's first public demo build! I was going to jump straight into one big demo release, but I would like to have that build be as polished as possible before releasing it into the wild (plus I don't want to work on the trailer for it yet). So instead Gobutiko will be opening sign ups for its first public playtest session!

What's in the box?

The playtest will cover the starting area of the game with a limited item pool. Here's what's in it:

Tavern interactions
Guild Supply Shop
Random Villager merchants
Run the shop
Basic hand decorating (This means no wall/floor editing just place/move furniture)

When does the shop open?

Sign ups should be available starting today May 12th. I'll be submitting a build for review this week, so depending on when that gets approved you can expect the to be able to start playing at this earliest by this weekend, but more likely Monday May 19th.

Side bar

I usually prefer not to talk about things when they're subject to change so things end up feeling a bit quiet on announcements here as I'm always in the shop trying to polish up the counters. You can usually find smaller bite-sized looks at the game's progress over on the bluesky account, but I will start making some longer posts here even if they're not set in stone.

[ 2025-05-12 20:14:34 CET ] [Original Post]