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I'm still working on the next demo update! There's a lot of stuff I want to rework so it'll be a bit, but in the meantime let's do a gamedev origin story! What's the inspiration behind Gobutiko, why the fuck is it about a goblin, and what's with the hat? Maybe longish story? We'll see

I really like shop keepers in games. Like a lot. If a merchant is playable in an RPG that's what I'll play (even if they mostly just throw money at enemies). I had a blast playing Recettear. The quirky dialog, the sudden customer swarms, capitalism ho! So naturally that's where I started.

The original prototype for haggling was pretty much just the price guessing mechanic from Recettear, but I fiddled with a lot of concepts. I even tried making one where you just played Go against your customers and captured territory is what moved the price.

I was really really REALLY bad at Go though. So I scrapped it for something simpler, dice. I drafted some rules based on a TCG mod I made for another game (that's a rabbit hole, but if you're familiar with my modding you'll know which one). Eventually I landed at the current haggle mechanics.

The final burning question, what's with the hat? I mean look at it! It's just fucking cute, what do you want from me? When I asked @macapixel.bsky.social to add a paper hat to the design, it was just on a whim. Now that damn hat is iconic to me, go figure!