Goblin Cleanup (which we covered pre-Kickstarter here) has not only managed to reach its funding goal within one hour of launching on Kickstarter; it has also managed to knock several stretch goals off its checklist. There are still seventeen days left for the goblin maids to collect more resources and clean up more stretch goals, which means Goblin Cleanup is on track to become one of this year’s most successful Kickstarter gaming projects.
I love this. Goblins are my personal favorite fantasy creature, and as someone who has worked as a custodian, I find the idea of playing for cute goblin girls scrubbing down a dungeon to be an irresistible premise. I relate much more to hardworking goblins than I do to the sort of elitist elves that can be found in stories like Dragon Prince or Rings of Power. When I watched Rings of Power, my sympathy was very much against the elves due to their high and mighty way of dealing with us lowly humans while also trying to genocide goblinkind, let’s just say that! Obviously there are good, cute elves too, but goblins will always be a personal favorite of mine.
I also like that the goblins in Goblin Cleanup are cute and are dressed as maids; this will definitely make the game more attractive to more gamers. Goblins are becoming more and more popular in recent years. I think part of this is because people relate to their underdog status in high fantasy hierarchies, which is something Goblin Cleanup plays up. In this game, the goblin girls are clearly at the bottom of the pecking order, having to serve a dark lord and cleanup a deadly dungeon so that adventurers (no doubt a bunch of humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings!) can have fun collecting treasure.
As for which stretch goals have been unlocked, backers have managed to unlock third-person view mode, which means you’ll be able to watch your cute goblin lady as she goes about her job. This makes sense; some of the Kickstarter rewards allow you to customize your goblin, so what’s the point of customizing if you can’t see how you look? I’m glad we have third-person view because giving players more choices like that is almost always a good idea, so now players can choose which mode they prefer. A rune system was also unlocked, as well as the ability to send in-game emotes to other goblins. It is a co-op game, after all, so this is a neat little feature. The most recent officially unlocked stretch goal as of the time of my writing this article is titled The Jackal’s Tomb and is the addition of a new dungeon with an Egyptian theme. This is a surprising addition in my opinion, because my impression is the game is set in a high-fantasy world completely separate from our own. It’ll be interesting to see if the Egyptian dungeon is just inspired by Egyptian culture but with fantastical differences, or if it’s literally making Egypt canon to the world of Goblin Cleanup.
Next up in the stretch goals that have yet to be unlocked is Boombox, which will allow you to play your favorite tunes while you clean. (UPDATE: Boombox has been achieved!) This goal will probably be unlocked before the day is over. After that is Hardcore Mode, which rearranges the objects and rooms in the dungeon. I’m not that interested in that one, but all the power to those who are. More stretch goals are teased by their names only, so we’ll have to wait and see what they are, but I’m excited.
Hop on over to the Kickstarter and give the project some funds if this premise sound as interesting to you as it does to me. Happy cleaning!
You can check out the demo on Steam here.
