Goblin Kicker 3000

Overview

Goblin Kicker 3000 was my first foray into game development. My favorite phone game at the time was Angry Birds, and I really liked how such simple mechanics could be made into something so fun. I also really liked watching Brackeys Unity tutorials, and by fate I watched one on how to shoot a bullet and show the trajectory. I used that as the starting point for my game venture, and soon Goblin Kicker was born.

I found that trajectory tutorial about two weeks into a very boring and hot summer, which meant I was a kid with a lot of time on my hands and a strong desire to do something with it. That timing ended up being perfect because I could go deep, learn fast, and iterate constantly without overthinking it.

The game was super fun to work on all summer, and my little sister even helped me design and draw some of the goblins. Once school started it got much harder, though. Between cross country, tennis, homework, and after-school events, working on the game started feeling more like a job than just fun and games.

Around Christmas that year, I was pretty far along in production but struggling to get everything ported cleanly to iOS and looking right on phone screens. So I did a quick holiday game jam with fresh, clean code and a simple scope to test if I could push a complete game to the App Store quickly.

That jam became Elf Rush. I basically remade Flappy Bird with a shape-shifting elf that could transform into a bird and a turtle. The turtle could not jump but could stop and fit through tight spaces, the bird could fly but died if it hit anything in front of it, and the elf could jump while constantly running. It was rough and quick, but I shipped it in about a month and learned a lot about actually finishing projects.

I then took what I learned from Elf Rush and dove back into finishing Goblin Kicker, cutting fluff and just working all the time. My mom and I would work late into the night in a small office at my parents' house, which was honestly a super cool memory. By the end of the school year, I released it. It did not get many downloads, but after a full year of late nights it was still one of the most important projects I have done because it got me truly excited about programming and watching my code and art come to life.

Goblin Kicker shipped with 4 worlds and 72 levels, with 18 levels in each world. Some levels had unique goals, and the game loop was very similar to Angry Birds-style launches and physics reactions. Every 9 levels had a boss fight, and I modeled those bosses after friends and family members for fun.