Now There Be Goblins

Now There Be Goblins is a VR action-strategy game where players defend against hordes of goblins using a combination of melee combat and tower defense mechanics. Set in a fantasy world, players wield a mighty blacksmith’s hammer to smash goblins while strategically placing various defensive structures like explosive cannons, spike traps, and slowing glue across dynamically designed levels. The game features motion-controlled combat, environmental interactions, and progression systems that unlock new weapons, structures, and difficulty levels as players advance through the campaign.

Now There Be Goblins: A VR Tower Defense Hybrid Lost in the Goblin Horde

In the ever-expanding realm of virtual reality, where innovation and novelty often trump polish and depth, Shocktopus Games’ Now There Be Goblins stands as a fascinating case study. It is a game born from a potent, crowd-pleasing prototype—a VR “smack and smash” tower defense hybrid that promised the visceral thrill of physical combat married to the strategic satisfaction of tactical placement. Yet, upon its full release, it found itself lost in the horde, a promising concept that, according to its sole critic review, failed to evolve beyond its initial premise. This review will delve into the creation, execution, and legacy of a title that embodies both the boundless potential and the harsh realities of indie VR development.

Development History & Context

Shocktopus Games, a three-person startup based in Utrecht, Netherlands, was forged in the same fires as its debut title. The project began as a small game jam prototype in February 2020, a period when the VR market was heavily saturated with simulation and sandbox experiences. Co-founders Yassine Minjon (Developer), Yamir Oldenburg (Game Designer), and Tom van Dijk (Game Artist) identified a gap: a desire for VR games with “polished traditional-like gameplay feel” and tangible, in-depth progression.

The prototype, centered on a satisfyingly physics-based chained hammer and rudimentary tower placement, was an immediate hit. It was officially selected for the IMAGINE Film Festival and the Dutch Game Gardens INDIGO program, and a demo released during the Steam Game Festival in February 2021 garnered “an overwhelming amount of positive feedback.” This reception catalyzed the founding of Shocktopus Games and the decision to scale the prototype into a full commercial product.

Developed in Unity, the game entered a closed alpha before launching into Early Access on March 28, 2022. The studio’s vision was clear: to create a “satisfying Virtual Reality game with in-depth game progression” that stood apart from the more passive VR experiences. However, the path from a well-received demo to a full release is fraught with challenges for a small team, particularly one navigating the unique complexities of VR design, such as scale, motion controls, and optimization—a struggle hinted at by artist Tom van Dijk in an interview with The VR Dimension.

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive

To call Now There Be Goblins narrative-driven would be a significant overstatement. The premise is a threadbare scaffold upon which the gameplay is hung. You play as the personal blacksmith—and self-proclaimed “only friend”—of the vainglorious King Harry. The monarch’s obsession with building solid gold statues of himself has, unsurprisingly, attracted the attention of countless greedy goblins. Your role is not one of heroic destiny but of contractual obligation: protect the king’s vanity projects.

The narrative exists purely as a justification for the action. King Harry, who reportedly “sounds more like a janitor that found a crown,” provides occasional commentary, but there is no character development, no plot twists, and no emotional stakes. The themes are as simple as they come: greed (the goblins’), vanity (the king’s), and duty (yours). The game makes no attempt to subvert or deepen these fantasy tropes. The dialogue is functional, serving primarily as tutorial instruction and wave alerts. This lack of narrative ambition is not necessarily a flaw in a gameplay-first genre, but it contributes to the overall feeling of a experience that lacks depth beyond its core mechanic.

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems

At its heart, Now There Be Goblins is a fusion of two genres: first-person brawler and tower defense.

The Core Loop: Each level tasks you with defending King Harry’s statue against waves of goblins. Before a wave begins, you have a build phase to place structures using a resource system. Once the wave starts, you transition from architect to frontline defender, directly engaging the foes that breach your defenses.

The “Smack and Smash”: Your primary tool is a chained blacksmith’s hammer, a weapon celebrated since the prototype for its weighty, physics-driven feel. Swinging it sends goblins flying with cartoonish violence. You can charge it for a powerful active ability and later unlock variants with new powers. The combat system expands through environmental interactivity and loot: you can grab goblin-dropped weapons like swords, maces, and bows, or use found items like torches, bottles, and dynamite. This is where the game’s VR potential shines brightest, offering a chaotic, physically engaging playground.

The Tower Defense: Your strategic arsenal includes four base structures—Barricades, Cannons, Repeaters, and Ballistas—each with multiple variants, leading to over 16 total options. These can be upgraded and placed strategically to create synergies, such as using glue traps to slow enemies for cannon fire. Progression is tied to a meta-game where completing levels and achievements earns points to unlock new structures, hammers, and player upgrades for tackling higher difficulties.

Flaws and Frustrations: This is where the vision fractures. The Dutch review from Gameplay (Benelux)—the game’s only documented critic score—pinpoints the central issues. The systems are described as “all fairly straightforward, without much depth or options to improve your buildings.” The strategic layer lacks the complexity and nuance of tower defense classics, feeling more like a supplemental activity to the main event of whacking goblins.

Furthermore, the motion-controlled interaction, the very soul of VR, was cited as flawed: “the interaction can be better in some areas, certainly when it comes to picking up and using weapons (we have all too often smashed our VR controllers against the floor).” User reports on Steam echo this, mentioning bugs like getting stuck in the tutorial cabin and awkward scaling that forces players to “squat to hit them.” The promise of a deep progression system seems hampered by a lack of content and polish, with players reporting a limited number of levels and strategies that quickly feel exhausted.

World-Building, Art & Sound

Now There Be Goblins employs a stylized, low-poly aesthetic that is effective if not groundbreaking. The art direction, led by Tom van Dijk, uses bright colors and exaggerated designs to create a lighthearted, almost whimsical tone. The goblins are more comical than threatening, and the environments, from a rustic cabin to the king’s castle, are simple but cohesive.

The team’s use of custom shaders and “visual tricks” creates a cohesive and visually legible world that performs well in VR. Particle effects, especially on weapon impacts and explosions, are chunky and satisfying, providing essential feedback for the combat. However, the world-building is minimal. Levels feel like combat arenas rather than lived-in places, serving functionality over atmosphere.

The sound design is functional, with the crunch of hammer blows and the gibbering of goblins doing the bulk of the auditory work. The soundtrack is forgettable, serving as ambient background noise rather than a memorable component of the experience. Thomas van Rossum, the freelance audio engineer, delivered a competent but unremarkable package that supports the action without defining it.

Reception & Legacy

Now There Be Goblins was released into a void of critical attention. With only one professional review recorded on MobyGames—a 68% score from Gameplay (Benelux)—it failed to make a significant splash upon its release. The reviewer concluded it was “fun as a short distraction, but certainly no must-play.” The Steam community page shows a small, dedicated player base grappling with bugs and offering suggestions, but the conversation is minimal.

Commercially, its legacy is written in its price history. Launched at $17.99, it frequently found itself on deep discount, eventually settling into a permanent budget title price of $3.24 on Steam—a telltale sign of a game struggling to find an audience.

Its legacy, therefore, is not one of influence or commercial success, but of a cautionary tale. It exemplifies the immense challenge for small indie teams to scale a fantastic VR prototype into a full-fledged, content-rich game. It proved that a great core mechanic—the chained hammer—is not enough to carry an entire experience without deeper systemic depth, narrative context, and polished interaction. It stands as a monument to the potential that the VR medium holds for genre hybridization, but also a reminder of how difficult it is to execute that vision completely.

Conclusion

Now There Be Goblins is a game of unfulfilled promise. The foundational thrill of its physics-based combat is undeniable and a testament to the initial genius of its prototype. For a brief, chaotic moment, swinging that chained hammer into a horde of cartoon goblins captures the magic of VR power fantasy.

However, the game built around that singular joy is shallow, undercooked, and technically uneven. The tower defense mechanics lack strategic depth, the narrative is nonexistent, the progression feels grindy, and the motion controls can be frustratingly imprecise. It is the video game equivalent of a fantastic appetizer that never leads to a main course.

For VR enthusiasts curious about genre hybrids and willing to overlook significant flaws for a few moments of smash-happy fun on a deep discount, there is a novelty to be found. But for most, it remains a footnote—a compelling proof-of-concept that serves better as a lesson for developers than as a recommended play for gamers. In the annals of VR history, Now There Be Goblins will be remembered not for what it did, but for what it so clearly had the potential to do.