A little while ago, I stumbled across a review of Trash Goblin, a game about a little goblin living and working as someone who cleans up random items and sells them to people. While that might not sound exciting on the surface (and indeed, exciting isn’t exactly the word I’d use to describe this game), it sounded exactly like the sort of game I’d enjoy, and so I had to check it out for myself
After playing for over 20 hours and seeing the credits roll, I can say with absolute certainty that I wasn’t disappointed.
Trash Goblin
Genre(s) – casual, cozy, indie game
Original release date – November 6, 2023
Available on – PC, Nintendo Switch, XBox Series X/S, PS5
Played on – PS5
Like I said, you play as a goblin living in Silver City, whose self-appointed job it is to go through sacks of unearthed trinkets, clean them up, and sell them to customers who drop by. It’s a fairly simple gameplay loop, but that simplicity allowed the game developers some flexibility in how to present everything, and there’s even a significant narrative to keep a player interested. It could have been nothing more than a “keep going this until you’ve discovered all the trinkets,” deal and nothing else, but Trash Goblin offered much more than that bare minimum presentation, and I appreciate it for that.
Your unnamed goblin protagonist (whose aunt nicknamed him Shubble as a baby, due to how he couldn’t pronounce the word “shovel”) has a decent life working alongside Aimon, the owner of the sketchy furniture shop upstairs. His aunt is a chasm delver, and she’s the one who brings the bags of trinkets for your shopkeeper to deal with. A wide variety of customers come by during the day to purchase, ranging from regular run-of-the-mill humans, to telepathically-connected fungus folks, to anthropomorphic frogs and lizards, and even invisible spirits! They all have certain requests, and you can either fulfill the request or not (no penalty if you turn them away) based on what you have in your stash and whether you want to sell it.
THE STORY GETS WEIRD
There’s a good amount of world-building done for the setting of Trash Goblin. There’s a whole world beyond your little shop, which you can eventually see more of in the form of marketplaces, though there admittedly isn’t too much more that you, as the player, get to see. But there are plenty of signs that care was taken in the game’s creation. You see regular customers with stories of their own, alliances and grudges. The various peoples that visit your shop are all from distinct species, with uniquenesses all their own. There world stretches far beyond the few things you get to experience, and it makes that experience feel like a proper part of the world, something that fits with the world it inhabits. Kudos to the devs for taking the time and care to set up a world to play in, not just a game to play, if that makes sense.
You do get embroiled in a story, too, after Aimon finds a very creepy armoire that starts talking to him and demanding things. As Aimon’s plight worsens, you start doing more favours for other named characters around the city, giving them items they want in exchange for help with Aimon’s predicament. It’s an interesting adventure, told entirely through visual novel-style exposition, that supplements the trinketeer experience that Trash Goblin has in spades. Even without the story I would have enjoyed playing, all things considered, but having that narrative to pull me further along and giving me specific goals to aim for really kept me happy to engage with all the game’s systems. I wanted to see what would happen to Aimon next, how all the city’s connections would come together in some form to help a little goblin guy with his problems.
It could have been made without a story. It wasn’t, and I love it for that too.
CHIP, CHIP, CHIPPING AWAY
So how exactly does our dear Shubble go about actually getting those little trinkets to sell? Well, there’s an infinite sack in your workshop (all delivered by your eccentric auntie), and each item needs to be chiseled and chipped free of its rocky exterior. Once the stony outsides have been chipped away, then it can be cleaned, which allows it to be sold for a higher price, though some customers don’t really care what condition their requested item is in. Sometimes they want “upcycled” items, which is just gamespeak for “an item with something else stuck to it.” Doesn’t have to be the proper piece to complete a multi-part item. Want to sell a bedpan with a huge stone egg stuck in it? Sure, there’s a customer out there who’ll be happy to take it off your hands!
There’s also a little pay-what-you-can box where you can put items you don’t want to deal with anymore or that just aren’t selling, and people will come by and pay you a few coins for them. Beats them cluttering up your inventory, though I often kept forgetting that box was a thing entirely, so I rarely ended up using it.
Profits, of which there will be many in your little shop with almost no overhead costs, can be used to upgrade your tools and decorate your living space. Upgraded chisels allow for easier rock breaking, upgraded sponges clean larger areas, and once you get the upcycler, that can be upgraded to allow more trinkets to be fused together at once.
I will say that sometimes the gameplay does get a little fiddly when using a controller. It’s not terrible, but it does take a bit of adjusting to. Fortunately, at least with the PS5 version I played, there are shortcut buttons for nearly everything. Shoulder buttons to move around, or quickly open your inventory or quest list, were sanity-savers. I imagine it would be easier to manage with a keyboard and mouse, so PC players will likely have a smoother time.
MAKING THIS SHOP A HOME
As for decorating your living space, there are a number of options. You can use your gold to purchase shelves for your workbench and bed, or decorative hanging plants, or stash upgrades to increase the limited space in your inventory. The space is still limited, but it expands quite a lot over time, and money is really easy to make in Trash Goblin, and you’re likely to reach the credits with most, if not all, decoration and upgrade options unlocked.
There’s not a huge amount of customizability for decorations, unfortunately, though that’s also understandable. Most of the choices come down to, “Do I want a small shelf, or upgrade it to a bigger shelf?” But you can decorate the shelves by placing down items you want to keep, or by changing the design on your blankets and pillows. It’s the little things, but it works to make your living space feel more like your own, an extension of you, and I like that.
I initially thought I’d have 2 complaints about the game, but I think a random update patch made one a non-issue. Sometimes, when I was first playing, if I didn’t immediately clean an item I’d just uncovered but just placed it to one side so I could grab the next random item from the trinket sack, then I’d have to pick up the sack and shake it around a little before it would respawn and let me have a new item. It was weird! But suddenly that stopped happening, and really, I’m only guessing it was a patch that fixed it.
Either that, or my game was temporarily cursed.
Which would fit with Aimon’s story arc, I suppose…
So in the end, my only real complaint about Trash Goblin is the limited number of actions I can take in a day. Chipping away at a trinket takes up a time slot. Cleaning it takes another. Selling doesn’t take up any time slots, but upcycling items does, so if customers want that, then half the day can be gone before you really have a chance to do very much at all. It got a little frustrating sometimes, it be able to do so little before having to go to bed.
(Though being chronically ill and disabled, I guess I can relate to that…)
LOVELY TO LOOK AT, LOVELY TO PLAY
All that being said, Trash Goblin is delightfully chill when it comes to its gameplay. There’s no time limit to any quests, no consequences to your reputation if you turn away customers. You could, if you wanted, close your shop for a week and do nothing but chip away at trinkets, and that’s fine. I think there’s actually even an achievement for that! Turn away every single customer if you want. Take an in-game month to finish story quests. It’s fine to do things at your own pace. A lot of games say that, but Trash Goblin is one of the very few where I really felt it. Going to bed and ending the day after my action slots ran out was frustrating at times, but became a bit of a non-issue for me after a while, just blending into the regular pattern of days as a cute little shop goblin. Being able to do only a few things a day feels less constricting when the passing of days haa very little consequence.
I haven’t seen every little thing that Trash Goblin has to offer, but I have seen most of it. My Trinketpedia still has some empty slots, items I haven’t encountered yet. Named characters have stopped dropping by the shop, though I still get plenty of random customers; they never cease. There are some items that can be completed and made whole by connecting all their disparate parts, and there are a couple of those that I’m still working on. I’ve bought every upgrade and every decoration, my shop is as good as I can get it.
I still plan to keep playing, partly to finish up those last few things, but also because I’m genuinely still having fun. It’s a great game to unwind with after a long day, or to keep your hands busy while you listen to an audiobook or podcast. It’s a simple concept that yields far more than it needed to, and was a wonderful experience that I want to keep going with. The price might seem a little high at first, but I can assure you that it’s worth it if you want a chill and cozy game that’s actually chill and cozy.
Quadnines 
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