Video Game / Griswold the Goblin

"Once upon a time in Phantasmagoria, there lived a rather filty goblin named Griswold, who would change the world forever..."

—The first game's intro

Griswold the Goblin is a Flash game developed by Phantasmagoric Entertainment and B-group Productions (the same B-group Productions behind Reincarnation) and released in 2005. An homage to 1990s point-and-click adventure games, it stars Griswold, the titular goblin, going on a walk and tripping on a ruby one day, unaware that he will have an impact on his homeland of Phantasmagoria. He takes the gem back to his home, where it is stolen that night by an evil mage named Mushugoogoo while the goblin is sleeping. The next morning, Griswold wakes up and sets off to find the stone, helping many people and running into a series of minigames in the process.

A sequel, titled Griswold the Goblin: Islands of Fire — Chapter 1, was released in 2009, centering on Griswold trying to find Goblin City so he can get even more jewels. He must venture into a forbidden labyrinth, save the weeping widow's husband, and get the Skeleton Key to find the way into the place.

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These games provide examples of:

Both games

• The Ghost:
  • Haggard Helga, the witch who authored the spellbook you find in the dumpster in the first game.
  • Gabriela Goblioni, who has been kidnapped, and her father Don Goblioni, who is offering a reward for her rescue in the second game.
• Mighty Lumberjack:
  • The lumberjack in the forest in the first game, who chopped down the grumpy tree's friend and refuses to leave. Griswold can challenge him to a tree-chopping race, which he must win by taking advantage of the lumberjack's sweat-wiping. When the goblin wins, the lumberjack's face red with rage and he storms off.
  • Another one appears in the second game (and may or may not be the same one from the first), who got lost in the labyrinth and is trying to chop down a gum tree in his dead end. Griswold must decipher the map for him, after which the lumberjack allows him to keep it and even rewards him with said axe and the lumberjack juice in the dark halls, quitting the lumberjacking business afterwards.
• No Name Given: Virtually no one in the games is given names. The only exceptions are Griswold, Helga, the other two witches you can read about in her spellbook, Oscar, Gavin, Mushugoogoo, and Gabriela and Don Goblioni (the latter of whom is never given a first name and is just called Don).
• Our Goblins Are Different:
  • Griswold is your regular run-of-the-mill green-skinned goblin with pointy ears, a big nose, and an eye for valuables. He's out to get his ruby back (Griswold the Goblin) and get to Goblin City (Islands of Fire), but he ends up helping many people along the way and running into new adventures and minigames. He also has a habit of occasionally farting and scratching his butt.
  • There's also Gavin, another goblin fitting that description, who kidnaps Oscar (planning to sell him along with everything else in his store) and has quite the soft spot for his elusive chicken.
• Running Gag: Gavin's chicken has escaped and someone wants to catch the bird (Gavin in the first game, the monster in the second). This chase leads to the goblin being eaten by a plant.
• Speaking Simlish: Played straight in the first game, where everyone except Mushugoogoo talks like this, even in the cutscene where he encounters Griswold. Averted in the second game, which is fully voiced.

Griswold the Goblin

• Been There, Shaped History: Possibly. Haggard Helga writes about Ancient Anne, who discovered the meteor potion several million years before the game's events, and may have driven virtually all dinosaurs to extinction.
• Big Bad: Mushugoogoo, an Evil Sorcerer who wants to Take Over the World with all the gems he stole, including Griswold's ruby, and have a cup of coffee afterwards.
  Mushugoogoo: Hmmm, so...if my calculations are correct, which they obviously are, seeing as I did come up with them, if the combined power of these gems is absorbed by my body, I can rule the entire world with immense power! Mmmuuuahahhaahaaahaaahaaaaa! So long as no one stands in my way...
• Blah, Blah, Blah: Haggard Helga wrote this in her spellbook when describing the effects of salt water on the potions.
  Haggard Helga: If you have been paying attention in my last books then you would know that it is a must to have salt water in any spell, if not, the spell will simply not work due to the fact that the added ingredient of salt water makes the molecules inside the potion react more effectively with BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH.
• By the Lights of Their Eyes: When you first talk to the old lady's cat, only his eyes are visible from the tree he's sitting in. They stay that way until you give him a fish.
• Collapsing Lair: Mushugoogoo's lair comes crashing down when Griswold uses the ???? potion on the shelf above the former.
• Crazy Cat Lady: The old lady Griswold meets in the pink house, whose favorite cat ran away. When he returns this cat, she rewards him with a wad of cat hair.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: The ???? potion "should be handled with absolute caution," as it's unknown exactly what will happen when it's used. Case in point, it can be used for things like turning people into other creatures, opening gates to parallel universes, destroying whatever it comes into contact with, causing the drinker to grow huge and buff and then shrink to the size of a bug, and others.
• Enraged by Idiocy: The library's owner got so furious "on account that not everyone is smart" that they closed the place down, throwing all the books and other stuff in the nearby dumpster.
• Eye of Newt: The potions each have specific ingredients that must be applied in the right order for them to properly work. As quoted from Helga's spellbook:
  • Invisibility: "A blind black bat, and the hair of a cat, you won't be seen and that's that."
  • Meteor: "A drop of petrol and a dragon's scale, pour it on your target and fire will hail."
  • ????: "A little cockroach and a blue mushroom too and then we don't know what it'll do."
• I Just Want to Be Beautiful: When describing the invisibility potion, the spellbook tells the story of Wicked Wanda, a witch who wanted to be seen as something other than hideous to the point where she had 214 facelifts, none of which worked. She eventually decided the only way to do this was to simply not be seen, upon which she discovered the potion.
• Invisibility: One of the potions has the ability to turn its drinker invisible. Griswold has to use that to get some dragon scales for another.
• Lazy Dragon: The dragon who lives in the cave Griswold reaches using Oscar's scuba gear. It spends a lot of its time snoozing away, that is, until he pinches a handful of its scales to use for the meteor potion.
• Magic Potion: There are three potions that Griswold must make to obtain his ruby (Invisibility, Meteor, and ????), all of which use salt water that can be held in the three bottles he also finds in the library's dumpster.
• Maniac Monkeys: The monkey guarding the bridge to the cemetery, who will knock Griswold into the water if he comes close. The goblin must distract him by throwing a banana into the water.
• Meteor-Summoning Attack: The meteor potion has the ability to summon a meteor to destroy its target, which Griswold uses to break the wall around Mushugoogoo's castle.
• My Name Is ???: The appropriately named ???? potion, which is known to cause many different effects (described in Dangerous Forbidden Technique above) and is a wild card in terms of doing so.
  Haggard Helga: This spell is exactly as the name implies, unknown. It has completely random effects every time it is used and should be used with absolute caution.
• Raised Hand of Survival: After his lair collapses, Mushugoogoo is revealed to have survived having the ceiling fall on top of him, raising his hand above the rubble.
• The Trees Have Faces: Griswold encounters a furious Jerkass tree with such a face on his trunk in the forest holding the crying girl's teddy bear. His felled friend also had a face on his trunk.
• Waking Up at the Morgue: A variation. While Griswold is walking in the cemetery, he is knocked out by a mysterious ghostly being and finds himself in a coffin at John Boogie's mausoleum, where he must kick his way out to escape before his oxygen runs out.

Islands of Fire

• Cliffhanger: Griswold has arrived at the entrance to Goblin City, which is said to contain great valuables and his coveted reward from the local don. A second chapter has yet to materialize, however...
• Convection, Schmonvection: Griswold can fish out some lava with a stone mug, which doesn't seem to have any ill effects on either the rod or the mug. Justified for the latter, as most rocks have a really high melting point.
• Distressed Dude: The husband has been captured by the monster, who's forcing him to...participate in his tea party. You have to present the latter with Gavin's chicken before you can free the former.
• Man-Eating Plant: Griswold encounters a huge carnivorous plant who chows down the goblin chasing the chicken from the last game. As it gets ready to eat him as well, he must stop it with the gum he burned off the lumberjack's axe.
• Power-Up Food: The Lumberjack Juice, which is said to contain vitamins giving lumberjacks their Super-Strength. Griswold can drink it to take the lumberjack's axe out of the gum tree.
• Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: The weeping widow's husband is thought to be dead after never returning from the labyrinth. His wife worries the beast might have found him. Turns out, she's right...but he's not dead, and the beast is trying to make him play tea party.
• Riddle Me This: In order to enter the ancient tree, you must ask the owl what to do. Griswold even lampshades it before she begins.
• Underground City: The Goblin City, which is said to be underground. It's unknown exactly what it looks like, though, since we never get to see it.
• Worthless Treasure Twist: Played for Laughs and then subverted. After freeing the weeping widow's husband from the beast, Griswold gets the Skeleton Key to open a treasure chest he finds on the beach. It contains a rope, which he uses on the well... leading him to Goblin City's entrance, where he'll find his sought-after valuables.

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