The 1990s harbored a deeply ironic, nearly apathetic young adult culture. It was a strange transitory period between NSFNET to dial-up Internet; floppy disks to CD-ROMS; brick phones to mobile phones; and the ever-increasing iron grip of now-HD television. Just before the age of smartphones and 24/7 access to information, 90s kids avoided the addiction to instant gratification (at the time at least) and had better attention spans than a goldfish.
With all this affordable time and new technologies, the wake of the 90s featured a point-and-click adventure game boom. This was sustained by CD-ROMs and the shift from text commands to computer mouse capabilities. This decade became the “golden age” for this genre, spearheaded by studios like LucasArts and their iconic Sam & Max Hit the Road, Full Throttle, and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis games, as well as Sierra Entertainment’s King’s Quest. In 1991, Coktel Vision released the first Gobliiins game, designed by French artists Pierre Gilhodes and Muriel Tramis. This absurd point-and-click captured the hearts of many and resulted in five whole sequels! Finally, in 2026, The Gobliiins Collection was unleashed by Red Art Games (as Coktel Vision is now defunct). The Collection features Gobliiins 1-5 alongside plenty of bonus content, art, and behind-the-scenes peeks.
The Gobliiins Collection can be played on the Nintendo Switch 1 & 2, the PlayStation 5, and the Xbox Series X/S.
Playing the jesters
Each game in the series takes place in a medieval era-inspired setting, centered around distressed monarchs and zany jester, goblin . . . creatures. Each game’s plot is mostly shallow, having a sort of big baddie threaten the monarchy. For some reason, the goblins must assume the role of the “hero[es]” of these stories. Both Gobliiins and Goblins 3 feature a twist ending, and each game is either a sequel of another or generally takes place within the same “world.”
Gobliiins originally released in 1991. The game follows three goblins (hence the three Is in the title) who were tasked by the wizard Niak to gather three curing items to heal the King’s sudden madness. The players take control of the goblins Asgard, the irritable brawler, Ignatius, the magical eccentric, and Oups, the “technician” who can pocket items. Gobliiins contains 22 linear levels that can be progressed through puzzle-solving, taking 4-6 hours to complete.
Gobliins 2: The Prince Buffoon released a year later (1992). As the title suggests, the player only controls two goblins this time: Fingus, the timid yet intelligent goblin, and Winkle, the purple-colored doofus. These goblins’ mission is to rescue the King’s son, Prince Buffoon, who had been kidnapped by the demon lord Amoniak. Gobliins 2 has only seven levels, but there are multiple rooms per level. It takes about 3-5 hours to finish, being slightly shorter than its predecessor.
A trio of fools
Goblins 3 (or Goblins Quest 3, after Sierra Entertainment bought Coktel Vision) released in 1993 and takes place during a war between monarchs over control of the Labyrinth. Players are down to only one goblin – Blount – who is not only a “goblin” but becomes a werewolf early into the game. Even though players only have one goblin, he makes allies along the way that serve as temporary players while Blount navigates the magi-political chaos of the Labyrinth. Goblins 3 has 18 levels with some being single rooms and others being multi-roomed. The game takes 5-7ish hours to complete.
Gobliiins 4 brings the goblin total back up to three, and is a direct sequel to the first game. Good ol’ Asgard, Ignatius, and Oups are protagonists once again. But now – the trio appears in 3D (which is perhaps not a good thing)! This game took over a decade to release (2009) when Pierre and Muriel temporarily reunited after Coktel Vision shut down. The classic trio takes on a goofy quest to find the King’s pet aardvark. Gobliiins 4 has 16 levels with some bonus areas, taking 5-7 hours to finish.
Finally, Gobliiins 5: The Morgloton Invasion is included in this Collection, originally being released just back in 2023 on itch.io. It was funded via Kickstarter and Ulule. The game is now back in 2D after the mixed reviews on the 3Dness of Gobliins 4. The player controls the classic goblin trio who stymie the mad scientist Morglott from firing a magic ray that transforms royal subjects into potatoes. This game features 16 levels divided up into four sections. This causes the trial-and-error game to take much longer to beat (around 9-11 hours). The Gobliiins Collection does not feature the sixth installment due to its recency.
No goblin is alike
Each game in the Gobliiins Collection operates simply. You command the goblins on where to move to and on what to interact with. Certain goblins have special quirks. Oups is the only one in the trio that can pick up objects and inventory them; Ignatius can transform objects into new items or make them smaller or bigger; Fingus can puzzle-solve whereas Winkle can brute force through obstacles; and Blount can go werewolf mode. In some installments, like the first Gobliiins, players are locked onto one scene until the full puzzle is solved. In the other games, players can move back and forth between a few scenes and carry puzzle-solving objects between them. If you have ever played any 1990s point-and-clicks, you’d know the drill.
I played the Collection on the Nintendo Switch. It is a little odd to control, as the games were certainly made for the computer and mouse. It is still doable on console. Alternating between characters can be difficult. You either have to carefully click each character with the joystick, or remember to press one of the following: L, R, LT, or RT. Timed puzzles on console are quite the struggle as well.
Point, click, and find out
There are several steps to take when solving puzzles. Players can interact with anything and everything in the environment (fortunately, you can press a button to highlight all the “key” objects in a scene) to see what happens. Objects can do different things depending on the interacting character, and depending upon what location you bring that object to. Most puzzles require switching between characters often to manipulate its effects. Everything relies on a specific chained sequence of events, so solutions require a lot of trial-and-error. Some puzzles are also timed. For example, in Gobliiins 5:
Ignatius must cast a spell on the big earthworm, the kid holding a balloon, on the pile of garbage underneath a rat, and on the 5 wimpy-looking flowers. Then, Asgard will hit the tool shed 4 times to break it, then examine the stump, and then a mole will appear. Oups moves over to quickly take the mole’s glasses. He will also pick up a banana peel, can of food, clear bottle, tin can, and a pickup tool. Oups will then talk to a creature that looks like a potato. Next, Oups will speak to the Venerable Tree 3 times until the latter shows you his foot. Then the player quickly uses a hammer to remove the nail. Talk to the tree again and learn that it lost its glasses – give the Tree the glasses from the mole. Oups will get the garbage bag next to the tree and put all the trash in there.
. . . what? Without context, these instructions are ludicrous. Well, even with context, all scenes play out insanely.
Logic over the moon
Gobliiins puzzles are evidently nonintuitive. Each installment is filled with absolute moon logic. This might turn off a lot of players, especially newcomers to the series or those with rather short attention spans. Even if the game should take 5 hours maximum, it could end up consuming twice as many hours without a guide. I found myself often frustrated from being blocked off from using true logical thinking. I just had to perform interactions over and over and over again. It is like psychopathic coding.
For other players, the Gobliiins Collection‘s ridiculous nature might be amusing to fumble through. At the very least, you receive unique and silly reactions no matter what you do. The game has a pleasant mixture of 1990s nostalgia and enough charm to engage with what little plot it as.
However, for both old-school players and newbies alike, the first Gobliiins might end up the most aggravating of all. Its successors allow players to endlessly mess up and figure it out at one’s own place. But, the original game has a health meter. If you screw up the puzzle enough times, you actually kill your goblins! The meter will slowly deplete and you will witness the trio get increasingly injured and angry. A game over screen will appear and you have to start all over again. Ahhhhhh! Gobliiins might feature the easiest puzzles compared to other installments, but that health meter is dastardly. No wonder it was removed immediately for Gobliins 2!
With flying colors
The art featured in the Gobliiins Collection is quirky, whimsical, and detailed. Each scene is a beautiful mashup of European-style storybook fantasy, VGA/SVGA pixel art, with sprinkles of surrealism and comically exaggerated proportions. Backdrops are carefully detailed and vivacious, making each scene feel “alive,” which is perfect for a game meant to allure players into interacting with everything. The scenes are colorful with good contrast – each character and important object will stand out to some degree. It is a bit amusing to see how small the goblins actually are in certain rooms. A large quirk the Collection offers is that you can change the look of each game (or at least Gobliiins 1-3)! You can visualize them like the original floppy disk version, or upgrade the design to the CD-quality VGA display.
The 1990s became the golden era for incorporating cinematic animations into games: the Gobliiins Collection features constant motions via bouncing, walking, and wobbling; joyful, angry, and fearful expressions on faces; and hundreds of unique object interactions. These animations are also rather significant for the player’s interpretation, indicating if you have done something correctly or not in the chained sequence of events.
The soundtrack to the Gobliiins games is very playful and medieval-inspired, often just atmospheric to make way for the plethora of in-game sound effects. The sound effects are a bit obnoxious, but can be funny and/or point you in the right direction of the puzzle solution. Again, with the Collection, you can manipulate how you want each game to sound before playing (for example, the original Gobliiins floppy disk version had no music at all, whereas the Mac version has FM Syntehsis tracks). While the music is nothing to rave about, the Collection does feature a music player for you to sift through.
The legend behind Gobliiins
There is a bonus entry in the Collection that features five behind-the-scenes videos as well as an assortment of concept art and sprite work. It is an extra treat for longtime fans of the Gobliiins series! While the videos are in French, English subtitles can be turned on.
The first video is called “The Origins,” featuring Pierre Gilhodes himself speaking about his time working with Muriel, his influence from Tolkien and LucasArts, and the creation of the goblins’ names and designs. It is interesting to note that Gilhodes asserts that the goblins are not “sweet, little gnomes,” but rather “despicable creatures!” The second video is “Making a Gobliiins Game,” going through Gilhodes’ process of drawing, level design, puzzle-creating, and animating. The third video is titled “Tame the Constraints,” going over the 1990s’ technical and time constrains of making a Gobliiins game. The fourth video “The Indie Journey” explores Gilhodes’ later fascination with 3D modeling and other adventure game software. Finally, the fith video “At the Heart of the Message,” displays Giholdes’ love for his work and desire to include positive messaging in his art.
After watching each video, players receive a key. After collecting all five keys, you can open the treasure chest at the end of the map. I will not spoil the result!
Final thoughts
Gobliiins is packed with obnoxiously funny sound effects and jokes, infuriating moon logic and baffling puzzle solutions, memorably exaggerated characters and visuals, simple yet charming plotlines, and somewhat funky but nostalgically alluring point-and-click mechanics. This series is not my cup of tea at all, and the puzzles are downright ludicrous. However, I can still recognize the appeal. After exploring the bonus content in particular, I came to appreciate Gilhodes’ passion, whimsy, and creative vision. The fact that this series has grown to encompass six installments is very impressive. This shows Gilhodes’ desire to keep on going despite Coktel’s buyout, shutdown, and the series’ gradual descent into obscurity.
The Gobliiins Collection itself is remarkably seamless and gamer-friendly. It allows players to browse a digital library, customize the visual and audio to their liking, engage with additional artwork, and delightfully witness a beautifully animated in-game computer booting up a floppy/compact disc. Extraordinary love and attention to detail was poured into this Collection. Longtime fans will undoubtably appreciate the nostalgia, while newcomers may find themselves charmed by its absurdity. You simply must be patient with it.
