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Genre: Point-and-click, Puzzle, Adventure, Indie

Loco Motive

Development Update #13


🎊Loco Motive is finished!🎊

Let's get straight into it, we've hit our biggest milestone yet! - After several years in development, we're very pleased to confirm that Loco Motive is complete. We'll be continuing to squash any bugs in the lead up to launch, of course, but the work is done. We made an entire video-game, people!

We've had a few questions about whether we are still intending to release Loco Motive in Q4 2024..

Yes! we'll be announcing our release date very soon, so please stay tuned for impending updates!


🎙️Role Call! - Voice Cast Announced🎙️

Earlier last month we gave the green light for our talented voice cast to announce their roles, and they delivered with gusto! we're proud to confirm (in Alphabetical order) that Loco Motive features the vocal talents of:

Jack Ayres as Gunter Gudrun, Hagen Gudrun, Jimmy

    Jack is a Welsh actor and Voice Actor originally from Cardiff, South Wales. Jack has established himself as a versatile and rising voice actor for video games and character voices having featured in almost 40 video game titles as of 2024, including Baldur’s Gate III and Black Myth: Wukong.

Samantha Béart as April Benelli

    Samantha is a BAFTA and DICE nominated, GANG Award-winning actor. In the world of videogames, they are best known for their role as Karlach in Baldur’s Gate III, but you may also know them as Thomasina in the critically acclaimed adventure game “The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow”.

Sally Beaumont as Beverly Moore, Sister Gretchen, Quinn Morgan, Florence Schreiber, Pearl Wexler, Shelly Gedling

    Sally is a voice actor living in Oxford, UK and no stranger to voicing adventure game characters, having played a wide range across 30+ video game titles. This includes The Excavation of Hob's Barrow, a leading role as Fia in the upcoming Old Skies, and a stand out performance as Weeoo in Harold Halibut.

Alasdair Beckett-King as The Handshake Leader

    Alasdair is an author, actor, video game writer and award-winning stand-up comedian, winner of the 2017 Leicester Mercury Comedian of the Year, and Chortle's Breakthrough Comedian of the Year in 2023. Alasdair is also the creator of the Nelly Cootalot series of adventure games.

Savy Des-Etages as Diana Osterhagen

    Savy is an experienced voice actor and audiobook narrator hailing from Lancashire, UK. In the world of video games, Savy has lent her talents to widely popular titles such as Viewfinder, Cassette Beasts, Fallout: London and more!

Antonio Greco as Donny Donato, Casino Enforcer

    Antonio is a versatile voice actor who specialises in character, animation / cartoon, and video game character voices.

Darius T Jackson as Raymond, Sonny, Victor

    Darius is a Chicago based voice actor for video games and animations, known for their role as Felix in Cassette Beasts.

Jacob Janerka as Brother Jared

    Once described as Australia's ‘most enigmatic’ game developer, Jacob Janerka is known as the creator of the surreal adventure game Paradigm and the upcoming The Dungeon Experience.

Dave Jones as Lex Lamont, Isaac, Harold

    Dave has previously voiced characters in video games such as The Excavation of Hob's Barrow and Planet Zoo, but he is perhaps best known for his role as Halsin in Baldur’s Gate III. This performance earned him a spot on the BAFTA Game Awards longlist for- Best Performance in a Supporting Role.

Amina Koroma as Justice Bailey, Edna, Doris

    Based in South London, Amina is co-founder of the British VO Network and a talented voice over artist who reads across Commercials, Drama, Animation and Gaming. In the field of video games, Amina is known for their roles in Baldur’s Gate III and Read Only Memories: Neurodiver.

Nickeem Latty-Morgan as Emmanuel, Sonny

    Nickeem is a voice actor and freelance video editor based in South London, specialising in character performances for video games and animation.

Jim Meskimen as Mr Masson

    James Ross "Jim" Meskimen is an accomplished actor, impressionist and voice actor who has been a fixture in film, TV, animation, games and audiobooks for decades. He has appeared in films for director Ron Howard, Paul Thomas Anderson and Garry Marshall.

Brent Mukai as Herman Merman

    Brent is a Japanese American Voice Actor, based in Los Angeles. He brings a decade of experience in film and theatre acting, improv comedy, and stand up comedy. Brent is known in games for his roles in Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, Genshin Impact, Lost Judgement and Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes

André Refig as Antoine Cassoulet

    André is a dual-nationality French-British actor based in London, UK, and has provided a wide range of voices for video game projects from indies to AAAs in both English and French. André is known for their role as Aymeric Cassel in Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty

Will Derenzy-Martin as Doctor Hirsch, Kasper Bergmann, François Tatin, Philately Stamp, Maurice

    Will is an award-Winning Voice Actor based in London, UK. Will has played a wide range of characters, including Hercule Poirot in Hercule Poirot: The First Cases and Milil (God of Song) in Baldur's Gate III. Other titles include Black Myth: Wukong and The Excavation of Hob's Barrow.

Maxim Reston as Remy Galette

    Maxim is an experienced multilingual British voice artist and actor based in London, UK. They have featured in a number of video games such as Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince, Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden and Jagged Alliance 3.

Kaitlyn Robrock as Lady Unterwald, Arista Gudrun

    Kaitlyn is an American voice actress, best known for her role as the current voice of Disney’s Minnie Mouse. She is also known for her role as Felicia Sundew on Disney’s Amphibia and Tommy Goodman on Adult Swim’s Mr. Pickles.

Leonie Schliesing as the Shoeshine Girl

    Leonie is a multilingual, award winning Voice Actor. Their videogame roles include Aurore Cassel in Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty and Toka in Assassins’ Creed: Valhalla.

Edwyn Tiong as Jian Liu, Frank

    Edwyn is a Voice Actor and writer based in Adelaide, Australia. They have featured in a wide range of video games, including Cassette Beasts, Harold Halibut, Unavowed and Freedom Planet 2. They are also known for their role as Detective Grimoire in Tangle Tower and its upcoming sequel, The Mermaid Mask.

Inel Tomlinson as Dirk Chiselton

    Inel is an actor, TV personality and stand-up comedian from London, UK. Inel is a main cast member in the smash hit show Horrible Histories, he also hosts for Comic Con, BAFTA, Netflix and is the voice of Comedy Central UK. Inel has also voiced for a number of video games, including Final Fantasy XVI and Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine II.

Adrian Vaughan as The Board, Byron, Thomas Page, Ron, Henry Whistle, Vince Fortune, Brother Brian

    Adrian is a voice actor based in Melbourne, Australia. Their voice features in a wide range of video games, including Wargroove, Harold Halibut, Budget Cuts and upcoming adventure game, The Drifter.

Natalie Winter as Susanne Goldschmidt, Ruth, Evelyn, Mary

    Natalie is a UK based Voice Actor and Director, with credits spanning stage, screen, games, and radio. She has voiced a number of video games, including Assassins’ Creed: Valhalla, Skull and Bones, and The Excavation Of Hobbs Barrow.


🌟Next Fest Post-Mortem🌟

The dust has finally settled on Steam Next Fest, and we couldn't be happier with the response to the demo! thank you to everyone who played, streamed on Twitch, told a friend and provided feedback!

Loco Motive was in the top 50 titles under the 'Most Wishlisted Upcoming Games' tab, meaning we featured in the top 1.41% of all games that participated!

We also did very well in our chosen categories, with Loco Motive featuring as the #1 game in the Point-And-Click and Investigation categories, and charting #2 in Comedy, #3 in Mystery and #4 in the Puzzle categories.



We also received some kind words in the Press, of which we've curated a few quotes:


  • "If you're a LucasArts nut or just like a witty murder mystery, Loco Motive is a must play.... The set-up, characters, pixel art, slapstick humor, voice acting, animation – everything is fantastic." - GamesRadar+

  • "I really recommend checking out Loco Motive. When people say "LucasArts-style adventure" they normally wildly exaggerate. From this ENORMOUS demo, it might finally be time to bring out the accolade." - John Walker, Co-Creator of Rock Paper Shotgun

  • "Loco Motive throws you headlong into a murder mystery worthy of an Agatha Christie novel but with the wit and slapstick of a classic cartoon...The exquisite animation, snappy soundtrack and soundscapes will have you engrossed." - Thumb Culture

  • Loco Motive is a throwback adventure game featuring rich characters, lovely sprite art, and plenty of comedy. - PC Mag


🎖️We're nominated in the DevGAMM Awards!🎖️

We're very excited and humbled to announce that Loco Motive has been nominated in three categories at the upcoming DevGAMM Awards 2024 for:

🏆'EXCELLENCE IN NARRATIVE'
🏆'EXCELLENCE IN VISUAL ART'
🏆'THE GRAND PRIZE'




This was a very welcome surprise, and we'll be eagerly attending in Lisbon, Portugal next week with our fingers and toes crossed!

Wishlists!

We're delighted to announce that we're very close to our dream goal of 100,000 wishlists by launch!

Another shout-out to everyone who added Loco Motive to your wishlists, shared feedback and has supported us throughout development. We're a tiny indie team creating our debut game and this means a lot to us!

If you haven't already, consider wishlisting Loco Motive to receive a notification when the full game launches. It’s just one click, but it really helps us out!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1709880/

Stay tuned for impending news, you can follow us for regular updates on Twitter or join the official Robust Games Discord.

Loco Motive - AdventureX 2024 - Gameplay Stream 10/11

We'll be broadcasting more Loco Motive gameplay during the AdventureX 2024 Steam sale. Apologies if you're see multiple announcements here!

The AdventureX Steam event has begun! For the entire week, you can check out some of the best recent & upcoming narrative games. We've kept the Loco Motive demo up and running if you missed it last month! There's 140 games on sale and/or with a playable demo, so give them a try!

AdventureX is the UK's only convention dedicated to narrative-driven gaming. Since 2011, AdventureX has been bringing together developers & gamers with a passion for interactive storytelling.

You can watch the broadcast on the store page:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1709880/


Loco Motive - AdventureX 2024 - Gameplay Stream 9/11

We'll be broadcasting more Loco Motive gameplay during the AdventureX 2024 Steam sale. Apologies if you're see multiple announcements here!

The AdventureX Steam event has begun! For the entire week, you can check out some of the best recent & upcoming narrative games. We've kept the Loco Motive demo up and running if you missed it last month! There's 140 games on sale and/or with a playable demo, so give them a try!

AdventureX is the UK's only convention dedicated to narrative-driven gaming. Since 2011, AdventureX has been bringing together developers & gamers with a passion for interactive storytelling.

You can watch the broadcast on the store page:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1709880/


Loco Motive - AdventureX 2024 - Gameplay Stream 8/11

We'll be broadcasting more Loco Motive gameplay during the AdventureX 2024 Steam sale. Apologies if you're see multiple announcements here!

The AdventureX Steam event has begun! For the entire week, you can check out some of the best recent & upcoming narrative games. We've kept the Loco Motive demo up and running if you missed it last month! There's 140 games on sale and/or with a playable demo, so give them a try!

AdventureX is the UK's only convention dedicated to narrative-driven gaming. Since 2011, AdventureX has been bringing together developers & gamers with a passion for interactive storytelling.

You can watch the broadcast on the store page:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1709880/


Play the Fully Voice-Acted Steam Next Fest Demo!

Hello everyone! This is your official ticket to hop on board for Steam Next Fest!

Our demo is live RIGHT NOW, and we can't wait for you to give it a whirl! It's packed with cheeky British humour, Oscar-worthy voice acting, and a caboose full of charm 🚂✨

You can play the demo until October 21st. Both the demo and full release versions are also playable in German thanks to localiser extraordinaire Marcel Weyers, who also translated Return to Monkey Island.

We’ll be launching Loco Motive very, very soon on PC & Nintendo Switch, but until then, come test your wits and see if you can unscramble the curiosities aboard the Reuss Express. We promise it’s a jolly good time!



Demo Feedback


If you’ve already tackled the demo and want to share your thoughts, feelings and note-worthy moments, we’ve got a Steam Forum thread right here for you!



What will be in the full game?



  • A comedy adventure that hits like smooth jazz, set onboard a 1930s express train
  • Take control of three playable characters, in an interlinking comedic adventure
  • Uncover a deadly mystery, full of twists, turns and slapstick humour
  • Meet a train-full of quirky and somewhat suspicious fellow passengers
  • Stop at nothing to solve item-based puzzles, that won’t leave you head-scratching for hours
  • Choose how you play - take direct interactive character control, or opt for a classic point and click experience
  • Beautifully detailed pixel art animations
  • Need a little nudge in the right direction? Telephone for assistance with an in-game hint call-line!
  • With the slinky sounds of composer Paul Zimmermann (Wildfrost, Space Haven)
  • Fully voice acted!


To keep up to date on all things Loco Motive follow the dev team on Twitter or come join the official Chucklefish Discord! Finally, be sure to wishlist the game for a notification when the full game drops.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1709880/Loco_Motive/


Development Update #12

Hey, everyone!

It’s been a little while since our last development update, and wow, time really flies!
We’ve admittedly been a bit quiet, but that’s only because we’ve been fully heads down and pushing to get the game completed and as polished as possible. That said...

🎊Content Complete!🎊

We’re thrilled to announce another major milestone: Loco Motive is content complete! For the past month, we’ve been fully focused on polishing and bug fixing, making sure every aspect of the game meets our quality standards, and ensuring nothing is overlooked. With the end of development fast approaching, our next milestone is to have a completed build that we can comfortably call a Release Candidate.

In order to help us reach this stage, a dedicated QA team and our volunteer internal testers have been playing through the game in both English and German, providing feedback and helping us to locate and squash any bugs we might have missed!

⏱️Time to Completion⏱️

Based on early playtime feedback from our testers, I can comfortably call Loco Motive a feature-length experience, with an average playtime of around 14-15 hours. There's a lot of content here!

📺We were on the telly!📺

This was a weird one, but we were shocked to see Loco Motive feature as a question on the hugely popular UK quiz show, The Chase!

Thanks for getting it right, Jan!



Wishlists!

We're delighted to announce we've hit another wishlist milestone. Thanks to your support, we recently reached over 90,000 outstanding wishlists!

Another huge shout-out to you all for adding Loco Motive to your wishlists, sharing feedback and supporting us throughout our development so far. We're a tiny indie team creating our debut game and this means a lot to us! This gets us closer to our dream goal of 100,000 wishlists by launch!



If you haven't already, consider wishlisting Loco Motive to receive a notification when the full game launches later this year. It’s just one click, but it really helps us out!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1709880/

We’ll be sharing more progress as we go, but in the meantime, you can follow us for updates on Twitter or join the official Robust Games Discord.

Development Update #11

Hi there!

It’s been another busy few months for the Loco Motive team as we reach the end stages of development, but we're eager to bring you up to speed!

Voice Acting Complete!

Another huge milestone has been reached, as we've now completed all of our recording sessions for the game. All 8000+ lines of dialogue have been implemented, and we're currently processing each line to ensure everything is of a consistent quality and volume level, etc.

We'll be holding off on any casting announcements just a little longer, but we could not be happier with the ensemble we've put together! The final roster features a whopping 23 talented voice artists, who'll be voicing our cast of 60+ characters!

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Final Assets

Over the next few weeks, our priority is to get the remaining art and animation into the last chapter of the game, along with any remaining sound effects and music. It's been super satisfying to see that list get shorter every day. Once we reach the content complete stage, we'll be adding the final touches of polish and focusing on squashing any remaining bugs!

Close-ups

One of the elements we've been working on adding periodically throughout the game are close-up shots, which will appear during dramatic moments or to add better context to the narrative.

Close-ups begin as illustrated sketches by the wonderfully talented Loukia Kyriakidou, who also illustrated our key art and characters!

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Once each sketch is approved, we scale them down and render over the illustration in pixel art to get the final look. We've shared a few finished examples here:

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Wishlists!

A massive shout-out to you all for adding Loco Motive to your wishlists! As we mentioned in our last update, we just passed 80,000+ outstanding wishlists, which is a huge milestone on the road to 100,000 wishlists!

If you haven't already, consider wishlisting Loco Motive to receive a notification when the full game launches. It’s just one click, but it really helps us out!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1709880/

That’s all for now! We're excited to continue sharing updates with you as we reach the final stages of development on the game. We’ll be sharing more progress as we go, but in the meantime, you can follow us for updates on Twitter or join the official Robust Games Discord.

80,000 Wishlists!




We're delighted to announce we've hit another major milestone. Thanks to your support, we've now reached 80,000 outstanding wishlists!

A massive shout-out to you all for adding Loco Motive to your wishlists, sharing feedback and supporting us throughout our development so far. We're a tiny indie team creating our debut game and this means a lot to us!

If you haven't already, consider wishlisting Loco Motive to receive a notification when the full game launches later this year. It’s just one click, but it really helps us out!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1709880/

We’ll be sharing more progress as we go, but in the meantime, you can follow us for updates on Twitter or join the official Robust Games Discord.

Spring Development Update 🌱

“Hallo Freunde!”

It’s been a busy few months for the Loco Motive team, but we're eager to bring you up to speed on our latest developments! Since our last update, we've been busy recording voice-over dialogue with our cast, forging exciting new partnerships, and approaching a significant milestone: Finalising all the text in the game!

The writing process involved plenty of typing, ruminating and head-scratching but after 70,000 words or so - I'm glad to say we're almost there. As we worked towards this milestone, it enabled us to better explore our options with localisation.

The adventure game community is known for a strong and loyal German following, and Loco Motive has been no exception. With Germany featuring prominently as a top wishlist region, this was an easy decision for us to make:

We're delighted to announce that Loco Motive will be launching with German language support!

We’ve teamed up with Marcel Weyers to create the German localisation for Loco Motive, who you may be familiar with for their work on Return To Monkey Island, Goodbye Volcano High & Coffee Talk: Episode 2!

Marcel was happy to share a few words about the project:

“Working on Loco Motive has been super fun! There's so much attention to detail in this project, and even though some of the puns were quite tricky to translate, I can't wait for German adventure gamers to be able to play the game and laugh out loud as much as I did!”



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That’s all for now! We're excited to continue sharing updates with you as we reach the final stages of development on the game. We’ll be sharing more progress as we go, but in the meantime, you can follow us for updates on Twitter or join the official Robust Games Discord.

Don’t forget to wishlist Loco Motive for a notification when the full game launches! It’s just one click, but it really helps us out!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1709880/

Winter Development Update & 2023 Recap!

Hello there! It's time for the last Loco Motive blog of the year, so let's get straight to it!

As I write this blog post, we’re winding down development here and preparing to spend some well earned time with our family over the Christmas holidays. It’s a time of reflection, so let’s look at all we’ve achieved, and what’s left to come for us in the new year!

🧭2023 Recap🧭

2023! It’s been a year of highlights, but let’s look at some of our biggest milestones:




But that’s not all! We had time to squeeze in just a few more things before our Christmas break..

🎤 Voice Acting has begun!🎤

Many of the questions we’ve received so far have revolved around voice, and if / when Loco Motive will feature voice acting.

I am pleased to confirm that we've recently begun recording dialogue with a professional voice cast, who we couldn’t be more excited about! These talented voice actors have featured in games such as The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom, Viewfinder, Genshin Impact, Baldur’s Gate III, Starfield and more!

We’ll be announcing the full cast as we record more dialogue and get closer to launch, so keep your eyes peeled for a future announcement. Until then, we'll be keeping you guessing!



⚙️Accessibility Options!⚙️

We wanted Loco Motive to be more accessible and give players more options. We recently spent some time adding accessibility features to the game, including the following:


  • ⏪ Subtitle Speed Settings
  • 🗨️ Subtitle Backing Settings
  • 🗚 Bigger Text Size Settings
  • 📛 Display Speaker Name Option
  • 📑 Dyslexic Friendly Font Option
  • 🎉 Confetti Mode! (Removes Blood!)
  • 🎮 PlayStation Controller Support!


Here are some new screenshots to show some of these options in action!











This isn’t an exhaustive list, but we intend to listen to feedback and work to make the game as accessible as we can for launch!

🛠️Development continues!🛠️

Loco Motive became fully playable from start to finish in late July, and since then we've all been working dilligently to get more of the written dialogue into the game, adding more music and SFX, polishing the visuals and adding more animation! We've also been able to start exploring those bigger features like voice acting and localisation.

We don't want to give too much away just yet, but we thought we could share some brand new animation work from the game for now!



📅Loco Motive launches in 2024📅

As we mentioned earlier this year, Loco Motive will now be launching in 2024 for PC and Nintendo Switch.

There are a number of factors behind the decision, but ultimately we’re a small but ambitious team who needs a little bit of extra development time to deliver the game we set out to make.

We can all agree that delays are annoying, but we strongly believe this extra time will allow Loco Motive to reach its full potential.

Thanks for your understanding and support. We can't wait to share the full Loco Motive adventure with you, it will be worth the wait!



Wishlists!

A massive shout-out to you all for adding Loco Motive to your wishlists! thanks to your efforts we recently hit our 70,000 wishlist milestone, and are already well on the way to our next goal! Thanks for all your support so far.



We're excited to continue sharing updates with you as we make progress on the game. We’ll be sharing more progress as we go, but in the meantime, you can follow us for updates on Twitter or join the official Robust Games Discord.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1709880/Loco_Motive/

Don’t forget to wishlist Loco Motive for a notification when the full game launches! It’s just one click, but it really helps us out. We also plan to use this data to decide future language support!


🙌Teamwork makes the dream work!🙌

Before we break for Christmas, we just wanted to thank our entire extended team for their hard work in 2023, and for getting us one step closer to bringing the game to launch!

There's still a bit of work ahead of us, but 2024 will be the year of Loco Motive.

We couldn't be prouder of this team, and consider ourselves very lucky to have this level of talent involved.

Have a Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!



Adam & Joseph
Robust Games