Play the Loco Motive Demo during Steam Mystery Fest!
AAAALL ABOARD!
We’re very excited to share the news that a playable demo of Loco Motive is now available during the Steam Mystery Fest, running from 20th - 27th February!
The demo features a taste of what’s to come in the complete game, and we’re looking forward to hearing your feedback!
What's Loco Motive again?
Loco Motive is a comedy point & click adventure, packed full of deadly surprises, shocking twists and larger than life characters! Play as Diana, Arthur and Herman to unwrap the mystery and put your point and click puzzle-solving skills to the test.
What’s in the demo?
In the demo you'll take control of Arthur Ackerman as he navigates the inconvenient murder of his employer, a caboose-full of larger than life characters and more devious puzzles than you can shake a walking stick at!
The final game will feature plenty more, including full voice acting, a feature-length story and three playable characters!
Where can I post my feedback?
We're very grateful for any and all feedback! You can either share any demo feedback in the Steam community forum or chat to the developers in our official Discord! If you enjoyed the demo and want to find out more about Loco Motive, you can also find us on Twitter!
Finally, be sure to wishlist the game for a notification when the full game launches!
That's all for now!
Winter Development Update
Hello and happy winter! We hope you and your loved ones are staying warm and enjoying the season.
We're excited to report that development is going well, with us recently reaching a significant milestone in the project! We’ll have more to share on that in the new year, so let’s do a little post mortem!
It's been a little over a month since we showcased Loco Motive at AdventureX in London. This was the first time we exhibited the game, and we wanted to share our experience, describe what went well, and look at what could be improved upon.
First, we want to thank everyone who attended the event and provided feedback on our game. We're taking your comments and suggestions to heart!
During AdventureX, we confirmed that the UK narrative game community is full of supportive and welcoming people. As newcomers to the scene, it was clear that everyone wanted each other to succeed. We met many developers and industry veterans who came to the booth and shared their thoughts, ideas and advice with us.
We’re happy to share that people are very excited for Loco Motive! There were often lines of people waiting to play the game during the event, and many attendees came by afterwards to tell us how much they enjoyed it.
Overall, we had a great response and generated a lot of positive buzz. We believe this was due to the game being well-received at the event, word-of-mouth recommendations from other attendees and the fact that we didn't yet have a demo available elsewhere. We're grateful for all the support and feedback we received from those attending!
One area we could improve on in future is the length of the demo. In order to streamline the build, we disabled several puzzle chains in Arthur Ackerman's first act and focused on one overarching puzzle.
We believed players would get through the demo in around 25-30 minutes, but we noticed they were often spending over an hour in it. This suggests that we could have streamlined things further while still providing a good representation of the game.
In the future, we will likely create a shorter demo. This will help us better manage players' time and provide a more focused experience. Deciding where to end the demo was a challenge for us, but we're confident that we can find a good balance in future iterations.
We look forward to sharing more updates with you in the coming weeks. In the meantime, we hope you have a wonderful holiday season and a happy new year.
Thank you for your support. We can't wait to share Loco Motive with you!
Tune in Tuesday at 11pm GMT / 6pm EST to catch a live stream of Loco Motive!
Watch us play Loco Motive!
Tune in Tuesday at 10pm GMT / 5pm EST to catch a live stream of Loco Motive!
Watch us play Loco Motive!
Tune in Monday at 9pm GMT / 4pm EST to catch a live stream of Loco Motive!
Watch us play Loco Motive!
Tune in Sunday at 8pm GMT / 3pm EST to catch a live stream of Loco Motive!
Watch us play Loco Motive!
Tune in Saturday at 7pm GMT / 3pm EST to catch a live stream of Loco Motive!
If you're in London this weekend come see us at Adventure X, where you can play Loco Motive and chat with the developers :)
Hope to see you there!
Watch us play Loco Motive!
Tune in Saturday at 3pm GMT / 11am EST to catch a live stream of Loco Motive!
If you're in London this weekend come see us at Adventure X, where you can play Loco Motive and chat with the developers :)
Hope to see you there!
Autumn Development Update
Hey everyone, Adam from Robust Games here. We’re excited to be kicking off another Loco Motive development blog, so let’s get right to it!
Development Update
In Loco Motive you play the intertwined stories of three characters aboard the train on one fateful evening. We’ve made huge progress since our last updates, adding lighting, more dialogue, puzzles and little environment touches. At this point, we’re very close to finalising Arthur’s telling of events!
Check out these latest shots of the game in action!
AdventureX - The Narrative Games Convention
We've been busy making the preparations for exhibiting at AdventureX (5th - 6th November, London), where attendees will be able to get their hands on Loco Motive for the first time!
AdventureX brings together a wide range of narrative-driven indie games and is the UK's only convention dedicated to narrative-driven gaming. It's a celebration of creativity, indie development and interactive storytelling, so we’re happy to be in such good company!
We thought it would be fun to let players have the true film noir experience, so you'll be able to play through Loco Motive in black & white via an option in the settings.
Character Spotlight - Lady Unterwald
It’s time for another character spotlight! This time we’re taking a look at Lady Unterwald.
Lady Unterwald is the eccentric heiress of the Wald-Bahn Rail Company and the head of the Unterwald empire.
On the verge of a landmark speech aboard her flagship train, Lady Unterwald has gathered the family together to finally reveal her successor, but not before making some last-minute amendments to her will.
What follows next will set the wheels in motion for an adventure that’s truly off the rails!
That’s all for now! 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.
Release Update, Exhibitions & Musical Deep Dive!
Hey everyone, Adam from Robust Games here. We’re excited to be kicking off another Loco Motive development blog!
Development Update
Before we get into it, we’ve had a few questions about when Loco Motive will be releasing.
Are we still set for Summer 2022? Isn’t it August already?
So, we've made the decision to delay Loco Motive to 2023. There are a number of factors behind this decision, but ultimately we believe this extra development time will allow us to deliver the game we want to make and allow Loco Motive to reach its fullest potential.
The excitement surrounding Loco Motive since its reveal in December has been really inspiring, and we appreciate your support so far.
We hope you’ll stay aboard just a little longer!
The Music Of Loco Motive
Our composer, Paul Zimmermann is here to talk about his approach to the music of Loco Motive, and the adaptive system we’ve built around the game as you move between carriages:
"My goal with every project is to find a sound that feels authentic to the game and its characters. The soundtrack for Loco Motive is turning out to be this fun blend of different styles and periods in music, from big-band swing to 60s spy music and the occasional French-inspired waltz.
We have quite the varied cast of characters, so it felt natural to try and reflect that in the music."
"From a technical standpoint it was important for us to implement the music into the game in a way that it reacts to the gameplay and locations, opposed to having static looping tracks.
As players roam around the train trying to solve puzzles, the music follows along and changes seamlessly between carriages and characters."
In order to achieve this, I’m writing and then exporting the music in small chunks that allow for fast transitions, meaning, a certain melody-note might be carried over into the next location, or a groove transitions smoothly. Our thinking here is that if players don’t notice it, then we’ve actually achieved what we set out to do!"
AdventureX brings together a wide range of narrative-driven indie games, and is the UK's only convention dedicated to narrative-driven gaming. It's a celebration of creativity, indie development and interactive storytelling, and we’re thrilled to have our game amongst narrative titans.
It’s time for our third character spotlight! This time we’re taking a look at our final playable character, the secretive Diana Osterhagen.
Diana is a British operative who's spent the last few months undercover in order to get close to the Unterwald family.
Tasked with gaining intelligence on potential ‘undeclared assets’, she finds herself aboard the Reuss Express in the arms of Kaspar Bergmann - who just so happens to be the treasurer of Lady Unterwald's wealthy estate.
Diana is soon swept up in something far more unsettling than undeclared income or tax liabilities, and must use her problem-solving abilities and highly developed interpersonal skills to get out of hot water.
That’s all for now! We’ll be sharing more progress as we go, but in the meantime you can follow us for updates on Twitter or join the community in our brand new Discord channel.
