The 13th Anniversary of LockedOn Games has arrived. It's definitely been an interesting journey, from creating short games and animations within a few weeks and launching them for free on Scratch, to creating visual novels that take hours to play through and selling them on Steam and itch.io. I have changed a lot since I started making games, of course. However, that independent spirit has stayed with me.
My projects are where I am able to express all the different flavors of my personality — I create them to appeal to what I like, and that's what I want to keep doing for the rest of my life. That's not a wise strategy for a company, but for a solo creator, it's the way I feel fulfilled. Being able to create my projects without limits is what success looks like to me. Whether some projects do well and others don't, what's important to me is that I'm creatively satisfied with what I'm doing.
For this anniversary, I have some exciting announcements to make — and there are some you may not expect! ;)
PRISON OF LIES UPDATE + STEAM RELEASE
Current status: IN PROGRESS
Prison of Lies had its 5th anniversary this year! If you don't know, it's a short 30-40 minute visual novel I created for 2019's NaNoRenO game jam. Lots of people enjoy this one, and I've gotten requests before to release it on Steam. However, since it was created for a jam, it was a little rough, and I didn't really feel it was suitable for Steam in the state it was in.
But now I'm happy to announce that I've been secretly working on a revamped version here and there over the past few months. I've redesigned the menus, added features, redrawn the sprites and added more expressions. Though the story hasn't changed, it is now a more polished game. We're working to bring a Chinese translation to the game as well! And most exciting of all, it will be fully voiced, just like Catalyst Wake was.
The new version will be coming to Steam and itch.io later this year. It will still be entirely free to play, just like the original game jam version. Speaking of that, the original NaNoRenO version will still be available to download on itch.io, if you get nostalgia for it or something.
THE ART OF METHODS
Current status: IN PROGRESS
I announced the Art of Methods a while ago. It's been a huge project. Even though I made some of the workload easier by publishing weekly posts about the characters on my Patreon/Afdian pages for several months, there were still a ton of characters I hadn't written about yet — and to be clear, this artbook covers every single character, including characters from the Vignettes. This artbook has much more than that though — I've written tons of new articles, revealing new details about the development process, my thoughts on each stage in the contest, each mystery, and more. It will be available as a free digital DLC to Methods on Steam and itch.io.
METHODS FOR MOBILE
Current status: IN PROGRESS
Erabit Studios is helping bring Methods to iOS and Android, splitting it into five games. We will continue to release the rest of the game on mobile!
METHODS JAPANESE TRANSLATION
Current status: IN PROGRESS
We are translating Methods into Japanese — and the Japanese version of the first twenty chapters is already available on mobile! The plan is to finish the translation of all the chapters on mobile first before implementing it into the PC version.
METHODS: THE CANADA FILES
Current status: IN PROGRESS
Hangout Three was just released recently — it took longer than the other Hangouts, so I'm really glad to have finally gotten it out there. I think it's time to properly announce File 04!
File 04: New Brunswick will take our detectives to the Maritimes of Canada. It's impossible to guess what kind of mystery awaits them this time, but you can be assured that it will be the most challenging one yet, as Detective Anadyne takes center stage.
When I began developing MTCF, it was a less ambitious idea, however, it quickly evolved into a full-fledged game. As I've been writing it, I've come to realize that it is not a fun but optional entry in the Methods game series, but rather a crucial bridge between Methods and Motives. Motives does not make sense without it. Speaking of Motives...
MOTIVES: THE ULTIMATE PROBLEM
Current status: PRE-PRODUCTION
I haven't talked too much about Motives since the 10th Anniversary announcement three (wow!) years ago. Thank you for your patience in waiting for it. I have a few new details I would like to share. It will be built in Unity, and features explorable 3D environments. This opens up exciting new possibilities in terms of investigating crime scenes. I'm designing new mystery-solving gameplay to accompany it which splits the difference in difficulty between MTDC and MTCF. MTUP's main priority is its story, just like MTDC, but I think it would be better if it was a little more challenging than simple multiple-choice. ;) With this game, the detectives attempt to answer the question: What is the ultimate problem? And like any question, the deeper you go, the harder it is to answer.
That's all the news I have for now! Here's to another year of games!
Until next time!
— LockedOn.
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