First playthrough

I just reached another milestone in the development of the game. I finished the first real playthough of the the game. For every chapter I collected things that have to be polished and bugs as well. I even implemented some quality of life improvements like the language selection and load / save screens. For example it is possible now to name your savegame instead of only having a time and date as the savegame name. The game features seven chapters and five of them are already polished and called final by me. Chapter 6 still has some bugs and things to improve. Chapter 7 only needs a little bit of polishing (tweaking some camera angles and directions of where characters look at).

Playtime

While doing the first playthough I recorded the playtime of each chapter to be able to give some values when asked. I recorded the times under the following conditions / constraints:

• Played using an optimized walkthrough (perfect order of doing things)
• Not really solving any puzzles, but always using the right answers / codes / ingredients initially
• No optional actions (not looked at a single hotspot in any scene, not picked a single optional dialogue option)
• Always using the shortest walk paths and the perfect scene order while running all the time
• Not skipping any mandatory cutscenes or dialogues

That means that this playtime is the shortest time you need to play the game, but not a speedrun time, because that would involve skipping all cutscenes and dialogues and using any glitches that could be found. The times I wrote down are the following: [table] [tr] [th]Chapter[/th] [th]Playtime[/th] [/tr] [tr] [td]0.5[/td] [td]15 : 00[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]1[/td] [td]35 : 00[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]2[/td] [td]2 : 15 : 00[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]3[/td] [td]1 : 00 : 00[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]4[/td] [td]59 : 00[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]5[/td] [td]36 : 00[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]6[/td] [td]35 : 00[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]7[/td] [td]15 : 00[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Sum[/td] [td]6 : 30 : 00[/td] [/tr] [/table] "Looky - The Adventure", the freeware 2D predecessor that was released 2007 featured the chapters 0.5 to 2 and the playtimes that I got from players back then were around 5 to 7 hours. Since some things were added to those chapters gameplay-wise it should be even more now. Doing the math that the perfect playtime is at 3 hours and the average time was around 5 to 7 hours I would take my recorded time times two which should result in an average playtime of

12 - 14 hours

for a player that never played the game before and has to puzzle his way through. I still have some elements and puzzles for the last chapter that I discarded lately (one puzzle and a shooting minigame). Maybe I put them back in, but that would only add some additional minutes to the gameplay, but the last chapter has a bit to less interaction right now for my taste. Currently it's very cutscene heavy. All in all I would call this game a long one while still being very varied. Not only because of the visual changes while travelling to different continents of planet Vermis, but also puzzle-wise. While for example chapter 2 is very inventory heavy with lots of combination puzzles, chapter 5 is more on the deductive side with you only carrying 2 inventory items the whole chapter.

Next steps

As I said above chapters 6 and 7 need a bit more polishing before I would call them final. After that I'll export all dialogue lines and other texts from the game to have them proof-read. Then the voice actors can start recording their parts while I will work on the English translation of the game and pick music for all scenes for chapters 3 to 7, as most of the scenes still don't have music or only some placeholder music tracks. That said I don't think I will be finished until end of the year which means I have to move the release date once again. As I have a quite clear picture of what still has to be done and based on my experiences I would expect a release of the full game in Q1 2024. Maybe I will be able to hit the next Steam Next Fest in February for the release, which would be great.

[ 2023-11-26 12:16:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

In a galaxy at the other end of the universe, on a planet called VERMIS, there are creatures so fearsome that it overwhelms all human imagination. Beings so wise and highly technologized that the very brightness of their aura would instantly shred our human eyes ... no, not really;)



The inhabitants of this planet are worms! But pretty clever ones. Among others, one of them is called 'Technologician'. And he discovered by means of a self-invented and self-built seismograph that the volcano 'Mount Spit' on the central island 'Residenco Volcano', that was believed to be dead for eons, may not be quite as dead as assumed. So the elders of the small island kingdom around Residenco Volcano decide to send out a brave hero to get an overview of the situation. As luck would have it (he, he) Looky gets the dangerous job. Why dangerous? Residenco Volcano is said to be inhabited by a folk of cannibals that is reason enough for all worms to not set a foot on this island (or more accurately: a tail, or tailtip, or … you know what I mean…).



You accompany Looky on his epic journey full of danger, screaming comedy and exquisite puzzles. Unravel the mysteries of a volcano that isn't one, a gone-nuts public enemy and the 'Barrier 51'!

• 3D cartoon graphics and classic point&click controls
  
• Visit more than 60 locations on several continents
  
• Meet more than 40 characters on your way
  
• Reveal dark military secrets
  
• Encounter unbelievable conspiracies
  
• Win crazy drinking contests
  
• Save planet Vermis from eternal subjugation