LockedOn 15 Year Anniversary

It's the 15 Year Anniversary of LockedOn Games! It's been a while since the 10th Anniversary Presentation, and I did end up deviating from the plan I laid out there. However, I still intend to bring every project I announced to life eventually. In the next five years, I want to get back on track towards completing my most ambitious projects.

But first, I wanted to give an older game of mine a bit of a polish and a new release.

PRISON OF LIES

Prison of Lies is now on Steam for the first time, with a refresh and a newly added Chinese translation! Four prisoners on death row are cleared of all charges. But the prison has a quota to meet. The four are put in a room and asked to decide among themselves... who will be the one to die?

Discover a short twisty narrative with a unique "half-truth" mechanic and many surprises.

It's completely free to play, and I hope you enjoy it!

Play it here!

THE MASTERMIND AWAITS

Motives: The Ultimate Problem has now entered production. For now, here's another little preview.

A dangerous new mastermind awaits in Australia.

Given the new challenges that will come with creating Motives, it's hard to estimate how long it will take to complete. My current outline plans for 9 "Arcs". You can think of these Arcs as like the Files from The Canada Files — self-contained in a way, but part of the larger narrative. The number of Arcs may change as I begin writing, it all depends on how the game progresses. I'm still considering how to structure releases — whether it makes sense to release Arcs one by one, or perhaps two or three at a time. Either way, due to the complexity and scale of the project, there won't be anything released until 2027 at the earliest.

SIDE PROJECT INITIATIVE

Given the ambitious nature of these 'big three' upcoming projects (Motives, Broken Spirits, Hovel), they will each take multiple years to complete. These projects take up so much space that smaller projects don't get a chance to be made, which can make ongoing development feel stifling. Ideally, I'd like to at least release one fully completed game per year.

So, as an experiment, up to three months of each year will be dedicated to a side project. Even though it will take time away from working on the main project, completing side projects helps me experiment with new things and often makes the big projects even better. For example, I created the jam project Death's End during development of The Canada Files, and it gave me the idea to make use of that distorted wavy effect plug-in in File 04. These side projects tend to materialize during the development of long projects anyway — it's one of the ways I procrastinate — and shifting focus to them will hopefully speed them along to being completed and released.

I'm kicking off this plan next year. The remainder of 2026 will be entirely focused on the development of Motives.

There are many side projects that have been on the back-burner for years, and I hope to share more details another day. Please look forward to that, and more upcoming projects!