Loddlenaut release date announced, coming in November
It may be rare games get announcements at the weekend, but developer of Loddlenaut, Moon Lagoon is doing exactly that. There’s actually a very good reason, too, as today (Saturday, September 16th) is World Cleanup Day, and the team behind the game along with publisher Secret Mode is confirming some charity work it’s doing along with Whale and Dolphin Conservation.
First up, though, Loddlenaut is coming to PC (Steam) and Mac on November 16th. There’s actually a demo available for the game now on Steam if you wanted to try it out. We’ve also dropped the latest trailer below, so you can find out all about Loddlenaut, and indeed, the Loddles.
Loddlenaut casts players as an interstellar custodian sent to a polluted ocean planet. While cleaning up the mess, players will need to recycle trash to build and upgrade powerful purification tools.
Loddle creatures respond to your ocean restoration efforts with affection and soon you’ll be surrounded with new best friends to name, feed, pet, communicate with, and even evolve.
The game started out as the NYU Game Centre thesis project back in 2019, and has been in development “proper”, since May 2020. Inspired by the message of the game, as mentioned, the publisher and Whale and Dolphin Conservation teamed up with SpecialEffect in July to clean a beach up during Develop: Brighton. More than forty members of the industry got involved and collected over 1500 pieces of litter.
“It was an honour to tidy a small section of the beach, which looked pristine to start with but as we looked further, we noticed so many small items of trash,” says James Schall, WDC Ambassador and VP of publishing strategy at Secret Mode. “It was quite the eye opener that most of the items we found were small but so numerous. In our game Loddlenaut, the player arrives on an alien world and embarks on a mission to clean up the otherworldly ocean – hopefully it will inspire our players to be super careful with how we use and throw away items, especially ones that will be with us for years!”
“It was amazing to see the games industry come together so eagerly to make a positive impact in the ocean. 95% of the plastic pollution found in the ocean comes directly from our towns and cities, and over time this plastic breaks down into smaller fragments due to exposure to the sun, wind and waves,” says Sally Ward, Digital Partnerships Manager. “It never really disappears though; the pieces just get smaller and smaller, becoming microplastics, causing great harm to whales and dolphins and all sea life. Enabling people to make a difference in this way was really inspiring and it was also a lot of fun!”
Loddlenaut is out on PC and Mac on November 16th.
