Game info · length
How long is Terrible Lizards?
Six to ten hours for a first playthrough, according to the lead developer. Twelve if you read everything. Under six if you already know the routes. Here is how that breaks down.
Verified October 31, 2026Game v1.0.9Lead-dev figure + our own timings · v1.0.9
The short answer
Six to ten hours is the official range. The lead developer, John “patfan” Gelardi, gave that figure in the October 2026 developer Q&A based on playtests, and reviewers have largely landed inside it. People who read every note and hunt every piece of amber report closer to twelve.
- Main story
- 6–10 hours
- Rush
- Under 6 hours
- Explorer
- Around 12 hours
- Levels
- 4
- Endings
- 1
- 100%
- No reliable community figure yet
For context on how many people actually finish it: two days after launch, 16% of Steam players had the final-level achievement. That is a normal completion rate for a six-to-ten-hour game, and it suggests most people need more than one sitting.
Three ways to play it
Rush
< 6 hrs
Skips notes and tapes, takes the direct route, ignores amber and side ledges. Only plausible on a second run or with a guide open.
Normal
6–10 hrs
The intended experience. Reads some notes, listens to tapes while moving, picks up collectibles that are on the way.
Explorer
~12 hrs
Reads everything, listens to every tape in full, sweeps each level for amber. Some reviewers reported exactly this.
Time per level
These are our own estimates from playthroughs at normal pace, not official figures. The game does not show a level timer.
| Level | Time | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 01 · The Attraction | 60–90 min | Lobby, theater, exhibits, gift shop |
| 02 · Digsite & Caverns | 2–3 hours | Generators, tower, bunker, arena |
| 03 · Rail Tunnels | 90–120 min | Freight yard and the fuse cavern |
| 04 · Finale | 45–75 min | The last climb and the crew lift |
Level 2 is the outlier. It is roughly a quarter of the total runtime and it contains the two biggest difficulty spikes in the game, which means it is also the most common place for a run to stall for a week.
100% completion
Nobody has published a reliable 100% time yet, because the collectible achievements are held by 0.2% of players. Based on the shape of the collection, expect 15–20 hours as a realistic estimate: one normal run plus a deliberate sweep of each level.
The five collection achievements are the entire grind: every amber, every note, every tape, every stuffed animal, and then the catch-all. They do not pop in part, so a level that is 90% collected gives you nothing.
New Game Plus
NG+ unlocks after the credits and adds four modifiers: body-cam, slippery surfaces, die if you stop moving, and low gravity. A second run with one modifier on is roughly the same length as the first; the “die if you stop moving” modifier will make it noticeably longer because you cannot pause to think.
Low gravity is the fastest way to replay: it lets you break sequence and skip some platforming entirely, which is exactly why it is fun.
What makes it take longer
- Reading every note and listening to every tape in full.
- Getting lost in the big caverns — they are genuinely maze-like without the lights.
- Retrying chases. Checkpoints are close, but ten deaths still costs ten minutes.
- Hunting amber off the critical path, especially on the Level 2 beams.
- Playing on a low-end PC and fighting framerate during chases.
How to finish faster
Keep the code page open
Keypads are the single biggest pause in the game. Having all seven codes to hand removes every “walk back and find the note” detour.Skip the tapes, keep the notes
Tapes are pure narrative and can be skipped entirely. Notes sometimes contain puzzle answers, so read those.Learn the chase routes once
A death in this game is cheap, but ten deaths is not. Run each chase once deliberately to learn the turns rather than trying to survive blind.Take the flashlight immediately
The basement in Level 1 is dark enough that fumbling without it adds real minutes.Do not sweep for amber on run one
Amber is a completion activity. Chasing it during a story run turns a seven-hour game into a twelve-hour one for no immediate benefit.
Compared to similar games
- Shorter than: Dying Light 2 (20+ hours), most modern survival horror.
- Similar to: Ghostrunner (6–8 hours), Neon White (8–10 hours for the story).
- Longer than: most mascot-horror episodes, which tend to run two to four hours and release in chapters. Terrible Lizards ships complete.
Last checked October 31, 2026. The developer figure is from the October 2026 Q&A; per-level timings are our own and will vary with skill and difficulty.