November 29, 2024

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Neowiz chief producing director Choi Ji-won speaks Thursday to reporters on the sidelines of South Korea's largest gaming convention G-Star, held at the Busan Exhibition and Convention Center. (Neowiz)

BUSAN -- Game developer Neowiz is hoping to take the lead and set an exemplary case for Korean console games on the global stage with its awards-winning title Lies of P.

“(For Lies of P) we really received good feedback at Gamescom including good graphics, high level of completion, no bugs, smooth play and great optimization of the frame,” said Choi Ji-won, the chief producing director of Lies of P in a press conference held Thursday on the sidelines of G-Star, South Korea’s biggest game convention, at the Busan Exhibition and Convention Center.

In August, game developer Neowiz became the first Korean company to have won an award at Gamescom -- an annual event considered one of the largest game exhibitions across the world taking place in Cologne, Germany -- with its Pinocchio-inspired role-playing game Lies of P. What was more impressive was that Neowiz won not just one, but three awards in Best Action Adventure Game, Best RPG and Most Wanted Sony PlayStation Game to take home more awards than any other publisher at the global event.

“We tried our best to make a quality, fun game. I’m glad that our hard work led to such achievements. We now feel a bigger responsibility to make the game better,” he said.

Although most Korean game developers mainly focused on releasing computer and mobile games in the past, many companies have recently turned to developing console games -- the dominant market in western countries.

“We are going to keep our eyes on the fun factor. We will make (Lies of P) a quality game that can represent Korea,” said Choi.

The chief director pointed out that many console game developers coming up with new titles is an excellent trend, adding that companies with more experiences should take action first and make more console games.

Jason Park, director of Studio 8, Neowiz’s console game developing unit, underlined the game industry is an industry that gives fun to players to become valuable.

“We have been lopsided with mobile games so far. There was a thirst to provide fun on not just mobile or PC platforms. Naturally, there were developers who wanted to try the (console) genre, so we gathered them to establish our studio,” said Park.

Choi noted that there were difficulties in developing Lies of P because not many developers on the team had experience in making a console game. But with the help of a few developers who had relevant experiences, the studio could solve the facing problems wisely.

As one of the biggest factors of Pinocchio is that Pinocchio’s nose gets longer every time he lies, Choi said the team is working on how it will be played out in the game and hinted that it will be a key point.

Lies of P takes players around a fictional, grim city to battle darkly-turned puppets with the background era of Belle Epoque -- the period of highly developed art and culture leading up to the first World War. The complete version of Lies of P is expected to be officially released in the summer of 2023, according to Neowiz.

By Kan Hyeong-woo (hwkan@heraldcorp.com)