Masters of puppets: How ROUND8 Studio carved out a niche for Lies of P

Lies of P is person to its astonishing root worldly than you mightiness think.

Based connected Carlo Collodi’s 1883 caller The Adventures of Pinocchio, the Apple Design Award-winning crippled is simply a macabre reimagining of the communicative of a puppet who longs to beryllium a existent boy. Collodi’s communicative is inactive champion known arsenic a children’s fable. But it’s besides preprogrammed with much than its stock of acheronian — which made it an appealing instauration for Lies of P manager Jiwon Choi.

“When we were looking for stories to basal the crippled on, we had a checklist of needs,” says Choi. “We wanted thing dark. We wanted a communicative that was acquainted but not wholly childish. And the deeper we dove into Pinocchio, the much we recovered that it checked disconnected everything we were looking for.”

ADA FACT SHEET

Lies of P

• Winner: Visuals and Graphics
• Team: ROUND8 Studio (developer), NEOWIZ (publisher)
• Available on: Mac
• Team size: 100
• Previous accolades: App Store 2023 Mac Game of the Year, App Store Editors’ Choice

Developed by the South Korea-based ROUND8 Studio and published by its genitor company, NEOWIZ, Lies of P is simply a lavishly rendered acheronian phantasy escapade and a method showpiece for Mac with Apple silicon. Yes, players power a humanoid puppet created by Geppetto. But alternatively of a small woody lad with a penchant for small achromatic lies, the game’s protagonist is simply a mechanical warrior with an array of monolithic swords and a ngo to conflict done the burned-out metropolis of Krat to find his shaper — who isn’t precisely the genial aged woodcarver from the fable.

“The communicative is well-known, and truthful are the characters,” says Choi. “We knew that to make a lasting representation for gamers, we had to adhd our ain twists.”

Those twists abound. The puppet is accompanied by a integer lamp adjunct named Gemini — pronounced “jim-i-nee,” of course. A large quality is simply a play connected the original’s kindly Blue Fairy. A crippled brag named Mad Donkey is simply a batch much irritable than the donkeys featured successful Collodi’s story. And though nobody’s chemoreceptor grows successful Lies of P, characters person opportunities to prevarication successful a mode that straight affects the storyline — and perchance 1 of the game’s aggregate endings.

We knew that to make a lasting representation for gamers, we had to adhd our ain twists.

“If you play without knowing the archetypal story, you mightiness not drawback each those twists,” says Choi. “But it goes the different way, too. We’ve heard from players who became funny astir the archetypal story, truthful they went backmost and recovered retired astir our twists that way.”

There’s thing funny astir the game’s success: In summation to winning a 2024 Apple Design Award for Visuals and Graphics, Lies of P was named the App Store’s 2023 Mac Game of the Year and has collected a bounty of accolades from the gaming community. Many of those telephone retired the game’s ocular beauty, a satellite of affluent textures, elaborate lighting, and ocular customization options similar MetalFX upscaling and volumetric fog effects that fto you benignant the ruined metropolis to your liking.

For that city, the ROUND8 squad added different twist by moving the communicative from its archetypal Italian locale to the Belle Èpoque epoch of pre-WWI France. “Everyone expected Italy, and everyone expected steampunk,” says Choi, “but we wanted thing that wasn’t rather arsenic communal successful the gaming industry. We considered a fewer different locations, similar the chaotic west, but the Belle Èpoque was the close premix of quality and prosperity. We conscionable made it darker and gloomier.”

We considered a fewer different locations, similar the chaotic west, but the Belle Èpoque was the close premix of quality and prosperity. We conscionable made it darker and gloomier.

To make the game’s fierce (and oily) combat, Choi and the squad took existing Soulslike elements and added their ain touches, similar customizable weapons that tin beryllium assembled from items lying astir Krat. “We recovered that players volition often find a limb they similar and usage it until the ending,” says Choi. “We recovered that inefficient. But we besides cognize that everyone has a antithetic sensation for weapons.”

The system, helium says, gives players the state to take their ain combinations alternatively of pursuing a “best” pre-ordained weapon. And the strategy worked: Choi says players are often recovered online discussing the champion combinations alternatively than the champion weapons. “That was our volition erstwhile creating the system,” helium says.

Also intentional: The game’s attack to lying, different twist connected the root material. “Lying successful the crippled isn’t conscionable astir deceiving a counterpart,” says Choi. “Humans are the lone taxon who tin prevarication to 1 another, truthful lying is astir exploring the halfway of this character.”

It’s besides astir the murky morals of lying: Lies of P suggests that, astatine times, thing is arsenic quality — oregon humane — arsenic a well-intentioned falsehood.

“The puppet of Geppetto is not human,” says Choi. “But astatine the aforesaid time, the puppet acts similar a quality and occasionally exhibits quality behavior, similar getting affectional listening to music. The thought was: Lying is thing a quality mightiness do. That’s wherefore it’s portion of the game.”

The Lies of P communicative mightiness not beryllium done conscionable yet. Choi and squad are moving connected downloadable contented and a imaginable sequel — perchance starring different iconic quality who’s concisely teased successful the game’s ending. But successful the meantime, the squad is taking a infinitesimal to bask the fruits of their success. “At the opening of development, I honestly doubted that we could adjacent propulsion this off,” says Choi. “For me, the astir astonishing happening is that we achieved this. And that makes america think, ‘Well, possibly we could bash amended adjacent time.’”

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