Lies of P is closer to its amazing source material than you might think.
Based on Carlo Collodi’s 1883 novel. The Adventures of PinocchioThe Apple Design Award-winning game is a macabre reimagining of the story of a puppet who longs to be a real boy. Collodi’s story remains best known as a children’s fable. But it’s also pre-programmed with more than its fair share of darkness, which made it an attractive base for Lies of P Director Jiwon Choi.
“When we were looking for stories to base the game on, we had a list of needs,” says Choi. “We wanted something dark. We wanted a story that was familiar but not entirely childish. And the deeper we got into PinocchioBut we discovered that it met everything we were looking for.”
ADA FACT SHEET
Lies of P
- Winner: Images and graphics
- Equipment: ROUND8 Studio (developer), NEOWIZ (publisher)
- Available in: Waterproof
- Team size: 100
- Previous recognitions: App Store Mac Game of the Year 2023, App Store Editors’ Choice
Developed by South Korea-based ROUND8 Studio and published by its parent company, NEOWIZ, Lies of P is a gorgeously rendered dark fantasy adventure and a technical masterpiece for Mac with Apple silicon. Yes, players control a humanoid puppet created by Geppetto. But instead of a wooden boy with a penchant for little white lies, the game’s protagonist is a mechanical warrior with a series of enormous swords and a mission to fight through the burned-out city of Krat to find his creator, who isn’t exactly the cool old wood carver from the fable.
“The story is well known, as are the characters,” says Choi. “We knew that to create a lasting memory for players, we had to add our own twists.”
In the burned world of Lies of Psomething so warm and beautiful cannot be good news.
Those twists abound. The puppet is accompanied by a digital lamp assistant named Gemini (pronounced “jim-i-nee,” of course). A main character is a play on the kind Blue Fairy from the original. A game boss named Mad Donkey is much more irritable than the donkeys that appear in Collodi’s story. And although no one’s nose grows Lies of Pcharacters have opportunities to lie in a way that directly affects the story and, potentially, one of the game’s multiple endings.
We knew that to create a lasting memory for players, we had to add our own twists.
Jivon Choi, Lies of P director
“If you play without knowing the original story, you might not catch all those twists,” Choi says. “But it also happens the other way around. We’ve heard from players who were curious about the original story, so they went back and discovered our twists that way.”
There is nothing curious about the success of the game: in addition to winning the Apple Design Award 2024 for images and graphics, Lies of P was named the App Store’s 2023 Mac Game of the Year and has received a lot of praise from the gaming community. Many of them highlight the visual beauty of the game, a world of rich textures, detailed lighting and visual customization options such as MetalFX enhancement and volumetric fog effects that allow you to design the ruined city to your liking.
Many of Collodi’s original characters have been updated to Lies of Pincluding the Black Rabbit Brotherhood, who seem to be furious.
For that city, the ROUND8 team added another twist by moving the story from its original Italian location to the Belle Époque era of pre-World War I France. “Everyone was expecting Italy and everyone was expecting steampunk,” says Choi, “but we wanted something that wasn’t so common in the gaming industry. We considered some other locations, like the Wild West, but Belle Époque was the perfect combination of beauty and prosperity. We just made it darker and more bleak.”
We considered a few other places, like the Wild West, but the Belle Époque was the perfect combination of beauty and prosperity. We just made it darker and more gloomy.
Jivon Choi, Lies of P director
To create the game’s fierce (and oily) combat, Choi and the team took existing Soulslike elements and added their own touches, such as customizable weapons that can be assembled from items found around Krat. “We found that players often find a weapon they like and use it to the end,” says Choi. “We find that to be ineffective. But we also know that everyone has different tastes in guns.”
The system, he says, gives players the freedom to choose their own combinations rather than looking for the default “best” weapon. And the strategy worked: Choi says he often finds online players arguing over the best combos rather than the best weapons. “That was our intention when creating the system,” he says.
The game is set in the Belle Èpoque, an era known for its beauty and prosperity. “We just made it darker and more gloomy,” Choi says.
Also intentional: the game’s focus on lying, another twist on the source material. “Lying in the game is not just about deceiving the other party,” says Choi. “Humans are the only species that can lie to each other, so lying is about exploring the core of this character.”
It is also about the murky ethics of lying: Lies of P suggests that sometimes nothing is as humane (or humane) as a well-intentioned falsehood.
“Geppetto’s puppet is not human,” says Choi. “But at the same time, the puppet acts like a human being and occasionally exhibits human behavior, like getting excited when listening to music. The idea was: lying is something a human could do. That’s why it’s part of the game.”
Every environment in Lies of P – including the Krat Festival, which has seen better days – is full of bleak details.
He Lies of P The story may not be finished yet. Choi and the team are working on downloadable content and a possible sequel, possibly starring another iconic character briefly teased in the game’s ending. But in the meantime, the team is taking a moment to enjoy the fruits of its success. “At the beginning of development, I honestly doubted we could achieve this,” says Choi. “For me, the most surprising thing is that we did it. And that makes us think, ‘Well, maybe we can do better next time.'”
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