A game that challenges its players has arrived!
5minlab, an independent studio under KRAFTON, recently launched ‘Kill the Crows,’ a top-down arena shooter game set against the backdrop of a tumultuous western era, on Steam on August 21st. We sat down with Taeyoon Um, the producer from the ‘Revolver’ team that developed ‘Kill the Crows,’ to delve into behind-the-scenes stories and to get some tips for stellar gameplay.
Hello. Can you please introduce yourself?
Um) Hi, I’m Taeyoon Um from the Revolver team, and I’m the producer of ‘Kill the Crows.’
I entered the gaming industry several years ago through MAD Camp, an acronym for Mobile App Development Camp, which offers programmers an opportunity to experience autonomous immersive development, and then began my professional journey with 5minlab about 2 years ago.
We’ve heard that the Revolver team, which developed ‘Kill the Crows,’ is quite compact. Could you share more about your team?
Um) While many talented individuals from 5minlab have assisted us in releasing ‘Kill the Crows,’ I’d like to highlight three people, including myself, as the core members of the Revolver team. Primarily, I oversee planning and programming, but I often jest that I do everything except for the artwork when I have to explain what I do to others.
Yoonjeong Choi and Kyeongwoo Lim are two integral members of the Revolver team I’ve collaborated closely with since 2021. Choi serves as our Art Director, while Lim juggles roles in both art and game design.
The three of us have conducted numerous projects driven by our passion for game creation, but this is our first official game launch.
Congratulations! Could you shed more light on ‘Kill the Crows’ for us?
Um) ‘Kill the Crows’ is a one-shot-one-kill top-down arena shooter, set in the tumultuous era of the Wild West. Players take on the role of ‘Isabella,’ a gunslinger gifted with a unique ability known as ‘showdown,’ and battle against heretic zealots in a desolate village. The game’s allure lies in its hardcore nature, where players, all enemies, and even bosses can be taken down with a single bullet.
It’s reminiscent of classic arcade games where the objective is to survive as long as possible and aim for high scores. However, it’s not just a replica of old arcade games, as some aspects have been reimagined with a contemporary taste. For instance, players can unlock a diverse range of weapons and skills as they play, enabling them to tailor their gameplay to fit their personal style.
While ‘Kill the Crows’ is a different genre compared to 5minlab’s ‘Smash Legends’ or the recently launched ‘Rose and Lotus: Petals of Memories’, they all utilize characters from the public domain –however, it was quite surprising to see how different ‘Kill the Crows’ is from the other games. What inspired you to develop ‘Kill the Crows’?
Um) From the moment we released the demo, I was taken aback by players’ reactions that they hadn’t expected us to release a game with an original storyline instead of one based on fairy tales. Perhaps this assumption stemmed from ‘Smash Legends’ being our flagship title, but 5minlab’s objective is to craft enjoyable games without confining ourselves to particular genres or narratives.
The inception of ‘Kill the Crows’ can be traced back to last summer. I introduced ‘Project Gunslinger’ during an internal idea pitching meeting, which eventually paved the way for ‘Kill the Crows.’ The ambition behind ‘Project Gunslinger’ was to encapsulate the intense, traditional gunfights of the Wild West within an action-adventure framework. Unfortunately, this proved daunting for an inexperienced newbie producer, especially when I dreamt of something on the scale of a second Hollow Knight, and thus, had to set it aside for a while.
Later, an opportunity arose to kick off a fresh project, and I embarked on developing ‘Kill the Crows’ with a focus on core gameplay mechanics, aiming for a swift market release.
While turning popular fairy tales into games like ‘Smash Legends’ and ‘Rose and Lotus: Petals of Memories’ did is a captivating strategy, I personally harbored a desire to weave my own, unique narrative. While ‘Kill the Crows’ is gameplay-centric rather than story-centric, I wish I can later develop a game where I can introduce the stories of attractive characters in an expanded universe.
Is the name of your team, ‘Revolver’, inspired by the aim to develop a top-down shooter with a revolver as the main weapon?
We started a project under the name of the ‘Revolver Project,’ but we hadn’t settled on a team name by then. 5minlab’s company artist who drew the main illustrations for the game gifted us with a delightful sketch on a brown lunch bag, and this drawing became the catalyst for adopting the project name as our team name.
‘Revolver’ is a central theme in our project. It’s crucial to have a unified direction in game development to maintain focus. Even within the same top-down shooter genre, games like ‘Nuclear Throne’ and ‘Enter the Gungeon’ stand distinct from one another, and so is our game, which was symbolized by the revolver concept. This concept nudged us to name both the project and team ‘Revolver’.
Just so you know, every team member brought model revolvers to the company during the project’s first week. We even went to a shooting range recently to experience live firing with revolvers. At times, I jokingly wonder if our passion for revolvers sparked the project or if the project fueled our love for revolvers.
‘Isabella,’ a gunslinger from a tumultuous Western era seeking vengeance, is the central figure in your game, and she reminds me of a character from the 1995 film starring Sharon Stone, ‘The Quick and the Dead.’ What inspired you to create Isabella and her adversaries, the crows?
Um) I recently watched ‘The Quick and the Dead’ too! The protagonist was truly captivating, and I couldn’t help but notice numerous parallels between her and Isabella. It was even more astonishing to see how similar the main character, acted by Sharon Stone, and Isabella looked, not to mention the situations and personality traits.
Isabella’s self-destructive nature and the bleak Wild West setting were inspired mainly by Stephen King’s ‘Dark Tower’ series. Isabella’s gritty demeanor is reminiscent of Roland, the central figure in the ‘Dark Tower’ series, and of Spike Spiegel from ‘Cowboy Bebop.’ Additionally, our game references various Western films for its holistic design. Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Django’ influenced the dynamic effects of enemies reacting to revolver shots, and Sergio Leone’s ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly’ and ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’ guided our game’s dialogue and cinematography.
The idea for the enemies—zealots who venerate crows—emerged during brainstorming to add a twist to the classic Western motif. Initially, we considered traditional gunslingers or bandits as adversaries, but blending ‘crow’ and ‘zealot’ birthed more intriguing foes. Among them, the ‘bombers’, who leap at players for explosive attacks, rank as my favorite adversaries.
Adding to the characters, I’d like to delve deeper into the background. The grayish, bleak Western setting evokes feelings of a post-apocalypse – Can you elaborate on the art concept?
Um: Naturally, a Western aesthetic is central to the artwork, given the game’s strong ties to revolvers, but we aimed to slightly modify the traditional Western style. We toyed with the idea of infusing an occult vibe into various Western themes, ultimately replacing the stereotypical, sunlit deserts of classic Western films with a gray, swampy village setting. Crytek’s ‘Hunt: Showdown’, set in Louisiana, also played a significant role in shaping our game’s art direction.
Yet, we were concerned if players will still perceive it as a Western-style game
if we deviated from the established norms. Merging the distinct Western ambiance with a bleak, gray post-apocalyptic feel was challenging, but the feedback from playtesters affirmed that the Western essence was palpable. That affirmation was quite rewarding.
You developed a game with a very compact team, what was the most challenging aspect of the development process?
Working with a team of just three was a challenge in itself, but the self-imposed deadline of 6 months intensified the pressure. In the end, it took us 7 months to wrap up the game, but our initial commitment to the 6-month timeline forced us to constantly race against the clock. With only three of us managing all tasks, multi-tasking was inevitable and, at times, overwhelming. For instance, I addressed a bug from yesterday in the morning, mapped out a new feature after lunch, attended a marketing meeting by 4 PM, wrote item descriptions before the day’s end, and then started programming features at night.
This level of dedication was mirrored by the other two members, responsible for game art. The background visuals you see in the game today are Choi’s work, produced in just a month’s time. The entire team approached the development with the zeal of a 6-month-long game jam.
I played the demo version and realized that it’s not an easy game, so who is the best player in your team, or perhaps in 5minlab?
I guess it’s me, given the time I spent in planning and balancing. As of this interview, we don’t have the launch build yet, so I can’t definitively say who the best player is, but we could organize a contest to determine that after the build is complete.
The most impressive player outside of our team was the planning director of ‘Smash Legends.’ After I balanced the game up to 100 kills, I inserted a boss around the 200-kill mark for testing and forgot about it, and he took a brief playtest and got to that boss almost immediately. I hadn’t even balanced that boss’s difficulty yet, and it was incredibly challenging, so I was taken aback to see him defeat the boss on his first attempt.
‘Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy’, commonly referred to as the ‘cauldron game,’ along with other games possessing similar attributes of simple yet challenging controls, are notorious games that people watch through streamers – What is your perspective on the difficulty level of ‘Kill the Crows’?
Um) ‘Kill the Crows’ might remind players of games that often challenge streamers, like ‘Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy’, but it’s distinct in its design. While those games set straightforward objectives but deliberately complicate the controls to produce humorous moments, ‘Kill the Crows’ is carefully designed to react instantly to player inputs.
They do share the element where one error can reset progress, but in terms of game design, ‘Kill the Crows’ is more akin to the boss battles in souls-like games than the cauldron game. Initially, players may struggle to defeat the boss, but as they become familiar with the enemies’ patterns and tactics, they learn to improve their own gameplay. Our goal with the level design was to help players progressively understand the mechanics and refine their strategies for better outcomes.
So, even if viewers watch streamers tackle the game, they’ll likely be compelled to try it themselves. Just like you say “Move over, I can do better than that” when sharing a computer with a friend.
Indeed, ‘Kill the Crows’ is a difficult game. Players might find themselves in intense moments, suddenly out of bullets, hearing a mere click instead of a shot, when faced with an enemy brandishing an axe. Mastery is achieved through repeated deaths, and even when players feel adept, a single slip-up can be disastrous. Yet, it’s these very challenges that make victories all the more rewarding.
Players must take down as many enemies as possible using the given weapons and the surroundings, but the one-shot-one-kill mechanism for both players and opponents presents a daunting challenge. Can you give the players a tip for more kills and longer survival?
Um) Pay attention to the sounds!
‘Kill the Crows’ is rich with auditory cues designed for a deeper immersive experience. From the click of your revolver’s cylinder signaling low ammunition to the telltale sounds of a sharpshooter (sniper) taking aim or the distant footsteps of a formidable defender (shieldman), each sound is crucial to mastering the game. This significance of audio is much like the sound play in FPS games. During development, when I’d test without my headset, I’d find myself getting defeated much faster, so I had no choice but to keep my headset on from time to time.
Thank you for your patience throughout this extensive interview. Do you have any closing remarks for our KRAFTON blog readers?
‘Kill the Crows’ is a project that prioritized our desires and passion for a Western style game over the game’s business sense. You can see it even in our first presentation, where we placed the iconic shooting scene from ‘Django’ at the very beginning, ahead of any revenue projections or production plans.
Just a few years ago, it was rare to find a domestic game company creating games purely out of passion, but since the release of ‘PUBG: Battlegrounds,’ I’ve noticed many development companies taking innovative leaps. I believe that such bold ventures are invaluable, regardless of their outcomes.
Working at 5minlab, a studio that encourages and wholeheartedly supports such pioneering endeavors, I feel truly fortunate.
Lastly, I ask you all to explore ‘Kill the Crows,’ which we proudly launched on Steam today!
Kill the Crows Steam Store: Click!
