On April 1, 2021, the special April Fool’s Day mode, ‘POBG’ was revealed. This game recreated PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS into an arcade format and showed off some retro emotions. We met with Hyunjun Kim of PUBG STUDIOS who worked as the producer-slash-director of the POBG project to hear about some behind-the-scenes stories of this.
Hello. Could you introduce yourself to our readers?
Hello. I am Hyunjun Kim of the Production Team for the PUBG STUDIOS Live Production Unit of KRAFTON. The Production Team is a team composed of PUBG development PMs. My main job is to communicate with overseas development teams to manage our schedule and carry out projects. This year, I took on the role as the producer and director of ‘POBG,’ which is a special April Fool’s Day mode of PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS, and tried something quite different from my normal work.
Reactions to POBG were quite positive. How did you become in charge of this? I would like to know the history behind you taking the job.
The reason we created POBG was because of our goal to provide a new and fun experience that players would be surprised with to celebrate April Fool’s Day. There were many positive reactions, so I think we succeeded in achieving our objective.
To be honest, there was a personal motivation, too. I always wanted to be a person who creates games. But a development PM’s role is to manage production so that the contents are made well, rather than creating the contents. While production management is a very important position as well, I wanted to do creative work so much that one time I even asked for a meeting with Taeseok Jang, who is the supervising producer of PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS, even considering leaving the company. At the time, he was thinking about what new contents to develop for April Fool’s Day and he boldly gave me this opportunity seeing my burning passion for creative work. In result, it was a very special opportunity and experience that left a good impression with players and that instilled within me confidence for development during the course of producing a small, yet quite perfected mini game.
What kind of game is POBG? Could you introduce it yourself?
POBG is a top-down single player shooting game and it is a fun reinterpretation of PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS as a 2D game. It’s a rogue-like genre with a short play time. Basically, if PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS is the main entree, then POBG is like a light starter. It can be enjoyed by most people and it is easy to play. I wanted users to enjoy POBG as a snack once they got bored of the main dish of PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS and I tried to make the two to be complementary to each other.
You said that the POBG project was produced together with an outside studio?
We collaborated with ‘IMGN.PRO’ Studio of Poland. There was a developer who was a huge fan of the genre that we were intending to develop and that developer displayed a lot of passion from the planning stage. I was given a lot of ideas as well. It was really fun to work and I received a lot of new stimulation.
I’m curious of how POBG started. Why did you choose the rogue-like genre in the beginning?
Because it was a mini-game, I thought hard about making the game considering when, in what situation, and for how long people would play. I wanted to avoid a game that took too long. Rogue-like games such as POBG can be cleared in 20-30 minutes, but it also has the charm that if players enjoy the game, they can play the game with a much longer play time. I figured that I would be able to kill two birds with one stone with short game time, but making the game have some depth. What I thought was most important was to develop a game that people would not repel, but enjoy comfortably. I selected the top-down shooter format because I thought that this was an intuitive genre and that it could be enjoyed by most people.
The pixel art also stood out.
I was inspired by the pixel art of Alexey Garkushin, who is an artist and a fan of PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS. Reactions from fans were explosive when this artist’s pixel art was first unveiled back in 2018. There were many requests to make a pixel version of PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS immediately, so I wanted to use the pixel art this time around. In the beginning, the only idea I had was express PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS in 2D and pixels, and setting the enemies as chicken. But the concept was developed in a very fun way during our collaboration. We added a retro feel and the sound also had some old-school vibes. (Laughter) I was a bit in a panic at first, but as the interpretation of many people were added, its retro identity started to gain momentum. In result, something more than I initially imagined was created. Based on this, POBG PR video contents and an arcade game machine was produced.
It was quite amazing to see the actual arcade game. I heard that you produced it directly.
The arcade game machine was produced at the Central Creative Department. POBG was a game that was developed for consoles and PCs, and in order to transplant this into an arcade game machine, the PUBG Dev Div. CDPU had to develop a completely new schema. The UI was also changed for game machines. There were quite some oppositions against this in the beginning, but I heard that the Central Creative Department was confident that this was valuable and persistently persuaded everyone to pursue this. It was quite a difficult task, but a high-quality game in terms of both software and hardware was born. And the retro emotions really stood out. The game machine is currently installed at the PUBG Seocho office lounge, and it is really popular among employees. (Laughter) Thanks to this, it was nice to really feel the identity as a game company, and it’s quite wonderful and fulfilling whenever I see it.
I heard there were several parodies in POBG. Could you state a few?
POBG is the abbreviation of ‘PLAYEROMNOM’S BATTLEGROUNDS.’ We used the new expression ‘omnomnom’ that is used to depict a person eating something. And the setting of the POBG world is one in which chickens that are always butchered and eaten come back for revenge against humans. Ironically, the names of the bosses are related with cuisines made with chicken. (Laughter) The first boss is “Eggsplosives Guy” and I named him after the “explosives guy” that are very frequently a member of the team in an action movie.
The English name of the second boss is ‘Cocobang.’ He was named after the French cuisine coq au vin. In French, vin means wine, but it sound similar to the sound of a gun’s bang! and that’s why I selected this. In Korean, it was translated to ‘Charles Valgol’ and this was fun because in Korean pronunciation, it sounds a lot like ‘debone the meat.’ Later in the game, enemies face with face paint appears with mannequin heads hanging like a scene from the movie Mad Max. The mannequin head was an homage to the villain in the original Mad Max before its remake, and while it may appear a bit maniac and overboard, as long as I was going to parody it, I really wanted the details to stand out. It is, well, April Fool’s Day. (Laughter)
Actual POBG users stated that the gun-play of PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS was reflected in the game quite well.
IMGN.PRO Studio really developed the fundamentals of the game with great detail and nicely. Based on this, I interpreted the recoil when shooting guns, the speed and distance of shells flying, and damage from PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS in the same way for POBG. I just tweaked it a little and selectively reflected what I wanted, and it worked really smoothly in the 2D game as well. I was once again surprised at the fundamentals of the PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS game. The targets for POBG are PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS users. Once you play it, you will notice right away that the gun play of PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS was mirrored in this game. I wanted the users to get the feeling, ‘no instructions necessary, right?’
Was there any memorable feedback from users?
POBG was an event-type game and it was a limited mode only for April Fool’s, so that’s why I think so many people gave good reviews. I made POBG hoping to express my gratitude to the fans of the game. This was to be distributed to fans for free like a gift, so my goal was to make the best possible game with the given budget. Despite it being an event-type game, I wanted to give depth to the game.
Some fans posted comments like, “Aren’t you going too far for April Fool’s Day? You probably spent a year preparing this. Won’t it be released on Steam?” These comments made me feel very proud. And streamer KimBlue said, ‘The game is quite fun and it must have been made by a person who knows games very well.’ I was so happy about this that I clipped it to keep it forever. (Laughter)
I’m sure that everyone at PUBG STUDIOS feels the same way, but I really like games and my experience playing games became my foundation to attempt new things. It felt like I was being rewarded for the 20 years of playing games throughout my life, and I was really happy.
And one streamer said “Oh, I’m quite good at this” while playing the game, and I was excited because that is the exact feeling I wanted players to have. Because PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS is a battle-royale type game with only one winning team, I wanted users who tasted defeat to take a moment to play POBG to regain their confidence and build up the courage to challenge PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS once again.
Are there any plans to release it independently?
POBG is a game that was supposed to be a gift for fans as an April Fool’s Day event, and that is one reason why it received such good reviews. An independent release would be a whole different story.
In fact, I personally wanted to give the message that ‘We are PUBG and so we can make this game at any time.’ We can be cool enough to release a high-quality game that could be considered for independent release as a limited version, and we can present even more entertaining games every year like a gift. The reason why we continue these attempts is because we truly love and enjoy games.
I’m already looking forward to next year’s April Fool’s Day.
It took nine months to develop POBG. If we’re planning to release April Fool’s Day contents next year again, we need to start preparing for it soon. Up until now, the person in charge of the special mode changed every year, and so if this becomes established as a tradition of PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS, I think it would be nice if someone else would create contents with a new perspective to continue this tradition.
And I think that the opportunity to develop small-scaled games for free distribution utilizing each person’s individual style is quite rare. It is a really meaningful experience for a game developer. It was quite meaningful since it was a gift for fans. I hope that I can continue to offer new fun and entertainment for fans in the future.
We met with Hyunjun Kim who produced ‘POBG’ that was a gift for fans of PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS. Since they know the sincerity of fans and its value, PUBG STUDIOS plans to continue to go all-out this year and next year’s April Fool’s Day as well. [People On] plans to continue to cover the sincerity of the KRAFTON staff that will continue to make games in the future.
