Neardream (CEO Min Chae Lee) has announced its participation in the ‘2024 PlayX4 B2B’ at KINTEX Hall 1 in Ilsan from May 23rd to 26th.
Neardream is a small-scale game development company formed to embed memorable stories into games. Under the ambition of creating games that linger by the users’ dreams, they formed a scenario-focused team by gathering scenario writers and art designers from animation backgrounds. They aim to pursue interactive story games that can deliver stories with more vitality to diverse audiences.
Their first project, the orthodox fantasy visual novel ‘Luna’s Twilight,’ is under development with full animations. Translations tailored to various countries are also in progress and under review. They plan to expand their story-centered content business based on proprietary original IPs.
In May of this year, they registered their first project, ‘Luna’s Twilight,’ on the Korean crowdfunding platform ‘Tumblbug’ and achieved the target funding within six hours of opening. They have been steadily promoting domestically through X (formerly Twitter), with PV and funding-related tweets each achieving 6,000 views.
Through meetings at last year’s PlayX4 and G-star, they discuss global publishing with overseas publishers according to the development stages. They are also preparing to enter the Japanese, French, Taiwanese, North American, and Central and South American markets by supporting 13 languages through the Steam platform.
The ‘Luna’s Twilight’ to be showcased at this exhibition is a visual novel genre game that proclaims orthodox otome (a type of women’s game), depicting romance that unfolds as the protagonist Luna meets four heterogeneous beings staying at her grandmother’s mansion.
Based on a solid scenario of about 400,000 characters by a Korean web novel author, the game boasts 76 CGs with full animation applied. They implemented full animation in some scenes, standing images, and all resources such as standing images, CGs, SD CGs, and item resources. They also introduced animation techniques and direction throughout the game, enhancing immersion by providing changes to surrounding environmental elements according to various dialogues and situations, as explained by Neardream.
After a general prologue, players can choose one character route out of four and play until the end. Players can collect 12 multi-endings, with three endings per character.
A Neardream representative stated, “Through participation in this PlayX4, we look forward to networking with domestically and internationally publishers. We anticipate meetings with long-term business partners who will work with us to develop and grow various original IP contents that Neardream will undertake in the future.” They further explained their exhibition participation background: “We will collaborate with Latel Games to conduct B2C booth events to promote ‘Luna’s Twilight’ to domestic game users and consider it a valuable process to refine the game’s playability by receiving real feedback.”
Neardream aims to expand globally through the Steam platform, focusing on the Japanese, North American, and Chinese markets. A representative said, “According to Steam statistics, the markets with the largest consumer base within the visual novel genre game market are confirmed to be the Japanese, North American, and Chinese markets. Especially in Japan, as there is a self-sufficient market for producing/consuming visual novels, it is considered an important market for the ‘Luna’s Twilight’ project.”
They plan to raise additional funding for Japanese localization in Japan through crowdfunding platforms such as Makuake and simultaneously promote the platform. As they target overseas markets, they plan to participate in game exhibitions such as GDC and Tokyo Game Show to gauge the local market atmosphere and widely promote and expand the ‘Luna’s Twilight’ IP and Neardream’s brand online and offline.
Furthermore, in addition to visual novels such as ‘Guardian Spirit’ and ‘Virtue,’ they plan to develop and release various genres of future works centered on stories. They also revealed plans to conduct mobile porting of ‘Luna’s Twilight’ to expand titles without being constrained by genre and platform.
The representative concluded, “Just as people do not easily forget stories that leave a deep impression, Neardream will continue to develop and release story games that can be enjoyed and communicated by global users alike, aiming to become a game developer.”
Hosted by Gyeonggi Province and organized by Gyeonggi Content Agency the 2024 PlayX4 B2B event will showcase new releases and experiences from domestic and international game companies under the theme “More than the Fun of Games.” The event will also feature side programs such as a retro market, e-sports competitions, and cosplay events.