Recently, the narrative puzzle-adventure game "Goodbye Seoul," published by NEOWIZ and developed by JINO Games, officially participated in the Steam Next Fest. During the event, a new demo will be available globally. This marks the game's second official appearance since its announcement. Wishlists are now open, and players can add it to their Steam wishlist with a single click.
Apocalyptic Seoul in Pixel Strokes
The game adopts a 2.5D pixel art style. Set against the backdrop of Seoul's ruined streetscapes, the visuals combine dilapidated buildings, lingering neon signs, and low-saturation tones, creating an apocalyptic atmosphere while retaining recognizable city outlines.
Technically, the game's visuals are created through a two-step process of 3D modeling and pixel rendering: scene objects are first built as 3D models, then pixelated for display. Characters use skeletal animation overlaid with a pixel filter, ensuring consistency between their movements and the visual style.
This approach allows the visuals to maintain a pixelated aesthetic while featuring the depth characteristic of 2.5D, enabling characters, signs, and buildings to share lighting logic within the same space.
Adding "warmth" to the city
According to producer JINO's development logs, the game's art direction did not begin with replication. In the early stages, JINO attempted a high-fidelity recreation of real Seoul, constructing scenes through field visits, street view data, and architectural layout records. However, due to security and copyright restrictions, high-precision spatial data could not be exported, and manually recorded details struggled to cover the entire city.
Subsequently, the development direction shifted towards capturing the emotional tone of each location: preserving Seoul's symbolism and atmosphere without being constrained by real-world coordinates, recombining elements from different areas to construct new imaginative spaces.
Another initiative involved player participation. The crowdfunding campaign included a "Design Participation Reward," allowing supporters to leave their mark in the game world. For overseas players and those who did not participate in the crowdfunding, submissions were collected through community events. These contributions were reprocessed into environmental details like graffiti and spray-paint tags, scattered across the streets traversed by the protagonist.
Demo Now Available, Wishlists Open
The Next Fest demo includes the Prologue, Chapter 1, and Chapter 2, with an estimated playtime of 20 to 30 minutes. In addition to continuing the existing exploration and environmental puzzles, this version adds cooperative puzzle elements and new areas, along with optimizations to controls and presentation. After Next Fest, the demo will remain available on the Steam store page for players to download and experience at any time.
Developed by a solo developer over five years, the game won "Best Game" at the gamescom Indie Arena Booth. Players can download the demo from the Steam store page and add the game to their wishlist to receive notifications upon its official release.
The number of wishlists is one of the metrics Steam uses to gauge interest in a title, which also influences exposure and recommendation opportunities. The development team stated they look forward to gathering player feedback through this demo and continuously optimizing future versions.