Inside Guns & Dragons

Junwoo Park: I am Junwoo Park from ABUTTON. We are Korean gaming developing company, and we are making three kind of games. And first one is some kind of domestic competitive MMORPG, and second one is our project named Guns and Dragons, our rogue-lite co-op FPS game. And third one is in the early stage. We are ready for to reveal.

Jake Lucky: And are all of those games meant to be in the same sort of universe? Or are they all separate?

Junwoo: Yeah. Are separate.

Jake: All separate?

Junwoo: But we are planning, or some kind of gathering ideas, for some kind of collaboration.

Jake: And we were just talking off-camera. You said how this team is about 20 to 25. Guns and Dragons has been worked on for about two years?

Junwoo: 25 to 30, and about two years, yeah.

Jake: And how would you describe this game for anyone who has just seen the trailer and might not know what it is?

Junwoo: Guns and Dragons are the game for making new weapons, the ridiculous and unexpected weapons, making unexpected weapon and having joy with explosive explosion or fight.

So we are heading for kind of casual FPS game for someone who's not have expertise about PVP shooting or very fast reaction speed. Someone who had low skills about aiming or reaction can have fun with our FPS game.

Jake: And it's a really good feel. We got the chance to, of course, play it here at Gamescom, and it has a lot more features than I even would've thought from watching the trailer. So in essence, what would be the gameplay loop for a player that drops in to play this game?

Junwoo: Our basic loop is going to enter to the run and gathering resources and come back to the company and using their resource to our some meta progression upgrade, or build some kind of buildings for our home decoration. We have difficulty systems to challenge the more difficult, challenging, and get more resource from that.

Jake: You're collecting resources while keeping yourself alive. But eventually, you will die, and when you do die, you go back to your base. And so base building's a big part of this game as well?

Junwoo: Meta progression is big part, but our base building is some kind of optional part of joy.

Jake: So when players are dropping in and consecutively they're upgrading themselves in multiple different ways. You guys have runes, artifacts, a lot of different ways to upgrade your weapons and your person. You mentioned an end goal. What are you building towards? What are you trying to achieve by end game?

Junwoo: Make some kind of my own weapon combination. We have plans to have millions of weapon combinations in our gun types. So that's the main part of the game.

Jake: So a big part of the game is the weapon building. In mine, I got to choose between a pistol or a shotgun, and obviously there's a slew of weapons to choose from. So you want people to explore the customization and build out different weapon types throughout this game to explore?

Junwoo: Yeah.

Jake: So what can people expect when it comes to bosses? I fought an elite in my run, but what can they expect for big bosses?

Junwoo: We are ready for some kind of ogre chief, and...

Jake: Ogre chief?

Junwoo: Yeah. And second chapter, our theme is ruined forest. So there's some kind of forest related bosses are existing, and our final boss is the dragon.

Jake: So final boss of dragon.

Junwoo: And we are planning to some kind of multiple bosses after early access.

Jake: So you've mentioned weapon combinations. How many different weapon choices can people expect?

Junwoo: Our gun has three types of guns, but people can customize the guns core, mainly the about passive skills about guns. And that can be stacked, and this can be the kind of weapon parts. The combining these parts and making some kind of new weapons.

So we don't want to randomly get the weapons. At the FPS, peoples have some kind of familiar weapon. Some guys are very familiar with shotgun, but not familiar with snipers. And then so the random guns are not good for the FPS users.

Jake: So as you progress, it'll be a generally positive upgrade to all the weapons that you choose and your character, but there are things that you can do that might set you back. You can get a cursed item. Or in that same take, that same chest, you can get a cursed item, but you can also get a tier one item or a tier two item. What would be the hardest part about this game to put into action, to put into play?

Junwoo: Actually, our process of projectiles. We have a kind of multi-shot or ricochet or bouncing, some kind of many projectiles at once.

Jake: What role do the bases play in this game?

Junwoo: At the multiplay, our company is on some kind of island, connected with our matched players. So when players build their own buildings, then this appeals to other players when they match. So players can make their building with some others, maybe your friend or some kind of our matched people can gather and build together.

Jake: One last question for you. What do you think is the most unique part about this game?

Junwoo: Our reference system and our matchmaking co-op housing system is our uniqueness.

Jake: Where, when is the estimated release?

Junwoo: So the release part is the hardest thing for me. Dev team's goal is next year's first half.

Jake: Okay.

Junwoo: That's the goal. But that's our goal, but cannot be achieved maybe.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Thanks to Xsolla, who helped us connect with devs for part of our Gamescom coverage. Xsolla works with developers all around the world, giving them tools and support to help them launch, grow, and monetize their games. But one of the biggest reasons why we wanted to partner with them is because they invest back into their devs. This year, Xsolla had 20 different developers flown out to Gamescom to help them connect with others, allowing them the opportunity to showcase their game, make important industry connections, and all in all, get their game in front of more people. And that's the kind of support I love to see for developers, and especially indies out there. So again, a huge thank you to Xsolla.