Vortex Gaming

'Tales Runner' has been consistently showcasing its gameplay over a long period of service. Casual racing and gameplay between multiple users have been loved for a long service period, but the stories and various characters in the game have also played a big role in creating memories for such players.

And this coming December, 'Tales Runner RPG', which adapts that story into an RPG, is about to be released. The new title, presented by Raon Entertainment together with Bloomix, depicts a world where original 'Tales Runner' characters and fairy tale stories and figures coexist, centered around the framework of a subculture collectible RPG.

10 years later, against the backdrop of Fairy Tale Land, the player experiences and writes the story of Fairy Tale Land as a writer. We checked out the detailed look of 'Tales Runner RPG', which continues with the 'Tales Runner' IP, in advance through an interview.

Q. Before the interview, please give us a brief introduction to the game.

= 'Tales Runner RPG' is a subculture collectible RPG that utilizes the 'Tales Runner' IP, which has 36 million cumulative members. It tells the story of runners and various fairy tale characters joining forces to solve distorted fairy tales with the help of the protagonist writer in the world view of 10 years after the existing 'Tales Runner'.

Based on a rapid turn-based battle system where battles take place through quick transitions, you can enjoy various battle contents such as Anubis Occupation Battle, Abyss of Darkness, Chaos Raid, and Arena. In addition, we are trying to provide another fun through life contents such as mini-games, farm, and fishing.

Q. Although various game modes have been added over the years, the core identity of 'Tales Runner' is racing. Is there a reason why you newly implemented it as an RPG in this work?

= 'Tales Runner RPG' is a spin-off work of the original worldview. Perhaps if we were to produce 'Tales Runner' that continues the identity of racing, we would have to prepare it as a sequel, so we did not approach it with this concept. This time, we wanted to release a game with a style more suitable for the mobile environment. At the same time, we wanted to continue the lineage of the 'Tales Runner' worldview.

We thought, "Wouldn't it be more new and fresh for the original fan base to approach RPGs that require tactics/strategies in the area of racing (running), where there are already many advanced parts due to long service?" and that's how we created 'Tales Runner RPG'.

Q. Were there any suitable or difficult parts to bring out the characteristics of 'Tales Runner' in the RPG genre?

= The part we paid the most attention to was when transferring the characters from the original 'Tales Runner' to the game. We paid a lot of attention to not damaging the originality of each of the characters that 'Tales Runner' shows now, while strongly incorporating the subculture concept in terms of appearance.

We put a lot of effort into maintaining a good balance so that the character's narrative, appearance, and combat style match without awkwardness, and we also reinterpreted some designs to increase the charm and increase the desire to collect. In particular, since we had to give weapons and equipment to the characters, we chose and designed weapons and equipment that matched the personality of the original characters well, and I think I always had a lot of worries in this area.

Q. The main storyline of the game is the story of a fairy tale writer who fell into Fairy Tale Land. What is the reason for setting the protagonist as a writer?

= We had a lot of concerns about how to reorganize the existing fairy tale settings of 'Tales Runner' to fit the 'Tales Runner RPG' world. What was decided was the development of 'all the fairy tale book contents in Fairy Tale Land being reset and having to be rewritten'. And I thought there was no job as suitable as a 'writer' to write fairy tales.

Also, I thought that the job of 'writer' that exists in reality feels familiar to people, and that the content of losing childhood dreams or experiencing a slump as a modern adult would be easy to sympathize with.

Q. What efforts have you made to preserve the worldview and familiar elements of the existing game?

= We tried not to miss the settings of the existing 'Tales Runner' characters in 'Tales Runner RPG', which is the worldview 10 years later. 'Lara', who was a princess in Fairy Tale Land, becomes a queen, and 'Big Bo', who wanted to cure a sick parrot, becomes a veterinarian. The letter 'grants wishes', which was an early story element of the original 'Tales Runner', has now become an email and arrived to the writer. I think those elements are points where you can feel the change while preserving the worldview.

Q. What kind of character is Cecelia, the heroine of the game? What role does she play in the story, and how important will she be portrayed? Also, what kind of charm are you planning to emphasize?

= 'Cecelia', a girl who has lost her memory, is not only an early guide, but also the main heroine who welcomes a strange world with the protagonist 'writer' and goes on a journey together to save Fairy Tale Land. Also, as she regains her memory, the relationship with the writer is revealed, and she plays an important role in the game, such as holding the key to the story.

In addition to this role, she is also a playable character who can be collected and participate in battles. As she is the first girl she met in an unknown world, I wanted to emphasize the mysterious yet fragile feeling. The image was planned with the quiet snowfield in mind.

Q. Reconstructed fairy tale stories have also been announced in the game. I'm curious about the representative story and why it was twisted that way.

= For example, unlike the original story where Hansel and Gretel help each other escape from the forest, it contains content where they try to abandon each other in the forest first in order not to be abandoned by their stepmother. We wanted to give new fun even to familiar fairy tales through the unexpectedness of the characters that were not in the original fairy tales.

Q. If you were to pick the most interesting or charming character or fairy tale story with a twist?

= I think the 'Briar Rose' character in the Sleeping Beauty chapter has the most charm with a twist. The princess in the original fairy tale is one of the most passive characters in fairy tales, but the 'Briar Rose' in this work is lazy and selfish. Also, she shows a different charm with her violent appearance of taking out a mace from her dress.

Q. A real-time turn-based, rapid turn-based battle that combines the advantages of real-time battles and turn-based battles has been announced. It is a part that was emphasized in the previous introduction, but what is the implementation method and characteristics in the game?

= The rapid turn method is, as the name suggests, a system in which battles proceed with fast turn transitions.

All characters' skills have a usage time turn. The order in which characters use their skills is determined according to the turn order, and you can use skills when your ally's turn comes. The key is the strategic element of being able to control the desired skill according to the desired turn through manual operation. While existing turn-based battles proceeded at a slow tempo, we wanted to create a more exciting and immersive turn-based battle in 'Tales Runner RPG' by applying the rapid turn-based battle system.

Q. Please also explain the overall characteristics and system of the battle.

= The battle is basically a 5v5 team battle. The battle proceeds based on the rapid turn battle system, and there is compatibility depending on the character's attributes, so the key is to build a deck that matches the enemy's compatibility. In particular, you can receive a buff effect by placing characters of the same attribute, so the deck composition strategy considering attributes is also important.

Ally turns and enemy turns quickly alternate, and the aspect of the battle can change depending on the use of skills given by character role when an ally turn comes. You can activate skills in advance to prepare for the next turn, or you can manually select and use the desired skill.

Above all, the key feature of the battle is the 'Special/Super Gauge' that accumulates as turns pass. Skills can be used normally without a gauge, but skills can be used more powerfully by consuming the special and super gauge.

Q. There are also writer skills that the protagonist writer participates in. How is it applied to the battle? Also, how strategically can it be used?

= Writer skills can be used during battle by consuming costs. There are various writer skills such as wide-area dealing, wide-area healing, and buff/debuff. If your ally deck lacks dealing, you can use a writer skill that deals damage, or you can use a wide-area healing writer skill to increase the survivability of your ally deck. As the writer's level increases, the number of skills the writer can use increases and the power increases. Therefore, writer skills are an element that can support the battle and a key element that can create variables.

Q. How is the writer's growth method achieved? Also, how does the writer's growth affect the strengthening of the character or team?

= In 'Tales Runner RPG', the user becomes a 'writer' and the 'writer level' grows, just like the 'account level' in other mobile games. The writer level can be grown by acquiring experience points through clearing the main story, which is the main PVE content. In particular, you can acquire resources used in the 'Archive', a growth system that allows you to grow characters by job and attribute at the same time through writer growth.

Therefore, characters belonging to a specific category can grow at the same time according to the writer's growth, and the team can be strengthened. The buff effect for each category acquired in the archive content can also be initialized, so strategic team management is possible, such as growing or initializing the team to suit the team's use.

Q. There are various contents that can be applied in addition to the main story. Please introduce the detailed contents.

= 'Tales Runner RPG' has several types of PVE content and PVP content. PVE content includes Chaos Raid, Anubis Occupation Battle, Abyss of Darkness, and Tower of Infinity, and PVP content includes Arena. In addition, gem dungeons and growth training ground dungeons are also prepared as growth content.

Chaos Raid is a content where you fight powerful bosses using 4 decks, and we wanted to provide special fun to fans by meeting the bosses of the original 'Tales Runner'. Anubis Occupation Battle is a cooperative content where all users cooperate to fight against enemy forces, and guild rankings are determined according to guild occupation points. This content also inherits the elements of the original and aims to give a special experience to fans of the original.

Abyss of Darkness is a dungeon exploration content combined with roguelike elements, and you must strategically clear the randomly generated dungeon by obtaining items and buffs. Tower of Infinity is a challenging content where you form a deck for each attribute and attack higher floors, and it is important to train characters for each attribute.

In the asynchronous PvP content Arena, you can compete for the strength of the deck you have trained, and in the gem dungeon and growth training ground dungeon, you can obtain various growth resources by clearing the dungeon.

Q. There are also life-type content and community content in addition to the story and battle.

= The representative life-type and community content is Sky Island. On Sky Island, you can communicate with other users through chatting, and compete with each other's decks through friendly matches, which are synchronized PvP. You can also enjoy life-type content such as farm and fishing.

On the farm, you can place pets and natural objects to acquire time rewards, and items obtained through fishing can be exchanged for various items. Fishing is divided into manual fishing and automatic fishing. Manual fishing allows you to directly experience the fun of fishing through mini-games, while automatic fishing takes more time but allows you to conveniently acquire items, so you can choose according to user convenience.

Q. The illustrations are 2D with a slight movement applied, and 3D modeling is applied in battle screens and character selection. Please tell us the reason for implementing characters in different styles and how you tried to bring out the characteristics of each.

= 2D animation using Spine requires less production resources than other animation techniques, which can greatly reduce the development time and cost of high-quality characters. However, due to the nature of 2D, there are limitations in showing various appearances from various angles. Spine has a 2.5D function, but there are limitations in implementing effects like 3D by utilizing this, and a lot of know-how is required.

Contents such as Sky Island and battles require various actions and flashy skill performances, and characters must move up, down, left, and right to show various appearances. 3D characters were more suitable for expressing all of these elements. Therefore, the data and character modeling required for game progress were produced in 3D.

Q. There are players who have enjoyed the original, and there are also users who will enjoy the 'Tales Runner' IP in earnest through this work. How will you approach each target and how will you induce them to enjoy the game?

= Users who have experienced the original can meet the original characters in 'Tales Runner RPG'. We made it so that you can feel great fun in this part. In particular, you can see the appearance of the original characters 10 years later, so you can enjoy the changed characters playing an active role in battles and various contents in the game. 'Tales Runner RPG' provides a story that anyone can enjoy without burden based on the same Fairy Tale Land worldview as the original. Thanks to this, the barrier to entry is low, so users who are new to the 'Tales Runner' IP can easily immerse themselves in the game.

In other words, we plan to induce users who have experienced the original to feel special fun based on familiarity, and to induce users who are new to the game to easily approach it and feel the charm of the game.

Q. When will we be able to meet the game? What is the service schedule you are planning?

= The official release is under development with the goal of early December, and we plan to conduct a pre-open at the end of November to provide stable service. We ask for a lot of interest and love in the pre-open that starts at the end of November.

Q. If you were to recommend the most noteworthy part of the content or system to enjoy after release? Also, if there are any major contents that you can meet through future updates, please introduce them briefly in advance.

= The most recommended content is Anubis Occupation Battle. Anubis Occupation Battle is a cooperative PVE content where all users cooperate to fight against enemy forces and must win within a given period. In general collectible RPGs, the main contents are PVE, where you challenge with the deck you have trained, or PVP, where you compete for strength with your opponent, but 'Tales Runner RPG' provides a unique occupation battle content where users combine their strength to attack enemies and lead to victory.

In particular, Anubis Occupation Battle was created with the concept of users cooperating to prevent the followers of the extinct Anubis from occupying Fairy Tale Land and turning it black. This is a part that inherits the content of the original 'Tales Runner'. In addition, the update content will be determined flexibly according to user feedback. Updates will be made in a direction that expands the content so that characters can be used throughout the game so that users can pursue the inherent fun of collectible RPGs, where they collect and train various characters.

Q. You are about to release the game, but what kind of game do you want to be for users?

= 'Tales Runner RPG' has many elements that I want to emphasize, such as various play contents, attractive characters, small life-type contents, and cute yet flashy battles. However, the most important thing is that if the development team made the game before launch, I think that after that, we will communicate with users and create the game together.

If there are any inconveniences, difficulties, or lack of fun in the content while playing the game, please feel free to give us your opinion. We are always ready to listen and listen. 'Tales Runner RPG' hopes to be a game created with users. We look forward to many people enjoying the game after launch, and we ask for your generous interest and support.

Webzine InvenReporter Kang Seung-jin
2024-11-21