Lies of P director Jiwon Choi has addressed why his team at Round8 decided to make their game around the children’s story of Pinocchio.
As reported by Windows Central, this was their reasoning behind it:
“Our goal was to create a game with a story that instantly captivated people and stayed with them long after they encountered it. To achieve this, we believed that borrowing a globally renowned tale and giving it an unexpected twist would garner attention, excitement, and interest.
We aimed to find a story that resonated with adult audiences but maintained a certain sense of wonder. The Adventures of Pinocchio presents a fascinating contrast between cruel and charming elements.”
So, Round8 was certainly thinking around the same lines as those of the creators of Fables, Wicked, or even Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
They were looking for a pre-existing story that the audience would already be familiar with, and had an appeal that would connect with both adult and child audiences. Now, the stereotypical answer to that question would have been something like Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince, or a Studio Ghibli movie.
But their choice of Pinocchio was particularly inspired. While most people will closely associate the children’s story to the Disney animated movie, if you actually remember the original book, you can see how this works. After all, Pinocchio was literally hung from his neck by the Wolf and the Cat.
It is also noteworthy that this is a novel from Carlos Collodi, and not an old folk tale or fairy tale. Carlos deliberately wrote his story in such a way that both children and adults would be interested in his story.
To those of you who don’t remember, Pinocchio in Collodi’s novel (and the Disney movie really) is actually a bad child. He makes fun of Geppetto, sells his schoolbooks, and is generally disobedient. The novel is a series of misadventures where Pinocchio keeps doing the wrong thing, and gets punished for it. It isn’t until the end when he earns his redemption.
If you read that last sentence and didn’t realize that this was the material Round8 looked at when they made Lies of P, then you might not quite be ready for what they have to show you.
Lies of P will be releasing on June 9, 2023, on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X and Series S, Xbox One, and Windows via Steam. It will also be Day One on Game Pass.
