For today’s blog, please meet Hyojin Lee, Game Director for the first ever project at Ocean Drive Studio.
Quick Intro
Name: Hyojin Lee
Your Role: Game Director. Managing overall production pipeline to ensure the game is coming out as planned. Ensuring teams at Ocean Drive can focus on their main expertise to create a masterpiece
Games as a Gamer
Favorite Games:
I love playing Romance of the Three Kingdoms(ROTK) series from my middle school days. Prior to knowing ROTK series, I used to play arcade games such as Tetris and Arkanoid, but one day my friend introduced me ROTK II from KOEI, since then I couldn’t stop playing the series. I played the game every day non-stop! Among the series ROTK II – ROTK V were the best ones.
Another game franchise I have really enjoyed was Heroes of Might and Magic! As you can tell, I really loved playing games with strategic elements. I really loved strategic combat elements of Heroes of Might and Magic, and my summer and winter break were all gone playing the game especially spending all time creating Archangel and the Black Dragon.
Favorite Game Studios:
My favorite game studio is KOEI and Blizzard Entertainment. Both game studio have given me the happiness of playing games. ROTK , Dynasty Warriors, Sangokushi Eiketsuden, Diablo, Warcraft, Starcraft, World of Warcraft took most of my gaming time throughout my career!
What have you been playing lately?:
I am getting old and started avoiding action games lately…. as I have been always fan of playing strategic games, I have been really enjoying Frostpunk. the game has great strategic gameplay as survival genre. Also, it sometimes gives me emotional feelings making important choices.
Also, I am really enjoying idle, clicker genre games alongside with Frostpunk. Idle, clicker genre games let me play games casually while I am at work, and return on investment playing these genre of games are actually pretty nice (in my personal point of view!). If you want any recommendations on idle, clicker games feel free to ask me!
Games as a Developer
Start of the Gaming Career:
When I was a senior, majoring in Computer Science, my friend introduced me to part-time work at Nexon. I haven’t really thought about becoming a game dev, but my experience working at Nexon led me to become a full-time… and life-time game dev! My friend who introduced me to the position wanted to continue his study at school and had to find a backfill to exit the company… and that my friend’s decision changed my entire life.
Key Philosophy:
Same as Jin Sang’s philosophy! “Creating a fun gaming experience!” For me game should be fun, but also the process of making the game should be fun as well. The reason why I continue to work on gaming is it provides me with lots of challenges, sense of achievements, and lastly excitement when the game gets played by lots of players!
My Past Projects:
Elancia, World Tour Fishing and Romance of the Three Kindoms: Legend of Cao Cao are the games where I spent most of my career. Elancia was the third MMORPG Nexon has ever developed and serviced, and it was my first game project. This game has led me to become a game engineer.
ROTK: Legend of Cao Cao was one of the most memorable game since it was the mobile remake of my all time favorite SRPG. I had great time working as game director, first time having very transparent communication with the community.
What made you Join Ocean Drive Studio?:
It’s all about people. I have spent more than half of my career with the key leaders at Ocean Drive Studio. I know how important it is to have a great leadership team, and I have a high level of confidence that everyone at Ocean Drive is one of the top talents in their area of expertise. I am already having lots of fun working with the team!
I am beyond excited that we should be able to share something about our first game soon!
