Dave the Diver author Jaeho Hwang says he wants to expand the Dave the Diver intellectual property, with intact games that focus on other characters and span a few genres, depending on the fate of the main game.
Jaeho Hwang is now CEO of Mintrocket, following parent company Nexon’s decision to make developer its own remote category. This followed his successful debut name, Dave the Diver, which has sold over four million devices and won a BAFTA award.
In a conversation at Gamescom Asia in Singapore, Hwang said that Mintrocket’s intact sovereignty would allow him to focus more on building the game, especially the Dave the Diver intellectual property, rather than pitching ideas and business plans to his parents.
“I actually want to expand the Dave the Diver IP,” Hwang said, when asked what life has in store for Mintrocket. “I think that is every director’s dream, since we have a character that we can identify with.
“But we didn’t really delve too deeply into Dave the Diver’s personal stories, because we wanted to keep the game very casual.
“So, as a director, in addition to the story DLC we are working on now, I also want to make separate games about each character to show how they met, what they did before arriving at the Blue Hole.
“In that sense, game genres can be different. Maybe someday, if we start making a game about Dave’s story, we can make Dave [another profession]. “He’s always been a diver, so we haven’t really thought about how we should move with Dave.”
Hwang said he wants to develop the story of Dave the Diver by telling the backstories of both its protagonist and the main supporting characters.
“I really want to show how he grew up, how he became a diver and how he ended up getting to the Blue Hole,” he said.
“I think it’s really fun. Cobra, one of our main characters, is from my previous project, Evil Factory. He was an arms dealer who had his license revoked and after that he retired and enjoyed his life, and something happened and he decided to enter the Blue Hole. So I really want to tell this kind of story in other games.”
Hwang said that despite being granted its own subdivision within Nexon, his wish remains for Mintrocket to remain miniature.
“I think we’ll stay small. I mean, the definition of small can vary. Dredge, they only have four people on the development team. But I think the team of 20 to 30 people is ideal.”
He added: “It’s easier to correspond and easier to be on the same website that way. I feel like Mintrocket can grow in the future when it comes to measurement, if we are confident in what we are doing right now.
“But that means we’ll have more teams of similar size, or maybe we’ll start publishing some things. But that doesn’t mean we’re going to have a big team of 100 people.
