The trend of office workers having multiple side jobs is becoming a hot topic. More and more people are expressing themselves by working on various side projects across different platforms outside of their main jobs.
There's even a case where someone used their precious half-day off - which is like a lifeline for office workers - to work as a creator on 'this platform' and ended up getting featured on the main page of an app used by 350,000 users.
This is the story of the Quak Quak Studio team, who participated in the creator development program <Gwangju-hada> on Realworld, an interactive content platform, and created content that can be enjoyed at Gwangju Youth Square.
The Quak Quak Studio team created a witty and charming game that even got them selected as an outstanding team in <Gwangju-hada>.
We conducted an interview to hear the story of Quak Quak Studio team about why they decided to work as Realworld creators despite their busy work lives!
Quak Quak Studio team
who created <Yusuki of the Strange Terminal>
Q. Hello everyone, nice to meet you! Congratulations on winning the excellence award. First, could you please introduce your team?
Quak Quak Studio is a team of three office workers. We met and became friends through a local community. We go out to eat delicious food together and play futsal.
One day, one of our team members, Quak-il, suggested we work on the <Gwangju-hada> project together, and when the other two of us agreed, we formed our team.
Q. Could you also introduce the team members? I'm curious about what roles each of you took on.
I'm Quak-il, in charge of planning and design. I handle drawing the big picture and making it happen. I'm the one who brought Quak-i and Quak-sam into Quak Quak Studio!
I'm Quak-i, in charge of character illustration. I specialize in content consumption and analysis, and I'm passionate about horror and thriller genres.
I'm Quak-sam, the team leader. I was in charge of story and UX. When I'm not working on stories, I almost... made it to the national singing contest as a main vocalist!
Q. It's amazing that such talented and versatile team members came together to create this wonderful result. Your nicknames and team name are quite unique. What does <Quak Quak Studio> mean?
A. We wanted to come up with a team name that would remind people of Gwangju, fitting the <Gwangju-hada> project name. While brainstorming various names, we happened to discover that all team members love duck soup, which is a specialty of Gwangju, so we thought of the name Duck Studio. Then, while looking for a more impactful name than 'duck,' we took the duck sound 'quak quak' and finally decided on Quak Quak Studio.
After naming it, we were satisfied because it also perfectly matched our intention to pack our content full.
Q. So how did you first learn about Realworld and the <Gwangju-hada> program?
A. We love a variety show called <Crime Scene>. It happened that in 2021, Realworld was running a free event for the Realworld Clue Crime series, and after playing Realworld Clue themed games together at that time, we've been enjoying <Realworld> content together.
Then one of our team members was personally exploring side projects and discovered the <Gwangju-hada> promotional page. It wasn't just a one-time contest,
but the fact that content would be registered on the platform after creation was attractive, so we decided to apply.
Q. I see. The ability to directly create results and have them featured on the main page of a platform used by 350,000 users is definitely a major advantage of our 'Local-hada' project! However, creating a game while working full-time couldn't have been easy. What was your reason for applying despite this?
A. One of our team members could leave work on time, so we thought we could meet on weekends to work on the project and applied. But the biggest problem was that the most important game planning class was at 1 PM. It was a mandatory class, so we wondered what to do, but fortunately Realworld provided file support for the first class. For the second class, we ended up using a half-day off.
Until the game got somewhat on track, we met every weekend to work. After that, we didn't meet in person, but our team chat was on fire every weekend. Fortunately, the studio program was intuitive, so even though we knew nothing about development, the work was manageable.
We anticipated various difficulties, and there actually were some. Nevertheless, we applied because we wanted to seize the opportunity to create something together and showcase that result to <Realworld> app users.
The thought of directly creating content that would allow other users to feel the joy we gained from the app
motivated us to push through with self-discipline.
We'd be happy if many people enjoy playing it after the release.
Q. Your passionate participation really seems to have led to the release of such a great game. So what was the planning intention behind <Yusuki of the Strange Terminal>? Youth Square as a setting felt very fresh and new.
A. Initially, we had several candidate locations. ACC, Gwangju's famous landmark, had already been used as a location for a <Realworld> game.
So we looked for a place that other teams wouldn't choose easily, a place that we as Gwangju people had just passed by, a place spacious enough for gaming, and a place with high foot traffic where tourists could visit comfortably, and we thought of Youth Square.
Initially, we wanted to create a mystery thriller based on the fact that Youth Square has many objects like statues. However, we were concerned that making the story too complex might reduce accessibility, so we switched to an easy and light fairy tale-like story. We were greatly inspired by <Final Code ICN>, which was set in Incheon Airport, in terms of making an everyday space extraordinary.
Q. The very cute illustrations really stand out. Do you have team members who majored in design or work in design?
A. Quak Quak Studio consists of team members who are design majors and have good artistic skills. For this content, we proceeded with a collage style, and it's fun to see how the "strange" incidents in the story are expressed. Attractive original characters also appear. We really hope people who like cute things will definitely try playing it.
Q. Do you have any memorable episodes from content creation?
A. I remember going to Jeonju to play <Flowers That Came to Me> when we were given the assignment to actually play an outdoor game. Playing that game taught us a lot about movement flow, quiz difficulty, and what needs to be done for players to have a comfortable gaming experience.
Q. Do you have plans for your next work?
A. Of course. We love thrillers and mysteries, so we'd like to try that once. There are still many hidden spots in Gwangju. Actually, we already have a few places in mind.
We'd also like to try non-face-to-face format instead of outdoor format.
Want to create content using Realworld Studio like the <Quak Quak Studio> team?
Want to play the content created by the <Quak Quak Studio> team?