Project Moon

Project Moon is a South Korean indie studio founded on November 18, 2016. Project Moon is primarily known for its video games, however, it has also released webnovels, webcomics, and even owns and operates a theme café.

The studio's creations focus on exploring a unique dystopia known as the City, and are collectively referred to as the "Project Moon universe" by much of the fanbase.

History

Project Moon was founded by developer Kim Ji-hoon, who had a long-term interest in video games, anime, and literature. He majored in computer engineering in pursuit of a job in the gaming industry, and ended up at Asia University in a game-developing club, wherein he met the founding members of Project Moon. In his fourth year of college, Kim Ji-hoon and Lee YuMi (head of the system planning team), began working on Lobotomy Corporation. The game was inspired by creations like SCP Foundation, The Cabin in the Woods, and Warehouse 13, with the Abnormalities drawing inspiration from "folklore, fairy tales, pop culture, and more." Kim Ji-hoon had an interest in playing a game focusing on the management of the kinds of monsters seen in these stories, and, finding there were none, decided to make one himself.

With the help of a widely successful crowdfunding campaign on Tumblbug demonstrating demand for the game, Lobotomy Corporation was published by newly-founded Project Moon on November 18, 2016. Development began with just four members, but the game was ultimately completed by a team of nine. Reflecting their status as a small indie company, the vast majority of tracks used in the game were royalty free music.

During the development of Project Moon's second game, Library of Ruina, the team expanded further to about 20 members, including four illustrators. It was inspired by and reworked from a tabletop RPG Kim Ji-hoon had created to play with his friends as a student.

As of August 2024, Project Moon's team consists of 45 game developers and seven HamHamPangPang café employees. Kim Ji-hoon has explained he had no immediate plans to hire more employees or expand the company in scope. He has also stated publicly that Project Moon is financially stable.

Creations

Video Games

Year	Title	Genre	Platform
2018	Lobotomy Corporation	Management, horror
2021	Library of Ruina	Turn-based strategy, deck-builder
2023 (live service)	Limbus Company	Turn-based strategy, gacha

Novels and Comics

Project Moon has historically uploaded their non-game media to their official Postype account.

• The Distortion Detective (2/2/2020 - 12/13/2020): webnovel focusing on Moses and Ezra investigating Distortions in the City, taking place in the middle of Library of Ruina's story.
• Leviathan (1/20/2022 - 10/5/2022): webcomic turned webnovel focusing on the story of Vergilius and his Office leading up to the events of Limbus Company.
  • The series received an incomplete translation, and only the first 15 chapters have been officially translated into English.
  • The first 11 chapters, which consistent of the entire webcomic portion of the series, were removed from Postype and made unavailable to read on July 26th, 2024.
• Wonderlab (3/27/2020 - 4/9/2021): webcomic based on the events occurring in a Lobotomy Corporation branch other than the one focused on in the original game. The story covered the daily life of Lobotomy Corporation employees prior to, during, and after the White Nights and Dark Days incident.
  • It is unknown which parts of the webcomic, if any, are considered canon to Project Moon's other works after the series' removal from official sources at the artist's request.
  • The series was removed from Postype and made unavailable to read on August 15th, 2023.

Other

• HamHamPangPang is a theme café run by Project Moon in Suwon, South Korea. It opened on August 1st, 2020 and is based on the restaurant of the same name that appears in Library of Ruina. The restaurant features rotating themes with food and merchandise based on the Project Moon universe. It operates on a reservation system and does not serve minors.

Potential Developments

In the August 2024 livestream, Kim Ji-hoon announced that creating another game in tandem with Limbus Company would be difficult due to the team's smaller size, but it may occur if they expand the team or collaborate with larger developers.

A management game codenamed "Lobotomy Corporation 2" or "LC2" has been planned since 2020. While the development status is uncertain, this game would involve managing a section of the City and would be most similar in gameplay to Lobotomy Corporation.

In July of 2021, Project Moon announced that they planned to turn the events of The Distortion Detective into a video game, likely once the development of Limbus Company is completed.

During the Project Moon 8th anniversary livestream on November 22, 2024, Kim Ji-hoon announced changes to Limbus Company's monetization in order to fund additional projects at the company. This increase in revenue would be used to make general improvements to Limbus Company itself, as well as possibly begin production on a new game. In addition to game related projects, the release of animated ads, promotional videos, short episodes, and even full-length movies were also brought up as part of Project Moon's future plans.

External Links

Youtube Channel
Twitter / X: Project Moon, Limbus Company, HamHamPangPang
Websites: Project Moon Studio, Limbus Company
Postype (Comics & Webnovels)
Steam Page

Other Wikis & Resources

Library of Ruina Wiki
NamuWiki