Yase Plays: Goodbye Seoul (Demo)
- Yase Fuyunori
- Jul 22
- 3 min read
Updated: Sep 6
Imagine living your daily life as you do, going to high school, aiming for a good college, hanging out with your friends, experiencing the ordinary days of a teenage life, when one day – you get told that everything as you know it, as you cherish, that you worked so hard for, is fated to perish.
What would you even do? What could you even do?
Goodbye Seoul is a narrative puzzle-adventure side-scroller game created by developed by JINO games and published by NEOWIZ.
I had the honor to discover this game at Gamescom 2024 and receive the Demo to test it out.
Set in the capital of South Korea, the story follows a girl named Rion, who at the peak of planning her future full of possibilities – together with the rest of humanity – receives the haunting news that an Asteroid is racing towards Earth. We meet Rion officially when there is only 6 months before the impact, Seoul and the rest of the world have fallen into a perilous state, society and systems are obsolete, people fight and kill, others and themselves and Rion ,too, has lost all will to go on, because how do you go on, when there is no more way forward?
And just when Rion decides with her last strength that enough is enough, that with this grim end in sight she wants to at least have the power to decide the finale of her story by leaping herself off of the bridge leading across the Han River, a glimmer of unexpected hope arises from the darkness.
Rion meets someone, having been shot in a deadly altercation near the same bridge.
Unsure of the situation she closes in, gets the person their dying meal from a broken down Supermarket and in a grim final exchange they tell her, that there is a chance. There is a way to live. And with the tiniest instruction, the person passes and Rion is alone again.
But something changes within her. There is a reason to go on now. With barely any details or assurance, but hope is hope and Rion needed it.
So her long journey through a broken, haunting and yet morbidly beautiful Seoul begins.
The game is fully done in pixel graphics, which capture the dreadful but oddly comforting atmosphere of the story perfectly. The crumbling buildings, the unraveling streets, the sky with beautiful sunsets hiding an asteroid and Han River. My eyes kept wandering, sometimes interrupting my journey to just stand still in
time and explore the visuals to my heart's content.
The game mechanics fit your typical side-scroller, jump-and-run experience. They are comfortable, easy to adjust to and fun, as there is a lot of scenery to climb, run and jump on and off.
As you progress in your journey, the main obstacles in your way will be many puzzles, as this is a puzzle-solving game.
Some of them timed, some of them requiring tricky thinking and creativity.
As a brainteaser-loving person this was very fun to me and I felt very accomplished with some of the more complicated ones and it always felt very rewarding to be able to continue down the road.
I must admit towards the middle part, I did think some of the puzzles did get a little repetitive, this however did not negatively impact my game experience at all. I was very sucked in by the narrative and the desire to know what is next.
So as I went on and on, helped other survivors and they helped me, and solved riddles left and right, I was left with anticipation and wanting more, when the Demo finally ended.
This game will become something very special, I can feel it.
And although it has not received a release date as of yet, I urge everyone to check out the official Steam Page and wishlist it as well as play the demo to get the best out of the game for yourself. For those attending Gamescom 2025, JINO Games will be present again, bringing Goodbye Seoul with them! Definitely give their booth a visit, if you can!
Don't give in to nihilism, don't give up however tempting it may be. Take your fate into your own hands and change into a destiny that you see for yourself and Rion!
Yase out.
Goodbye Seoul Steam Page:
JINO Games Homepage:
JINO Games on Twitter:
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