CDC Games, a business unit of CDC Corporation and pioneer of the "free-to-play, pay for merchandise" model for online video games in China, announced today that its CDC Games International (CGI) business unit plans to launch Lunia gold, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) based on the popular manga style comic art form, for commercial availability in North America during the first quarter of 2008.

Lunia, which was developed by Korea-based ALLM Co., Ltd., is based on the manga style of Japanese comics which is widely popular throughout the world. Unlike many other MMORPGs currently on the market, Lunia is played much like an action arcade game, allowing players to move around using a keyboard's arrow keys, rather than a mouse.

In Lunia, various attacks can be launched by pressing combinations of keys rather than clicking on an enemy to attack. In addition, special skills and items can be conveniently controlled with hotkeys. Unlike many other games, Lunia gold does not restrict its skill hotkeys to the function keys on a keyboard. This allows users to more fully customize and adapt the game controls to their personal liking. In further contrast to many popular MMORPGs, Lunia offers a detailed plotline and story to accompany game play. Battles between players and monsters take place in increasingly challenging stages which are much like chapters in the overall story.