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[Dany]

Bought it, installed it. It doesn't work with Mac OS X Mavericks >_< ugh

 

[Tizoc]

Famitsu article
Hope this means a Japanese release is forthcoming, sorry if old.

 

[inky]

I just wanted to post in this thread. I've finished it twice already, endings 3 & 17 I think. I love this game, even tho it is so grim. Some newspaper headlines have really bummed me out.

Amazing game.

 

[Messofanego]

I got Ending 4, haha!

Those 2 hours are equal to a week in real life, because I was fretting over what to do. Probably the most obvious ending. Yes I care about my family more, Arstotzka! But next time I'll make you proud.

I could play this game any time, great pick-up-and-play value. The endless mode is genius.

So I'm guessing 0 Citation Run is the biggest challenge possible?

 

[scottnak]

Woohoo. Finally unlocked endless mode & got all the achievements. \o/

Barely had enough money to escape with the whole family. Whew.

 

[exmachina64]

So I'm guessing 0 Citation Run is the biggest challenge possible?

Without cheating? Yes.

 

[Messofanego]

Hey, that's me in the game as head of Meskor Engineering

 

[survivor]

Bought the game today and played it till around day 15. Really fun and quite hectic at times trying to process as many people as I can before the timer runs out. I would have definitely ran out of money few days earlier if it wasn't for

Spoiler

1000 dollars that I somehow received. I'm still not sure why I got it, but I only got to enjoy it for a day before the government confiscated my money

 

[ant_]

Just got ending 4 out of 20. Damnit. If I play from any day can I restart the game from different points?

 

[Wok]

Just got ending 4 out of 20. Damnit. If I play from any day can I restart the game from different points?

Yes. I got the ending 12.

 

[Hofmann]

Hey, that's me in the game as head of Meskor Engineering

You lucky bastard. I didn't make it, even though I have eastern Europe sounding surname.

 

[Remachinate]

This game came out of nowhere for me, and is already a serious GOTY contender. It does so many things right in its use of a simple but satisfying mechanic to create a compelling narrative with complex moral implications. Well done Lucas Pope.

 

[exmachina64]

Hey, that's me in the game as head of Meskor Engineering

I sent four engineers your way and

Spoiler

you only paid me for one. Could have specified what kind you wanted.

 

[Messofanego]

Zero Punctuation: Papers Please (starts at 3:20)

"EA wouldn't make something like this..."

 

[Makai]

My friend and I both encountered my name early in our runs.

Amazing odds unless there's some algorithm to help owners to run into themselves. Maybe location based?

Spoiler

I see others have run into themselves

Papers, Please is done. Over 27,000 names were submitted. I manually checked 5,664 of these (randomly drawn from the whole pool) and selected 2,705 (around 10% of the total) to be included in the game.

 

[Remachinate]

I love that this game is getting mainstream coverage. Gone Home has been the indie darling of most major publications, and now Papers, Please getting wider exposure--it's well-deserved and demonstrates how resonant these introspective games can be among a wider audience.

 

[Haunted]

endgame spoilers:

Spoiler

I was such an ass to Jorji, denied and detained him like three times, always dismissive and court. And yet he doesn't have any hard feelings and comes through for me in the end and hooks me up with the forger and even his passport! What a bro.

Communist state.

My pay is performance-based.

I have to pay for Rent, Heat, and Food.

@_@?

Glory to Arstotzka.

About that guy...

Spoiler

If you give him the money back he goes "wow you're really nice..." then admits that the watch always had that scratch and gives you the money back and apologizes for attempting to take advantage of your kindness.

Spoiler

Which is only half of the money you get compared to one of the offers before. The right thing to do doesn't net you the most profit, just like it should be in this type of game.

 

[Khaz]

I'd like to suggest a slight modification in gameplay which I feel may improve the game and add a bit more tension.

I have read a few articles and the criticism most often raised is how there is an invisible sentient being watching over you and instantly punishing you for mistakes, seemingly rendering your job at the border redundant: if someone goes behind you, rechecks everything and immediately sees mistakes, what's the point of your job?

The first thing would be to add some delay, a few days before the migrants get arrested and you are blamed for their entrance.

Subsequently, give penalties only based on errors with the approved stamp.

With only this the player will be tempted to use the "refused entry" stamp more frequently and arbitrarily. In order to mitigate this and force players to actually do their job and allow people to enter, base the salary bonus on the amount of people he allowed instead of the overall people he saw.

So with these three modifications (delay on blame, penalty on approved only, bonus on entrance) I think the game could be as enjoyable as it is today while removing the main criticism about it. It would even add a bit more tension with the blame delay.

What do you think? Good idea? Bad idea? I'm stupid?

 

[Mr Swine]

So could someone please tell me how do I get someone to show if they have no weapons or contraband? Some slip through and I get a warning about them carrying weapons or drugs :/

 

[dramatis]

So could someone please tell me how do I get someone to show if they have no weapons or contraband? Some slip through and I get a warning about them carrying weapons or drugs :/

Check their weight. If there is a discrepancy, the Search button will show up and the photos should show contraband/weapons.

 

[Jintor]

This game is so stressful but I can't stop playing

 

[Mr Swine]

Check their weight. If there is a discrepancy, the Search button will show up and the photos should show contraband/weapons.

Ah so that is how you do that, thanks!

 

[Jintor]

Ending 17. Everything is fucked. Not bad for a second run though.

Fucking

Spoiler

Order of Shitty Craptitude. Can't even guarantee my family's safety. Those pieces of shit.

Question re: guns. Sometimes I stick the key in the lock and there's no goddamn gun. What's up with that

 

[benjipwns]

Little interview with the guy behind this on Reason including sales news: http://reason.com/archives/2013/09/26/papers-please-politics-in-games-and-the

Reason: Your game has gotten a lot of attention. Were you expecting this response? Can you reveal how many copies you've sold so far?

Pope: I wasn't expecting this response at all. Papers, Please was intended as a small experimental project that I'd finish off before working on something more marketable. I'm extremely happy with the overwhelming response it's gotten. I'll be posting a devlog update with actual sales numbers soon but for now I'll say it's sold wildly beyond my expectations.

 

[Deleted member 125677]

lttp on this one, played a couple of hours and loving it

Having a hard time keeping up on money once I get to day ~7-8 though. Is there anything you can do besides speeding through the line?

 

[conman]

I also finally got around to playing this off and on over the past couple of days. Brilliant.

Can't get any but one ending over and over again, but I'm starting to push the boundaries a bit and see where the wiggle room is. It's a much smarter "meta-game" than Bioshock IMO.

 

[pariah164]

I don't know if this has been linked, but this video is pretty damn hilarious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ML-f34bmGw

On another note, I just started playing. Oh my LORD this game is amazing.

 

[Deleted member 125677]

nevermind lol

 

[Messofanego]

Good read:

"Papers, Please: A Game About Borders, Stamps, And My Family" by Becky Chambers

Our story is a long one, but suffice it to say, it involves a lot of paperwork, airports, fingerprints, legal advice, and time apart. Years apart. Many of which were set in motion by a man who was never satisfied with my partner’s papers. It didn’t matter how clean her record was, or how good her intentions were, or that, as advised, my name was left entirely out of it. For reasons we never got a clear answer on, he was quick to grab the red stamp. As a result, my partner hasn’t been stateside since 2006.

I’ve thought that phrase many times, though with a change of pronouns. I’ve spent countless hours in airports. I can tell you how security differs, depending on where you’re flying to or from. The different kinds of questions, the typical length of lines, the thoroughness of the frisking. I always smile when going through checkpoints, and keep my voice easy. I comply as quickly as I can. “She’s just doing her job,” I tell myself, as a stranger runs the backs of her hands over my breasts. And then, as anger starts to creep in, the thing that always mollifies me: “Don’t. You can’t afford another ticket. You need to get home.”

I watched people in the game comply just as quietly. I fought back queasiness as I examined naked photographs of strangers’ bodies. When they did not comply, I detained them. I detained more people for lesser offenses after one of the guards promised to cut me into the bonus he got for making arrests. I found myself feeling spiteful toward mistakes — no, not toward the mistakes themselves, toward the people who made them. What a bunch of idiots. How could they not know the rules? They’re so clear! I felt smug in my undeserved power as I slammed the red stamp down. Smug, and ugly. Hollow.

Papers, Please showed me that my sense of compassion can be neatly overridden with the right set of pressures. All it took was a scorecard and some imaginary context. I hate what that says about me, even though it’s the most obvious thing in the world. There are no monsters here. Only humans, following rules.

That bit reminds me a lot of Zimbardo's psychological experiment where he gave random people roles of prisoners and guards in a made-up prison under Stanford university. Once you assume the role, all previous empathy can be shifted.

I played differently the next time. I became all the more diligent, minding the rules carefully — but not out of obedience. See, my in-game salary is based on how many people I process. If I process a lot of people, and make zero mistakes, then I am paid more. If I am paid more, I can afford to suffer penalties for making intentional mistakes. Like letting in the wife of the refugee I’d just processed, even though she lacked an entry permit. Like turning away the man involved in human trafficking, even though all his papers were in order. Like admitting the woman whose gender didn’t match the one printed on her passport. Quiet little mercies, all calculated, all dangerous. I still worried about my son. But I also worried about the futures I was holding in my hands. The paths untraveled, the dominoes aligned.

 

[Woorloog]

What a wonderful game.
So different from the usual games, yet the premise works perfectly as a game.

 

[Social]

Just played this for the first time, I only lasted an hour... but what a great game!!

Can't wait to let my wife play it haha

 

[Riposte]

Hmm, by day 12 or 13 (IIRC), this is starting to get pretty tedious. I don't like the method the interactivity is escalating in complexity; the freshness has worn off and requiring more areas to check in the same old way doesn't really change things for the better (on the contrary...). I see the potential in role-playing choices and character interactions, but this game feels like it should be a part of a bigger game that breaks up the pace with more interesting mechanics (or even just more environments, christ). So while I do like the peculiar moments of interest, the general dullness may have reached a breaking point. Another 10+ days of this may be tough to deal with, especially since I'm now more concerned with filling up my GAF GotY list.

Also no fucks given about the family; they don't even have faces. This is less effectual than the time I saw my 1st grade classmates die in Oregon Trail.

 

[Remachinate]

Hmm, by day 12 or 13 (IIRC), this is starting to get pretty tedious. I don't like the method the interactivity is escalating in complexity; the freshness has worn off and requiring more areas to check in the same old way doesn't really change things for the better (on the contrary...). I see the potential in role-playing choices and character interactions, but this game feels like it should be a part of a bigger game that breaks up the pace with more interesting mechanics (or even just more environments, christ). So while I do like the peculiar moments of interest, the general dullness may have reached a breaking point. Another 10+ days of this may be tough to deal with, especially since I'm now more concerned with filling up my GAF GotY list.

Also no fucks given about the family; they don't even have faces. This is less effectual than the time I saw my 1st grade classmates die in Oregon Trail.

Welcome to the life of of a border control agent; now you know the monotony of being a cog in a uncaring bureaucracy. It's *supposed* to feel trapping and repetitive, such that you feel encouraged to enact change in the only place you have agency, via the character interactions. It's a commentary, not a set piece-filled wild ride. And you really can't imagine responsibility to an hypothetical family without them being fully characterized?

 

[Riposte]

Welcome to the life of of a border control agent; now you know the monotony of being a cog in a uncaring bureaucracy. It's *supposed* to feel trapping and repetitive, such that you feel encouraged to enact change in the only place you have agency, via the character interactions. It's a commentary, not a set piece-filled wild ride. And you really can't imagine responsibility to an hypothetical family without them being fully characterized?

Such deep, much indie.

I get the feeling that's what they are going for, but I don't think it works for longer than, say, 2 hours (so, a film's length). I mean the (obvious, easily spelled out) point has long since been made, the joke is now tired, so now I'm fully interested the doing of the activity itself. Wouldn't have hurt to squeeze the meaningful parts together. I mean it takes until day 12 or so before the overarching plot to even really get started.

Also I can imagine the responsibility, but without any real investment I am not going to care. Like, who cares about characters who don't appear in a movie? These are more words than people. At best, it feels like a sloppy scoring system where its dourness becomes a little comical when you realize that. As I joked, it reminds me of Oregon Trail.

Replacing the whole daily/family report stuff with more game of an entirely different type would really help with the pace and allow room for complexity that doesn't quickly become a chore.

 

[Remachinate]

Such deep, much indie.

I get the feeling that's what they are going for, but I don't think it works for longer than, say, 2 hours (so, a film's length). I mean the (obvious, easily spelled out) point has long since been made, the joke is now tired, so now I'm fully interested the doing of the activity itself. Wouldn't have hurt to squeeze the meaningful parts together. I mean it takes until day 12 or so before the overarching plot to even really get started.

Also I can imagine the responsibility, but without any real investment I am not going to care. Like, who cares about characters who don't appear in a movie? These are more words than people. At best, it feels like a sloppy scoring system where its dourness becomes a little comical when you realize that. As I joked, it reminds me of Oregon Trail.

Replacing the whole daily/family report stuff with more game of an entirely different type would really help with the pace and allow room for complexity that doesn't quickly become a chore.

You say the point is easily spelled out, but just because the theme is obvious doesn't mean there isn't a number of nuances that need to be explored separately. You do see different sides of the privacy vs security and individual needs vs society needs throughout the later days, and the three real endings all have a great payoff. It's worth sticking with.

And it's not about the faceless family though, it's about how you would act if it was *your* family, as opposed to a fictional one whose value to you is based on a personality fleshed-out by the game. Substitute your actual relative for the unnamed one in the game and ask yourself if you would detain people aggressively to feed them.

Finally, sorry to be "much indie", but the chore is the point--your only agency in an uncaring bureaucracy is your job. Adding another layer of gameplay would distract from the central conflict of the game and dilute the message. It's the tight focus that has makes the experience a potent one.

 

[Y2Kev]

I downloaded this and really quite like it. But the one thing that isn't immediately obvious to me...is there a downside to being overly cautious and just denying everyone? Do you get paid on people processed or people successfully admitted?

 

[pariah164]

I downloaded this and really quite like it. But the one thing that isn't immediately obvious to me...is there a downside to being overly cautious and just denying everyone? Do you get paid on people processed or people successfully admitted?

You get paid based on those successfully admitted and denied. Accept someone that should have been denied, you don't get paid. Deny someone that should have been admitted, you don't get paid.

 

[Khaz]

I downloaded this and really quite like it. But the one thing that isn't immediately obvious to me...is there a downside to being overly cautious and just denying everyone? Do you get paid on people processed or people successfully admitted?

you have an omnipotent overseer who knows who can and can't pass. If you admit or deny wrongly, you get punished. This is one of the weakness of the game for me, as you quickly realise you are redundant and your work should be passed to this overseer who obviously does a much better job than you do. I posted earlier a few modifications to this system that I think would be better but no one cared to comment. I have no idea how to contact the creator either to show him my crap.

 

[PriitV]

. I have no idea how to contact the creator either to show him my crap.

www.twitter.com/dukope

 

[PoweredBySoy]

You get paid based on those successfully admitted and denied. Accept someone that should have been denied, you don't get paid. Deny someone that should have been admitted, you don't get paid.

Is there any benefit to investigating a discrepancy and interrogating them about it? I mean, if you see two dates that don't match, do you even need to 'investigate' it? Why not just deny and go - save time.

 

[pariah164]

Is there any benefit to investigating a discrepancy and interrogating them about it? I mean, if you see two dates that don't match, do you even need to 'investigate' it? Why not just deny and go - save time.

Well, in some cases, that is true. However, Clesnik (the guard) offers a $5 bonus for every two people you detain. So that's an incentive if you're strapped for cash.

 

[Jotamide]

A mouse is a must in this game, not very laptop-friendly. Also, is it possible to stretch your work-area?

 

[pariah164]

A mouse is a must in this game, not very laptop-friendly. Also, is it possible to stretch your work-area?

Get a mouse for your laptop...?

And no, sadly.

 

[Adam Scott Aukerman]

A mouse is a must in this game, not very laptop-friendly. Also, is it possible to stretch your work-area?

I played it quite comfortably to completion with a MBP trackpad.

 

[Liferebooted]

Won this on a twitch sttream, its actually amazing

 

[Messofanego]

EDGE: The Making of Papers, Please

lol

While Pope was confident that he was making a good game, he worried that others would write it off after hearing its concept. “It sounds so weird and stupid,” he admits.

Those fears were unfounded. “Papers, Please is by far the most popular game I’ve ever done,” Pope tells us, having watched sales of his game far outpace his expectations. Its success has reached the point now where it can support Pope and his family. Perversely, the tough-to-explain concept that concerned its creator may have spurred on sales. “It’s really hard to describe the game and make it sound fun, which I guess ended up being in its favour. It would make me curious, at least. Somebody tries to explain the game, but it sounds so weird and stupid… that you kind of at least have to take a look to see what it’s like.”

Whoah

Before Papers, Please, players were most likely to know Pope’s work through either his programming contributions to the Uncharted series, even if they might not recognise his name in the credits, or iOS game Helsing’s Fire. Pope’s tenure at Naughty Dog stands out as an anomaly on his CV, which otherwise consists of small, independent games, usually made with a few friends or his wife, Keiko, who is also a programmer. Pope left Naughty Dog in 2010 and moved to Saitama, Japan, to be closer to Keiko’s family. From Japan, the two made Helsing’s Fire and a video editing app for iPhone, and then temporarily relocated to Singapore to work on a friend’s game.

Inspired by travels

Pope’s travels around Southeast Asia and occasional returns to his homeland, the United States, resulted in a marked increase in the amount of time he spent standing before immigration officers, glancing back and forth between his passport and their computer. The developer found the job fascinating. “Those guys are checked out pretty much the whole time,” he explains. “They have a specific thing they’re doing and they’re just doing it over and over again.”

The motions of that job stayed with Pope for a while, having engaged his interest in real-life activities and routines that can translate into gameplay. The designer tends to divide up his ideas for mechanics and story at the beginning of making a game, then allows them to cross-pollinate. But while the routines of checking documents appealed, Pope needed a story catalyst before he decided to turn them into a game. “At that point, I didn’t even think I was going to make a game about it. It wasn’t until… I think I watched Bourne, or maybe Argo, and I could see that there [was] more potential here than just the mechanic itself. You could mix a good story on top of those core mechanics.”

dat Naughty Dog cash

Pope began working on Papers, Please in late 2012. Backed by his savings from his time at Naughty Dog, he expected to spend a few weeks bringing the project to completion, after which he could move on to something more commercially viable. He also decided to maintain a public log of the game’s development on the TIGSource forums, an online community for indie developers.

Popularity contest

Pope had already prepared to be knocked back by the Greenlight voters, and expected to campaign for Papers, Please at PAX and other events before trying again. Then the Steam community voted through Papers, Please in a matter of days. “Somehow, really popular YouTube players found it and it took off from there. It went through really fast. Don’t ask me any objective stuff about Greenlight. I did really well on it – better than I expected. I can’t say anything bad about it, basically. I was apprehensive before, but I got really lucky.” Pope’s Greenlight experience was still a popularity contest, but it suddenly became a popularity contest that he could win.

Of the 27,000 submitted names for migrants, many were too obscene to be used in the game. Pope says the best of the joke names was Schitz Popinoff.

Pope made it clear he didn’t want joke names in his game, even as fans argued that they were funny and wanted them in.

The danger of feedback

As Papers, Please’s profile increased, the feedback from the TIGSource forums started to make less and less sense. How about a Hotline Miami sequence where you make your character walk to work in the morning, or redesigning Papers, Please as a Facebook game where you can approve or deny your own friends?

“I got to this point where I realised everyone has their own idea of what this game is,” Pope reflects. “At the beginning, [I thought], ‘OK, this feedback is great; I really want to hear what people want.’ But a few of the suggestions were completely left-field for what I was thinking. You reach this point where you’re like, ‘Whose game am I making here? Is it the one I’m thinking about, or is it the one other people are thinking about?’”

'empathy game'

In Pope’s mind, the game he was making had shifted from an entertaining mechanical diversion to a mechanical diversion that could also convey real meaning. In assigning players the role of the harassed Arstotzka inspector, the game was able to elicit empathy for a cog in the machine, a man bound by the strict-yet-changing immigration policy of a corrupt and totalitarian state. In media coverage, Pope noticed that Papers, Please was being referred to as an ‘empathy game’, earning comparisons to the bleak retail simulator Cart Life.

Violating rights for the "greater good"? Where have I heard that before...

“[The empathy angle] rose up from the way the story developed, and how I could see the mechanics working with the story. I wanted to add a search scanner, so you can see the person naked. That brings up the issue of, like, ‘Why would I want to see this person naked? This is violating their rights.’ And so [I had to get to a place where], ‘OK, there’s a reason for this; it’s because there’s a suicide bomber. The narrative element that introduces this mechanic is a suicide bomber.’ So you kind of see both sides of why it is you need this thing, but also the suicide bombers are really rare and you don’t really know a lot about their motivations. You feel a little bit skeezy scanning everybody from this one place. I wanted that to happen, too.”

Indie marketing is super hard

“The thing that I didn’t really expect is that you have to do a lot of shit that’s not making the game. At a certain point, you stop being a guy who programs and designs cool stuff, and you start marketing, or making the webpage, or sending out review codes, or signing contracts for the distribution.

“On top of that, you need to set up store pages; put quotes up; you need images, screenshots; you need to design a webpage… and all of this is stuff that you should have a team of guys for, or be doing throughout development. But for me, all of that stuff got packed into the last two weeks before I shipped. It wasn’t until three days before the game was released that I actually finished it, and sent the build to everybody to put it on their servers.”

Ain't about that 9-5

The success of Papers, Please has changed things for Pope in at least two ways. “I don’t need to get a real job. I can keep working on these stupid indie games and I’m OK,” he explains. But he’s now terrified that people won’t like whatever he does next as much as Papers, Please. “It was nice when I was just releasing games and nobody [knew] about them. Nobody cares, and you can do what you want.”

A new kind of fun?

...there’s only one thing about the Papers, Please experience that seems to bug him at all. “When you read a review of the game, they almost always say that it’s not fun. That’s the first thing they say. And they put fun in quotes, too: it’s not ‘fun’, in quotes. Which, I mean, I can understand. But for me, personally, I really want to make fun games that people are entertained by and they enjoy playing. So when people talk about the mechanics, or the tactility, which is something I worked hard to get right, then I really appreciate that. I mean, I love it when anybody says anything good about the game; honestly,
it’s really flattering for me. But particularly when people go against that feeling of ‘It’s not a fun game, but it’s something you should play’ – that’s fairly satisfying.

“I think that’s part of the narrative for ‘empathy games’. The news narrative for empathy games is that it’s important that they’re not fun, I think, because it’s kind of expressing a new interactive medium where you’re not playing just to stomp on enemies’ heads and get to the goal at the end. It’s something different, so you have to define it differently from what came before: it’s not like those games that are fun, it’s like these new games that are not fun. As far as the news cycle goes, I understand why it has to be talked about like that. But just from a personal perspective, I’m trying to make games that are fun.”

 

[CaVaYeRo]

So, as many of you probably know, new version (Linux, Spanish, German,
Italian, French, Portuguese, Japanese, and Russian) is out today.

We had tons of fun yesterday, during its presentation in Madrid.

Lucas Pope gave his very first press conf on Papers, Please, live connecting and answering from LA. Russian-like uniform and gloves included

He confirmed his next game will be free, and said PP would first come to iPad (not iPhone) when asked about consoles, due to controls. But he's "pretty tired" of PP right now, so moving on to that free, short, different experiment.

Source: http://www.gamereactor.es/articulos/84534/Papers%2C+Please%3A+conexi%F3n+espa%F1ola/

 

[Thug Waffle]

my dudes Gootecks and Mike Ross playing a little bit of Papers, Please!

 

[Asgaro]

Lovely game.
The very first playthrough wasn't that fun since you weren't used to the routine work.
But damn, once you are past that, you really "have it in the fingers" and can't stop playing!

 

[Rembrandt]

Gotta agree with the poster that said he doesn't feel a connection with the family. Maybe I'm just weird because I know people got all attached to the companion cube years back, but it just did nothing for me. Occasionally I felt bad for the people going through the checkpoints, but without seeing the family, any visual or any feedback, they were just words. Of course I tried to make sure they stayed alive but I attribute that more to me wanting to be somewhat of a perfectionist rather than actually caring about them. Really great game, though.