Support NeoGAF

[electricpirate]

Ohh man, I feel really awfull My one redeeming moment was taking the warning to keep the family together. I am a terrible person.

Love the old guy though. Hah.

 

[Unison]

This was worthwhile, although this beta stops after a week. I managed to beat it without losing a family member!

 

[Haunted]

This was worthwhile, although this beta stops after a week. I managed to beat it without losing a family member!

Good job, you prevented a ton of innocent refugees from entering your country and probably doomed them to a terrible death being prosecuted in their own. I'm sure you'll get some fucking Arstotzkan medal for it.

Spoiler

The game is awesome.

 

[EmCeeGramr]

nobody in my family died, all anti-revolutionaries, mobsters, and terrorists were detained at the border B)

 

[antitrop]

I submitted my name.

Now to actually play the game...

 

[Haunted]

nobody in my family died, all anti-revolutionaries, mobsters, and terrorists were detained at the border B)

honecker would be proud

Almost got to the end.

The fact that my son died and my family went to the shitter health wise negated the fact that I would deny people entry into a country. And oddly enough, I have a lot of fun looking for the smallest thing to deny someone entry into the country.

Like, I had a lot of fun with the game instead of feeling anything about the situation I'm in and how I'm contributing to it. In reality I'm against a lot of what's in this game and how immigrants are mistreated throughout the world.

But I have a lot of fun noticing how last names are spelled differently, how an ID might have a different number than the work permit. So I don't know if the emotional or social points are actually driven home enough.

Nah, I actually think that's a completely valid reaction. With these kinds of topics in games, you can quickly become too preachy and off-putting for many people. No need for a more overt representation of the consequences, the game makes it clear what you're doing at all times. There are plenty of people in real life who enjoy turning immigrants away (or insert any other bureaucratic action harming people's lives here) because they don't comply with regulations - whether it's because they don't want to lose their job and have to provide for their family, or out of a sense of duty for their motherland, or because they enjoy the thrill of having ultimate power over the fate of other people. As unsettling as that is, that's all human nature.

I think it's good that the game only rewards you for complying with the Arstotzkan doctrine and regulations. Being an upstanding human being and emphasising with certain immigrants' stories would not get you rewarded or praised in these circumstances. Doing so should be (and is) its own reward - though it comes at a cost for you and your family.


The alpha and beta of a simple game made by one guy is demanding tougher decision-making from me than any of the Mass Effect games ever did. And it does so more elegantly, too.

Spoiler

Stop me if I'm being too melodramatic or reading too much into this, but I've thought a lot about this game in the last couple days.

 

[EmCeeGramr]

on the other hand, if you've got two different numbers you're probably a terrorist and going to double secret jail like right now

 

[Mik2121]

I know some people might not like it, and this is not port begging, but I think this game would fit something like the iPad (but not the iPhone perhaps) amazingly. All the stuff you click around is usually quite big, and the layout feels great for playing around with on the iPad.

The only thing I'd do would be placing the "NEXT!" button on your desk instead of outside. I like how all the rules book and stuff is sitting there on your desk and you end up with a bunch of documentation around..

Also, I guess everybody keeps their rules book outside to check for town names and stuff?

 

[Phonomezer]

This game is excellent.

However, a bug is preventing me from passing Day 3; whenever a certain guy comes along saying "OK, here we go... Glory to blah blah blah..." he presents no documents and the game hangs. I can't do anything, and the day ending does nothing - we're just standing there staring at each other for eternity, even when all the other IMMOS have gone home ;_;

 

[n8]

This game is excellent.

However, a bug is preventing me from passing Day 3; whenever a certain guy comes along saying "OK, here we go... Glory to blah blah blah..." he presents no documents and the game hangs. I can't do anything, and the day ending does nothing - we're just standing there staring at each other for eternity, even when all the other IMMOS have gone home ;_;

It was talked about before

Yeah, I know quite a few people got stuck on that (including me!)

 

[Phonomezer]

It was talked about before

Oooooooh thanks!

 

[The Illiterati]

This game is amazing and fun. Though I didn't understand I could make choices at the end of the day instead of just sleeping until far too late, he needs to highlight that a little better. And also I wish it were a little clearer how my work ethic(number of people gotten through) effects my pay. Even not making errors I can't tell how this is really affecting me. I will definitely pay for a final version though, I am completely sold. Maybe he should add an infinite mode after you beat it, it is actually pretty addicting, even beyond the narrative appeal.

 

[Cave Johnson]

(If you get stuck on day 3, open the rule book, highlight the rule of needing a passport and click on the desk to interrogate the old man who just won't leave.)

This is a very interesting game and I'm glad you've created awareness but this particular part didn't work for me EVEN with the rule highlight. I dunno, hope it was just a stupid bug.

 

[Soyongdori]

the hell? If I let a terrorist go through with valid papers, she will kill the soldiers, if I don't let her in, then I get penalties.

Also, the stupid invalid date always gets me.

 

[EmCeeGramr]

I'm not entirely sure about the M.O.A. issuing you a citation immediately after a "failure."

It appropriately projects the image of an omniscient and bureaucratic communist state, but it also reveals the player to be a redundant mechanism. If the state can determine your failures and successes within seconds, what's the point of you? From a story perspective this works well to show the kind of ineptitude and bloat in the Eastern bloc, but it also makes the player feel a little useless and wonder how the state can even determine your failures so quickly.

On the positive side, an immediate citation also increases stress while playing by causing the player to think about their credits and their family and thus make the hard decision to not to let any more applicants that day go through without proper documentation. However, it also allows players to adjust immediately and precisely to their mistakes while in the middle of gameplay and also let them "budget" out their "failures" (ex., "This man is clearly suspicious or got the wrong papers, I can deny him and save my warnings for a clear victim of human rights abuse."). Although, this may very well serve the purpose in dehumanizing the applicants to suit the mood of the game!

In contrast, a system where you received citations at the end of the day and the state's reasons were inconsistent in their specificity day-by-day would make the player more wary of any mistakes in general - and force them to scrutinize every detail in a race against time rather than focus on the details that the slips of paper tell them that they tend to overlook. It would also keep them from "budgeting" in a precise manner. If you're faced with a sympathetic case, you may be completely unsure of whether letting it slide would be the one that incurs the penalty that dooms your uncle. Maybe it could be implemented as one of the daily rule changes.


Just something I was thinking (probably too much*) about.

*which means that the game works

 

[Alex]

This beta was a lot of fun, liked how they mixed in the gameplay with the little stories.

 

[braves01]

How do you deny/arrest somebody who presents no papers?

I've tried selecting "need a passport" and the person's face to make a discrepancy but nothing happens.

 

[n8]

How do you deny/arrest somebody who presents no papers?

I've tried selecting "need a passport" and the person's face to make a discrepancy but nothing happens.

Highlight the rule and the table where they would normally drop their papers.

 

[Zero-Crescent]

The entire family died from illness on the last day. I

Spoiler

separated the husband and wife, gave the mysterious card to the lady, detained the human trafficker, and arrested the fugitive murderer.

 

[Phonomezer]

Spoiler

There was a murderer mentioned in the newspaper before the day begun who then appeared before me at immigration, I could only let him through or deny him... could I have detained him? If so, how.

 

[drexl]

Ok i need help. How the hell do i search the Kolechians? i dont see any button anywhere that lets me do this

 

[Zero-Crescent]

Spoiler

There was a murderer mentioned in the newspaper before the day begun who then appeared before me at immigration, I could only let him through or deny him... could I have detained him? If so, how.

To do that

Spoiler

Bring up the page with the newspaper headlines, bring up the passport, go into inspection mode, and connect the name on the passport to the first headline.

Ok i need help. How the hell do i search the Kolechians? i dont see any button anywhere that lets me do this

Spoiler

Bring up the rulebook (Basic Rules) and the passport, Inspection mode -> connect the country on the passport to the rule about searching all Kolechians.

 

[medze]

Well that was a lot of fun actually. I was putting a lot of thought into the choices I was making and made sure I was doing my "job" correctly, even if it was hard to do at times. The bleek atmosphere of this game was both sad and hilarious at the same time. Cant wait for the full version.

 

[Haunted]

I'm not entirely sure about the M.O.A. issuing you a citation immediately after a "failure."

It appropriately projects the image of an omniscient and bureaucratic communist state, but it also reveals the player to be a redundant mechanism. If the state can determine your failures and successes within seconds, what's the point of you? From a story perspective this works well to show the kind of ineptitude and bloat in the Eastern bloc, but it also makes the player feel a little useless and wonder how the state can even determine your failures so quickly.

On the positive side, an immediate citation also increases stress while playing by causing the player to think about their credits and their family and thus make the hard decision to not to let any more applicants that day go through without proper documentation. However, it also allows players to adjust immediately and precisely to their mistakes while in the middle of gameplay and also let them "budget" out their "failures" (ex., "This man is clearly suspicious or got the wrong papers, I can deny him and save my warnings for a clear victim of human rights abuse."). Although, this may very well serve the purpose in dehumanizing the applicants to suit the mood of the game!

In contrast, a system where you received citations at the end of the day and the state's reasons were inconsistent in their specificity day-by-day would make the player more wary of any mistakes in general - and force them to scrutinize every detail in a race against time rather than focus on the details that the slips of paper tell them that they tend to overlook. It would also keep them from "budgeting" in a precise manner. If you're faced with a sympathetic case, you may be completely unsure of whether letting it slide would be the one that incurs the penalty that dooms your uncle. Maybe it could be implemented as one of the daily rule changes.


Just something I was thinking (probably too much*) about.

*which means that the game works

I mean, I can see the game design need for immediate feedback to get you on the right track and not have you fail the whole game with three mistakes in a row because you didn't understand the rules of the day or something. In-world, I always kinda thought of the immediate reprimands as appropriate for a totalitarian control system that seemingly has eyes everywhere. But I think both approaches are valid from a game design perspective and the latter could be implemented on later days when you've already got a feel for how the game operates. It could also be a mix of immediate reprimands and end-of-day messages that someone you let through was busted at another checkpoint further along the road, so they could spring additional citations on you at the end of the day when you already thought you were scot-free.

 

[Toma]

Gogo thread! Nice to see we already reached page 2!

 

[ekim]

Can you play that windowed?

 

[D4Danger]

Can you play that windowed?

Alt+Enter works on Windows

 

[Hofmann]

On my second playthrough guy with a long beard said that he's a woman. Don't know if it was random or intentional, but it was funny.

 

[Le Singe]

Like what I've played. I like detective type games and this is an interesting spin.

I don't see there being a lot of struggling with letting people in or not. The fact that the game has frequent terrorists trying to get in makes turning people away with questionable documents a pretty easy decision no matter what there stories are. I'd be interested if scenarios got more complicated and maybe very little threat of terrorists.

 

[Karakand]

Spoiler

Stop me if I'm being too melodramatic or reading too much into this, but I've thought a lot about this game in the last couple days.

You've been flirting with it, but given your family background I can understand why you'd be inclined to do so.

But since you're willing to engage with this, you said on day one you let everyone through to "fuck the system," would you have felt so internet anarchist proud if one of them was actually terrorist, or one of the other bad folks with legal entry rights the game throws at you? This behavior seems to me the very sort of thing people charge our glorious Arstotzkan People's Democratic Republic of (putting ideology over human lives).

 

[Zemm]

Played up to day 9 I think, what a great game. It really started to get interesting around day 5 with deciding if I should let legit people through or not, and I love the comedy relief of that one guy who keeps coming back. What's the plan for this game in the future? Steam? Still free, charging? It's good enough to charge for, only a small amount but still, the guy that made this deserves some monetary reward.

 

[Nether!]

Really fun, thanks for posting.

Made a lot of mistakes. Kept checking for the pink paper after every far-side shaped body left the booth to see how I fucked up.

I wish I could have divided food the way I divided medicine. Mother-in-law? Uncle? Get a job or starve to death.

 

[Messofanego]

Yo, this game even dings you on invalid height and weight!

This time thought of being a fascist dick.

Rounding up Kolechian terrorists, hells yeah.

Got your number, Vince!

I let all my family die, but look at that money! Raking it in, with nothing to lose. Might as well make use of all these prostitutes coming over. Probably will have pretty sad sex.

Decided to put my name in the game, it will be hilarious if it gets in.

Glory to Arstotzka! The greatest country!

 

[TrickRoom]

I played about 4 days of this game and didn't continue after getting the message that only more clauses and factors were going to be added to mess up my speed on each day. I'm not so sure how close this process is to the real thing, but it definitely made me feel like someone operating the gate.

 

[Parallax Scroll]

Wow, this sounds cool. I'll check it out.

 

[ronito]

Or Arizona in 2013

 

[Toma]

Wow, this sounds cool. I'll check it out.

Good man.

Although it bums me out a bit that so many people ignore the Indie Games thread if they like stuff like this. Hopefully the Top 5 from last month section manages to rectify that for next month.

 

[Staal]

I remember the border checks between the East- and West-Germany and Poland, this is a damn cruel game.

I totally missed I could buy food/medicine/heat the first few days, so my family died

 

[Parallax Scroll]

I made it to day 7 before I ran out of rent money. I got dinged a couple times for "invalid fingerprints." I'm not sure what makes them invalid though, the printout had the correct name on it.

 

[Messofanego]

I made it to day 7 before I ran out of rent money. I got dinged a couple times for "invalid fingerprints." I'm not sure what makes them invalid though, the printout had the correct name on it.

Did the person have two names? If the printout doesn't mention their second name as a known alias, then that person is lying.

 

[BioHazard]

damn this game is brilliant

 

[Messofanego]

Anthony Burch (Hey Ash Whatcha Playin', Rev Rant, Borderlands 2 writer) approves.

https://twitter.com/reverendanthony/status/313078474166382592

 

[Kuro Madoushi]

Really neat and fun game. I submitted my name.

Makes me wish for a Phoenix Wright game though....

So, it's early but,

I kind of want an over arching story
Want more interaction - once you find the one discrepancy, it's done
Some...wonky mechanics...fucking got me on HEIGHT?!

 

[indigo-cyclops]

I remember the border checks between the East- and West-Germany and Poland, this is a damn cruel game.

I totally missed I could buy food/medicine/heat the first few days, so my family died

Happened to me too...

 

[Messofanego]

Really neat and fun game. I submitted my name.

Makes me wish for a Phoenix Wright game though....

So, it's early but,

I kind of want an over arching story
Want more interaction - once you find the one discrepancy, it's done
Some...wonky mechanics...fucking got me on HEIGHT?!

I'm guessing there'll be that with the Order. Probably will explain all the tokens.

 

[Haunted]

I've also submitted my name. I used the Polish translation to make it sound more eastern blocky, though I don't know if my real German name would've sounded authentic to an English audience as well.

You've been flirting with it, but given your family background I can understand why you'd be inclined to do so.

But since you're willing to engage with this, you said on day one you let everyone through to "fuck the system," would you have felt so internet anarchist proud if one of them was actually terrorist, or one of the other bad folks with legal entry rights the game throws at you? This behavior seems to me the very sort of thing people charge our glorious Arstotzkan People's Democratic Republic of (putting ideology over human lives).

To be fair, that was in Alpha 0.1.1, I don't think the game even had terrorists implemented back then (though he had them planned already). It was half exploring the game's mechanics and half defying what the game told me to do, but my first reaction was indeed "fuck the system, entry permits for everyone!"

The game has advanced past this stage since then and has become more complex - which forces me to balance following my rebellious first instinct or staying a good Arstotzkan lapdog. I've noticed myself becoming much more suspicious about people and their behaviour once the mistakes start piling up and a sick family back home starts to increase the pressure.

If you really engage with the game and let that happen, it's doing a tremendous job forcing you into a (for me) very uncomfortable mindset.

I remember the border checks between the East- and West-Germany and Poland, this is a damn cruel game.

.

 

[Haunted]

In game design nuts & bolts news, he recently made a pretty interesting post about upscaling and how it translates to his art style on the tigsource forums:

Upscaling

For a while now, I've been thinking about how to take this pixel-graphic game and upscale it to a modern or even retina res. Although I personally like old-school pixel graphics, I don't think the appeal holds for the general population. Recently I started playing around with some options.


Hello Neighbor

I started with the game's native res of 570x320, then scaled it up x2 using nearest neighbor scaling:

Looks good. As designed. Pixelly.


Vectorize

My original plan was to manually (using Illustrator's LiveTrace) vectorize all the game's graphics, save them as SVG, then rasterize them to the appropriate resolution on load. The faces in Helsing's Fire got this treatment and it looked great. For Papers Please, This is a much bigger task than it sounds like initially, mainly due to the upgrade from pixel fonts to proper TTFs. That requires all new font selections and basically blows the page layouts I've done so far. Working from the screenshot, I vectorized everything to get this:

Hmm.. Not as f*ckin rad as I expected. The docs are much harder to read now and it feels like an inconsistent level of detail. Some of that could probably be fixed with fatter typefaces but I was tired of looking at fonts at this point. I also really miss that "ARSTOTZKA" font on the entry permit. Couldn't find anything like it in TTF.


There's Special Stuff For That

Ok, next try: Fancy pixel rescaling. In these modern times, there are a whole bucketload of fancy pixel rescaling techniques used in the emulator scene: EPX, SuperEagle, Super2xSa, etc. I researched a few of these before stumbling on the daddy of them all, hqx. Searching for resources on that led me to an impressive pixel-to-vector algorithm that regrettably doesn't come with source code. It's not a total loss though, as they've set up a great comparison page where you can compare the results of many different algorithms easily. Here you can see hqx does really quite well.

Based on that promise, I grabbed the hqx source and compiled it for OSX with some help from this post on the cocos2d forums. Some scaling techniques can handle dithered areas well, but hqx apparently isn't one of them. So as a first step, I converted all the dithered areas in the original image to solid blocks, then ran hqx:

Not bad. This has a much more consistent level of detail. The text gets a _little_ weird, but I could fix that manually. It even maintains the pixel style without actually being pixelly, which I like.


Whither Dither

Going back to compare hqx to nearest-neighbor, however, I'm still sorta drawn to the rough original. Especially when looking at the non-dithered version:

Still chunky, but doesn't have the obvious low-res dithering.

No Conclusion

And that's where I am right now. Haven't been able to decide for sure but I'm leaning towards hqx, with hand-tweaking and assets pre-baked at 2x, 3x, and 4x.

(click on the pictures to actually see the differences, obviously)

I like the cleaned up nearest neighbour in the last shot, though there's something more official and proper looking about the updated fonts in the Vectorised shot, pixely art style or not.

Obviously a matter of personal preference, but interesting to look at, nonetheless.

 

[FACE]

Jesus, my rent is expensive.

Well, my family is in shambles. Doesn't matter, what matters is doing work for the glorious nation of Arstozka.

 

[SpacePirate Ridley]

I played the other day thanks to Toma's indie thread and Messofanego's opinions.
What a great game.

Played two times, could get two gratitude tokens for helping two people (dont know if there are more in the beta).
The graphics have a great feeling and work perfectly for the era the game wants to be, the sound and music is also excellent, and the gameplay is great.

I even submitted my name for the game, its a spanish one so I had to convert it to east european lol

BTW I had one problem:
During the scripted part where a girl enters and gives you a letter saying to make a guy managing a club to stay outside of the border becuase he is going to kill the girls, ive made the two choices (letting the guy out and in) and in both i get the girls killed in the newspaper of the next day.
Its becuase it doesnt trigger becuase of the beta or Im doing something wrong.

Really neat and fun game. I submitted my name.

Makes me wish for a Phoenix Wright game though....

So, it's early but,

I kind of want an over arching story
Want more interaction - once you find the one discrepancy, it's done
Some...wonky mechanics...fucking got me on HEIGHT?!

He said there are going to be an over arching story, and different smaller stories during the month that can take from a day up to a week.
You can see some of them already with the wife and his husband, the funny guy with the false papers (this one is amazing) and the prostitute club.
I suppose they will fully work in the final release.

In game design nuts & bolts news, he recently made a pretty interesting post about upscaling and how it translates to his art style on the tigsource forums:


(click on the pictures to actually see the differences, obviously)

I like the cleaned up nearest neighbour in the last shot, though there's something more official and proper looking about the updated fonts in the Vectorised shot, pixely art style or not.

Obviously a matter of personal preference, but interesting to look at, nonetheless.

Even if I like the original pixel ones the best (the game is even great in 1080p) the vectorized one with the real font letters is the easiest one to read fast for the correlation of names, Ive had some problems in the game becuase some letters look similar and in reality the guy has a different name in the passport than in the pemit papers.

 

[Messofanego]

Yeah I wish there was another consequence to not letting the pimp in.