16 ms·

Cramming 'Papers, Please' onto Phones

1297 points by nycpig 4y ago

egypturnash 4y ago
Man it is gonna be so nice when the average young adult has a device in their pocket that folds out to the size of a paperback, or even a magazine, and we can start making popular culture that fits that size again instead of everything having to make sense through the tiny window of a phone.
- blooalien 4y ago
  > From the article: "Now, here, in 2022, desktop computers no longer exist and all computing is done via handheld mobile telephone." They're kidding, right? Nobody in their right mind actually believes that, do they?
  - kencausey 4y ago
    It's hyperbolic truth, acknowledging that the future is now.
  - DizzyDoo 4y ago
    Of course, he just called it a "handheld mobile telephone", that's tongue-in-cheek.
  - fragmede 4y ago
    All is hyperbole, since the ergonomics on a laptop are terrible, and there will always be a segment for which that's a showstopper, but it's already true for certain segments of the population. Especially among the less privileged where there may not even be a desktop computer available or only at school/library, mobile phones are increasingly where work is done. Writing essays and emails, and filling out important forms, may not be the most ergonomic, but it beats not being able to. Look at devices with foldable screens and external keyboards like the Asus Zenbook 17. Without getting lost in arguing semantics of if an iPad (mini/pro/regular) sized tablet counts as a mobile telephone, it's clearly not a desktop, and it's easy enough to imagine that desktop computers will go the way of the mainframe.
    - lotu 4y ago
      I was stunned when I went to a writing circle and saw college students using their phones.
      - krallja 4y ago
        It would be reasonable if they had a Bluetooth keyboard.
        macintux 4y ago
        I remember when young adults were blazing fast at typing on flip phones. It’s perfectly reasonable to be productive without a keyboard.
        seba_dos1 4y ago
        Flip phones had keyboards though.
        macintux 4y ago
        My point is that people will adapt to typing on nearly anything.
    - matheusmoreira 4y ago
      > the ergonomics on a laptop are terrible Agreed. Honestly if I had a way to comfortably write software on my phone I don't think I'd ever use my laptop ever again. Phones are simply too comfortable. Unfortunately the vast majority of them are consumer devices: unlike real computers they don't come with the tools used to program them. I can't make a new app on my phone and run it.
  - a9h74j 4y ago
    I took that as either [kidding] overstatement (to bypass discussion of why) or short for desktop computers no longer exist [for my market purposes]. To your general question, I've heard a professor lament a student stating that all CAD applications should work on phones.
    - dagw 4y ago
      I've heard a professor lament a student stating that all CAD applications should work on phones. And why is that such a lamentable idea? Modern phones have the processing power these days. Walking around a factory, building sites or a muddy field with a phone in your hand is a lot easier than walking around with a laptop. Plus modern phones have LiDAR and multiple cameras opening up for all kinds of interesting options. Frankly any CAD platform which doesn’t embrace mobile will probably fall out of favour over the next few years.
      - a9h74j 4y ago
        You are probably right to the extent of multimodal for some tasks or for sensor input. But redlining a 200 page set of drawings to capture as built info is still different from assembling that set of drawings in the first place. I doubt it will be all or nothing. E.g., supporting field service will require generating particular views, but I don't see engineering review meetings skimping on monitor pixels, at a cost of N laptops per hour just to assemble a meeting.
        dagw 4y ago
        Indeed, I'm not suggesting that CAD tools go mobile only or even mobile first, just there is a lot of very practical uses for mobiles (and tablets) in the CAD (and BIM) space that shouldn't be ignored.
  - kergonath 4y ago
    In terms of number of hours used daily, there is no context. Mobiles are the largest video game market, and the most used computing platforms. So, not quite all computing, but an awful lot of it.
  - the_af 4y ago
    Yes, it's tongue in cheek.
- aliqot 4y ago
  I'm noticing a lot of the younger crowd don't seem as glued to the phone as their parents. Materialists will always be materialists, but as an adherent to Ordnung, I don't own/need a phone, so it sticks out and it's obvious to me that the normal garden variety youth these days are not as absorbed as the first generation to this little thing known to 'create fire' because it is now commonplace. A computer in your pocket has 0 novelty or wow-factor to this generation, as it should. Nobody fawns over a butane-lighter or debit card, they're commonplace despite being relatively new. This isn't just in my community, it's noticeable enough in my travels that it seems to be a trend. I assume it is because of more short-format digestible content, along with the shift of social being one-to-one and one-to-many, to being many-to-many, in the sense that you're not necessarily seeking out those you had a direct relationship with, you're seeking out elements and segments of a topical zeitgeist, whether that be tech videos, memes, cat compilations etc. I also have another hypothesis- when phones that provided a rich experience first debuted, it was the nerds and city folk who got it first. iPhone then brought this mobile-first-lifestyle to the stylemakers and artists and those whose inner monologue is narrated by Justin Long, folks who'd likely have bought anything apple anyway. From there, smartphones and rich experiences were disseminated into the lesser elements of the greater public who either are receptive to tastemaker's influences or have limited option to refute the convenience of popularity; popular hardware is cheap, ubiquitous and accessible, some might say in some regards modern smart phones are disposable. What I'm getting at is this, this stuff is no longer a mystery to this generation. We are now 2 or 3 generations removed from this type of pocket-computer being anything wow-inducing. I think of it sometimes like when I was a youngster, the class of people who traveled via air vs everyone else at ground level. Air travel had a mystique and prestige, this person must be doing something to be enjoying a cigarette and being served a glass of wine however many feet in the air, direct to destination. The same way I might not be in admiration of my neighbors boots for having a good welt, because a good welt is a given, I assume the youngster of today are no longer enamored by the novelty of a mobile phone or pocket-computer. As such, it is no longer a status symbol for most. So what the new iPhone came out and you got one, that's only a valid status symbol for maybe a few weeks, for over 1,000 USD invested in some models. Youth of today, I don't see them going for a pocket atlas or any such form factor, I see them going for augmented spectacles or lenses. Everything indicates that a new 'moores law' is taking effect around energy storage and thermodynamics - we are no longer optimizing per-core clock speed, we are optimizing core count and the amount of energy that can be stored to later be turned into CPU cycles rather than heat. As soon as the battery technology will allow it, you will see lenses, whether they be spectacles or contacts, that will take in and assimilate your surroundings, your focus, and the imperceptible changes to your heart rate, retinal dilation, and ocular pressure responses to commercial items. It's not far fetched, we already know of this research being done. Despite the cumbersome experience of VR, we are seeing a point where it is no longer 3D TV or bluray level tech, it's sub-standard as a whole but more and more people are buying it because it shows promise. I see in the future that our interface devices, whether they be communicators like phones, or additive interfaces like AR spectacles that can dole out retail info in response to a brief biomarker-spike like pupil dilation when glancing at a new pair of shoes. These devices will be funded by corporations much the same way tech learning materials, operating systems, and software is today. It makes most sense that before wider adoption, they'd first be available to those with the most capacity for realizing an ad-prompt via converting to a purchase, so think of like snapchat goggles release, but at your local best buy. pocket-held mobile phones are the least optimal form factor for every purpose or task it can accommodate other than "fits in pocket". Mark my words, as soon as it can be bonded to a wearable lens, it will be, and the corporations will subsidize it heavily. You think adtech is bad now, just wait.
- soylentgraham 4y ago
  Phones could be fine if 95% of the screen wasn't covered in popups, adverts, mailing list & cookie prompts.
  - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
    Firefox mobile + UBO brings the future to you today.
    - asdff 4y ago
      Only on android though
      - seba_dos1 4y ago
        Not only - uBlock Origin works great on GNU/Linux phones too.
      - haunter 4y ago
        And iOS with Firefox Focus
  - egypturnash 4y ago
    I make comics. I grew up reading stuff that used the space of a magazine spread in all kinds of clever ways, I fell in love with the way I can play with layout across a page. I made an entire graphic novel with multiple storylines running in parallel across every page. A phone can show one or two panels at a time, at best. There’s a lot of stuff you just can’t do. It’s a tiny, limited canvas, even before it gets shitted up with ads and pop ups.
    - Torifyme12 4y ago
      Scott McCloud of Zot fame was an early adopter of the web, I attended a talk from him where he was talking about how frustrated he was that the 3 panel format had persisted to the web, when there were so many ways to use space creatively. He later adapted that talk for his "understanding comics" Ted talk. Worth a watch if you love the medium
- Animats 4y ago
  Yeah. This is a big problem with the "metaverse". Peering into a high-resolution 3D world via a hand-sized screen is tunnel vision. We're still a long way from the "swim goggles" form factor in VR headgear, which is what Carmack says is the minimum for reasonable consumer adoption levels. Playing "Papers Please" on a phone requires a good memory. Do you remember what the recognized visa issuing cities for Kolechia are? You need to know that. If you have to swipe to the rulebook to look it up, your productivity will drop and you won't make enough money for the day to keep your family fed.
- mr_toad 4y ago
  > when the average young adult has a device in their pocket that folds out to the size of a paperback The average young adult likes to use their phone one handed…
macintux 4y ago
Had to skim for a bit to figure out what was going on, because I distinctly remember playing on my iPad many years ago. Turns out it was iPad only, this was the first time it was redesigned to fit on the phone screen. The author didn’t want to force users into landscape mode, which I completely understand: playing games in landscape feels alien on my iPhone. Interesting look at the process of making the UI work well.
tosh 4y ago
Fantastic write-up. Thanks for sharing this!
simonbarker87 4y ago
I’m always amazed at how many programming languages there are. I’d never heard of Haxe, I don’t think it would have crossed my mind to look for something like it but here it is powering a highly successful game with, from what I can tell, a vibrant eco system around the language as well. Perhaps I’m not curious enough to go exploring for these languages. I’ve used a few smaller ones in my years (usually because of an external forcing factor - like Squirrel running on ElecticImp devices) but I tend to stick to the big names we all know
- tokinonagare 4y ago
  > I’d never heard of Haxe Well it was born in France in a web game company (some of their games were pretty famous domestically) as an internal language, and the main selling point at first was the multiple compilation targets (PHP, JS) which included Flash. It wasn't something developed in English in the open at first like a lot of new languages are nowadays, so obviously it took some time to get some international exposure.
  - PoignardAzur 4y ago
    Wait, you mean Motion Twin?
    - govg 4y ago
      Yes, who are famous in large part for Dead Cells. One of the developers even went on to lead Shiro Games, which has done stuff like Dune and Northgard.
      - ptato 4y ago
        but also DinoRPG and My Brute. I played a ton of those when I was younger.
- dhosek 4y ago
  I came of age in an era in which it was often important which version of a language you were programming in. Not all C code could compile with all C compilers (which was part of the motivation behind the C preprocessor), likewise with Pascal, BASIC, FORTRAN, etc. IBM had two different Pascal compilers for VM/CMS named, confusingly, VS/Pascal and Pascal/VS which were almost but not quite identical in functionality and features. On timesharing systems, you might discover all manner of legacy languages lurking on the (dishwasher-sized) hard drives. I checked out a book on SNOBOL from the library to understand what was happening in some SPITBOL code that I found on UIC’s mainframe that was part of the source for a C compiler. Most personal computers came with some version of a Microsoft BASIC in ROM, but there were differences from one platform to the next so you couldn’t necessarily just type in a program written in AppleSoft BASIC and run it in QBASIC under DOS. The fact that in 2022 JVM languages run identically anywhere and that Rust is (almost) platform-agnostic is, to be honest, kind of miraculous.
rossvor 4y ago
If you see a devlog post from Lucas Pope you know it's going to be a goldmine. No matter the topic. Dude has a real knack in writing these, clearly describing the problem and the thought process on possible solution. And making it all very interesting so you yourself start thinking how would you address it or what other cool thing could be built instead. Here's some of his other huge devlogs on TIGSOURCE: 1. Papers, Please. https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=29750.0 https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=29750.0 2. Return of the Obra Dinn. https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=40832.0 https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=40832.0
- scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
  Yes - I remember even coming across those before Papers became a bigger thing. So thorough
- aerovistae 4y ago
  Yes, the guy is honestly some type of genius. To be this talented of a programmer, and across multiple platforms, languages, and toolsets just dazzles me. It's hard enough to just be competent with one platform. I can't imagine. And on top of that he composes the music and makes the art and literally everything else. I honestly just don't understand how a person can get that good at that many things.
  - hbn 4y ago
    He's also a fantastic game designer. I played through Return of the Obra Dinn last year and it was one of the coolest game experiences I've had. It really doesn't hold your hand, it's just using logic and clues to piece together a mystery and put names to faces. Keep a notepad handy and it's a real fun time!
    - bspammer 4y ago
      This is what's truly mindblowing about Lucas Pope to me. Many people are technically talented, but good game designers are really, really hard to come by. Having both in one person just feels unfair. Obra Dinn, especially, is one of my favourite games of all time, it's such a unique experience.
chairhairair 4y ago
The productivity of solo indie game devs is just really impressive. While I’m aware of the “go fast alone, go far together” quote, I’m depressed by how inefficient app/ui development is at big tech companies compared to game studios, especially short staffed indies. Really makes me wonder about the “engineering excellence” that tech leads and “architects” pride themselves in when games are developed much more quickly and are - to my eye - much more stable and performant.
- chairhairair 4y ago
  Expanding on this in a reply to my own comment. Grinding Gear Games, as an example, is a NZ based game studio that releases a new expansion to their famous RPG - Path of Exile - every three months. The game is not a simple program by any stretch - which might be a fair criticism for Papers Please by comparison since it is purely client-side and all possible states of the game can be fairly easily enumerated. Path of Exile is a persistent cross-platform 3D online multiplayer game that has daunting requirements for consistency, latency, and graphical performance. Despite that, each three month release cycle introduces more new UI elements and features than I think the entirety of Google apps release in the same timeframe. And that’s not because Google isn’t trying to build new things - they are and I’ve written UI for several of those projects. Does anyone else feel a real sense of deflation when it comes to app/web development velocity compared to games?
  - bestinterest 4y ago
    I have the exact same feelings. Is immediate mode GUI's just that much better? Instead of a complex React/Redux style setup, how much easier would state management be if we had a render loop like game dev? Does that even make sense? I am very envious at the pure programming skills of so many game developers. UI's in indie games are just a side thing in the deep complexity of a game and they end up looking incredible compared to the level of effort required for year long web app projects.
    - plorkyeran 4y ago
      They've drifted away from calling it that, but the whole idea behind React was to bring immediate-mode rendering to the web. It has an event loop where each "frame" you render the current state from scratch, rather than explicitly updating the state of retained controls.
keyle 4y ago
The blog post is really top tier. Consider how much time some engineers spend considering details when they're just being contracted to do a job (I've work with lots) and how this indie game project is being explained, nitpicked, loved and cherished. The blog post alone makes you want to purchase whatever this person has been working on based on how much passion is oozing off the explanation of how it's made. Side note... A lot of YouTubers also work like this: pushing the craftsmanship to beyond expectation to almost cause an emotional reaction. In this case though, it's genuine engineering with high standards.
- lemming 4y ago
  IMO you should absolutely buy what he produces, partly as you say to support a genuine craftsman, but also because (unsurprisingly) the games he produces are really good. I also think of my purchases as a donation to keep his blog posts coming.
- kergonath 4y ago
  > The blog post alone makes you want to purchase whatever this person has been working on based on how much passion is oozing off the explanation of how it's made. Papers Please is nice, but Return of the Obra Dinn is a masterpiece. Honestly. A very cool concept with some impressive attention to detail. Pixel-perfect 1-bit dithered graphics, amazing soundtrack, and a nice story. I don’t have a link here but there was a forum thread somewhere where he discussed his progress as he was making the game. It’s a bit long but we’ll worth a read as well.
  - the_af 4y ago
    I consider both games to be masterpieces, keeping my attention even when I was bored with gaming in general. I also played Helsing's Fire on the iPad, which while not a masterpiece, is still pretty fun!
    - kergonath 4y ago
      I like the idea of Papers, Please more than actually playing it, I think. But I never played Helsing’s Fire, thanks for the suggestion!
unstatusthequo 4y ago
For those annoyed with the Apple Store not finding it under “papers please” and forcing you to use the comma instead of being sensical, here is the link: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/papers-please/id935216956 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/papers-please/id935216956 I scrolled several screens finding only knock offs without the comma. The App Store and Apple Music search experience is not great. Anyway, happily bought this game again in this new format! Well done, sir!
bbx 4y ago
I knew about this game at launch but only bought it last year to play on a Windows tablet. Always thought I’d love the game… And I did. My only regret was that I couldn’t play it more often, on the go, on my phone. I understood why, considering the intricate gameplay and the precise interface required, it wasn’t possible. And then suddenly… this. Instant buy.
krallja 4y ago
This is exactly how I would have hoped to find out “Papers, Please!” is out for mobile phones.
game-of-throws 4y ago
> I created Papers, Please in 2013 specifically for desktop computers with mouse control. This is interesting to read. When I first played it I was dying for touch controls. It seemed like such a natural fit for the gameplay of sliding papers around.
- lupire 4y ago
  It's largely a speed game, so you need mouse.
at_ 4y ago
Find his work endlessly inspiring not just in terms of how good it is, but also in the way it has proved there's an audience hungry for the experimental and conceptually quite challenging games he makes, too -- carved a path and set the bar for artistically inclined game-devs (and game-dev inclined artists)
yojo 4y ago
I played through Papers, Please back when it came out on desktop, and at the time I remember wondering: "why is this fun?" I enjoyed it tremendously, but on the surface that didn't make any sense. Who wants to play an immigration officer sim? Getting this peek behind the curtain helped me understand all the little decisions that add up to an unexpectedly fun experience. The level of thought given to tiny UI interactions here is wonderful. Details like being able to swipe around to "play" with the dangling pull chain. Any other dev would just make it a static image and call it a day. But these little bits of magic working together transform one of the most boring possible topics into a real gem of a game. This post should be required reading for interaction designers.
- seba_dos1 4y ago
  > Any other dev would just make it a static image and call it a day. You think so? Games are often full of little things like that. That's a good thing to point out, but it certainly doesn't seem as unusual as you paint it. Letting the user be playful is generally what games are good at ;)
  - yojo 4y ago
    I agree that good games give you things to play with, but this is literally the toggle to slide out a UI element, and only exists because a phone screen was too small for the original design to fit. If it had been a little triangle that you tapped, no one would have said anything. Instead it’s got realistic chain physics and jingles around as you move the card. I’m trying to think of another instance of “sliding out a control” being given this level of attention, and I’m drawing a blank. It feels like an unusually high level of effort to put into a UI concession for a port that was going to sell well anyway. Granted, this game is mostly about sliding UI elements around, so maybe it is more integral to the experience than in other games.
    - seba_dos1 4y ago
      There is barely any external UI in this game (at least when you're actually playing), most of what you see is in universum. Had the game chosen a different art style, those could be 3D models that you would interact with in 3D space. You can easily imagine putting a VR headset on and having all these documents, stamps and pullchains around you, so it's only natural for them to behave in a realistic way - just like, say, SUPERHOT VR is started by pushing a floppy into the drive, when it could be just a simple button.
radiojasper 4y ago
This is one of the coolest things I've read in a while. I love the thought process behind each element of the game and it's all executed very well. As a fan of the desktop game, I can't wait to try this out on mobile.
ridiculous_fish 4y ago
Just wanted to say thank you for Papers, Please! I loved playing it on my iPad and it's awesome to have it available for my phone now too - a free update no less.
stijnsanders 4y ago
( https://dukope.com/devlogs/ https://dukope.com/devlogs/ doesn't appear to have a feed URL? )
diebeforei485 4y ago
I own the iPad version. Anyone know if I need to pay again for the iPhone version?
- snoopy_telex 4y ago
  https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/25/23277003/papers-please-mobile-port-app-ios-android-release-date-august-5 https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/25/23277003/papers-please-mo... > He added that the game would be available as an update to the 2014 iPad app
- routerl 4y ago
  You don't. Go buy it and the price will be gone.
lastdong 4y ago
Love this game, bought it for different platforms over the years. I’ll prob end up doing the same for mobile :) Papers Please, FTL and Don’t Starve (discovered them around the same time) are on my top list of games, it was a period of very fine releases.
- macintux 4y ago
  Thanks for reminding me I need to play Don’t Starve again. Dangerously addictive though.
jordanmorgan10 4y ago
There’s a certain energy that’s either unmatched, or it’s just new to me, specifically from indie game developers that invigorates me. His post is just kinda filled with a “love of the game” vibe. I don’t feel like other tech related industries have that same art house feel like game developers seem to have, or at least write about. You don’t really see it in the sass space, or in my world of iOS, etc. Just something I’ve noticed about the indie games world. Seems like an inspiring, genuine space.
- spaceman_2020 4y ago
  Imo, indie game devs don’t get nearly the amount of mainstream attention they get as artists. So many of them do everything on their own, from the art and music to, of course, the coding. That kind of cross-discipline talent is so hard to find.
- marvin 4y ago
  I think indie game devs of Pope's talent, motivation and ability are exceedingly rare. We're seeing only those who survive a filter that removes 99%. But the results are absolutely formidable.
  - jordanmorgan10 4y ago
    True, I’m looking at the top 1% I’m sure when I made that comment. I guess another observation is someone of his stature could come off a lot more…entitled? I guess? But man, his post is pure though.
alexb_ 4y ago
I actually didn't know it was on mobile, so I searched for "Papers Please" on the Google Play store. Only complete garbage came up, and I had to actually go to the website to find a link to the game (which only has 5k downloads!) I wonder if there's a solution to this.
- Hyperbolicum 4y ago
  The issue is the missing comma, I ran into the same problem. Searching for "Papers, please" will yield the expected result. Maybe that's something that can be configured?
  - danparsonson 4y ago
    And for me at least it was necessary to include the quotation marks too.
    - glandium 4y ago
      Same here. Without the comma AND the double quotes, I only see what's obviously a copycat.
- komadori 4y ago
  Oh, wow, thanks! I did likewise and assumed the mobile port hadn't actually been released yet. Google's search is clearly awful :-/.
  - fragmede 4y ago
    Hilariously the correct play store link is the second hit for https://www.google.com/search?q=papers+please+android https://www.google.com/search?q=papers+please+android
- djhworld 4y ago
  Thanks, I searched the play store for both "papers please" and "papers, please" which didn't yield any meaningful results. If I hadn't have read this comment I would have (lazily) assumed it was iOS only. Play store says there have been 4000 downloads so at least some people are getting to that page, but probably through direct links rather than search
Eric_WVGG 4y ago
Magnificent craftsmanship. Another of my favorite games on the iPad is Darkest Dungeon. While perfectly legible and playable on the touch screen, the ignored opportunities for touch improvement (entire inches of “letterboxed” screen space, buttons sized for mouse but too small for pinkies, drag-to-scroll lists) are so disappointing.
funstuff007 4y ago
> here, in 2022, desktop computers no longer exist and all computing is done via handheld mobile telephone. Time to update this dinosaur. What a witty fellow.
- Underphil 4y ago
  I took it as tongue-in-cheek but as a desktop loving dinosaur I couldn't help feel mildly personally attacked :)
daguava 4y ago
The attention to detail and player experience in this is second to none, this article is a treat, thank you for sharing. Working in the gaming industry myself, everything here spoke to what I want gaming to be.
yieldcrv 4y ago
I thought this has been on ipad forever
- MattRix 4y ago
  Yes it has. He talks about the iPad version in the post.
  - yieldcrv 4y ago
    I've gone through this post now, it is very well thought out!
dicytea 4y ago
Anyone else experiencing a weird visual illusion with the second code screenshot, or am I just going crazy? It looks almost as if the text is slightly tilted, but measuring it with a grid shows that they're perfectly aligned.
mastax 4y ago
Haxe is really unusual and interesting, and I don't think it gets talked about enough. > Haxe can build cross-platform applications targeting JavaScript, C++, C#, Java, JVM, Python, Lua, PHP, Flash, and allows access to each platform's native capabilities. Haxe has its own VMs (HashLink and NekoVM) but can also run in interpreted mode. Compiling from one language to another isnt particularly unusual, but compiling from one language to so many is very unusual. On first impression it sounds unserious—real compilers output machine code—it's tempting to denigrate it by calling it a transpiler. But there are a lot of advantages that come with this approach. You always have access to the full capabilities of your target platforms. From a single language you can write code that is massively portable while also targeting specific platforms with just an if statement. The "real" compiler authors spend months working on linkage, calling conventions, runtimes, symbol mangling, allocators, and debuginfo trying to get their native code to link properly to the objective-c frameworks on iOS—and it never feels quite right. If you instead compile to objective-c, a lot of things get easier. It's a very pragmatic approach.
- boondaburrah 4y ago
  There's also that Haxe is older than a lot of the stuff we take for granted today. It's roots are in ActionScript, and it started as basically a successor to AS2 before Adobe came out with ActionScript 3. It did "same codebase on server and client" by compiling to flash bytecode and PHP before node existed. It's ECMAScript/AS roots + static types + type inference make it feel like alternate-timeline TypeScript as it also compiles to JS. So it's completely comfortable for me. AND I can hit C++ if the platform demands it!
  - chii 4y ago
    one aspect that's a bit underrated in haxe isn't just the cross-compilation, but the macro system - it's way more powerful a macro system than the regular macros found in C/C++. It's closer to a LISP macro, but only at compile time (rather than also runtime macros). For example, you can define a json file, and have a macro that produce a class that matches that json file's fields. It would type-check (and you get auto-complete, for example, if you called that class's fields in another function). Of course, there's nothing special about a json file...why not use a live schema fetched from the internet! https://code.haxe.org/category/macros/completion-from-url.html https://code.haxe.org/category/macros/completion-from-url.ht...
Ava433 4y ago
psyc 4y ago
I was ready to charge in here and pitch a fit because I thought the title was referring to storage / memory.
- zbird 4y ago
  Yeah, though on the other hand the title does not seem particularly taxing. "Shove it down to Unity" and then the big bulk of the work is cramming the game into a small screen. The 'Auto Player Testing' is smart and a token of good design, as he must have completely decoupled IO from the main game logic. That seemed the most interesting to me.
silisili 4y ago
I don't know a lot about Haxe, or C#, but that has to be the cleanest transpiler results I've seen to date. Most transpilers I've toyed with(admittedly, not many, and years ago) gave every variable and function awful autogenerated names.
xmprt 4y ago
The blog post was a blast to read and even better, it served as a great trailer for the game. Bought it immediately after reading. I wish more game devs wrote blog posts like this.
sintezcs 4y ago
Can’t find it in the AppStore :(( looks like some regional restrictions are set
- metahost 4y ago
  https://apps.apple.com/in/app/papers-please/id935216956 https://apps.apple.com/in/app/papers-please/id935216956
  - mysterydip 4y ago
    I thought this just came out for mobile? There's reviews that say 7 years ago.
    - Hackbraten 4y ago
      Used to be iPad-only, now it supports iPhone, too. See also the v1.4.0 entry of the version history.
MOARDONGZPLZ 4y ago
This is such a good blog post. I also didn’t know this author was behind Obra Dinn, but that one is also great. I used to play Papers Please years ago and will certainly purchase it when it does come out for iPhone.
- emllnd 4y ago
  It’s available on the iPhone App Store for me!
  - MOARDONGZPLZ 4y ago
    Wow thanks! I didn’t see it when I checked, but needed to scroll down a bit. One of the idiosyncrasies of the App Store not prioritizing exact text matches.
Linda703 4y ago
[dead]
wowokay 4y ago
Desktops still exist! In fact streamers and PC gamers use them! I don’t really play games on my phone I think the people that do are usually playing games because it’s convenient or prioritized in cost over desktops, since everyone believes they and there kids need phones.
neycoda 4y ago
Oh, I forgot that desktop computers don't exist. I'll have to do my work on my phone now.
rolph 4y ago
"I created Papers, Please in 2013 specifically for desktop computers with mouse control. Now, here, in 2022, desktop computers no longer exist and all computing is done via handheld mobile telephone." No . Desktop and mobile are 2 different ecosystems. The users have desktops; those who are used, have mobile; those who are kings, have both.
- mr_toad 4y ago
  Satire: The use of humour, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.
tinaa 4y ago

1297 points by nycpig 4y ago

Man it is gonna be so nice when the average young adult has a device in their pocket that folds out to the size of a paperback, or even a magazine, and we can start making popular culture that fits that size again instead of everything having to make sense through the tiny window of a phone.

blooalien 4y ago
> From the article: "Now, here, in 2022, desktop computers no longer exist and all computing is done via handheld mobile telephone." They're kidding, right? Nobody in their right mind actually believes that, do they?
- kencausey 4y ago
  It's hyperbolic truth, acknowledging that the future is now.
- DizzyDoo 4y ago
  Of course, he just called it a "handheld mobile telephone", that's tongue-in-cheek.
- fragmede 4y ago
  All is hyperbole, since the ergonomics on a laptop are terrible, and there will always be a segment for which that's a showstopper, but it's already true for certain segments of the population. Especially among the less privileged where there may not even be a desktop computer available or only at school/library, mobile phones are increasingly where work is done. Writing essays and emails, and filling out important forms, may not be the most ergonomic, but it beats not being able to. Look at devices with foldable screens and external keyboards like the Asus Zenbook 17. Without getting lost in arguing semantics of if an iPad (mini/pro/regular) sized tablet counts as a mobile telephone, it's clearly not a desktop, and it's easy enough to imagine that desktop computers will go the way of the mainframe.
  - lotu 4y ago
    I was stunned when I went to a writing circle and saw college students using their phones.
    - krallja 4y ago
      It would be reasonable if they had a Bluetooth keyboard.
      - macintux 4y ago
        I remember when young adults were blazing fast at typing on flip phones. It’s perfectly reasonable to be productive without a keyboard.
        seba_dos1 4y ago
        Flip phones had keyboards though.
        macintux 4y ago
        My point is that people will adapt to typing on nearly anything.
  - matheusmoreira 4y ago
    > the ergonomics on a laptop are terrible Agreed. Honestly if I had a way to comfortably write software on my phone I don't think I'd ever use my laptop ever again. Phones are simply too comfortable. Unfortunately the vast majority of them are consumer devices: unlike real computers they don't come with the tools used to program them. I can't make a new app on my phone and run it.
- a9h74j 4y ago
  I took that as either [kidding] overstatement (to bypass discussion of why) or short for desktop computers no longer exist [for my market purposes]. To your general question, I've heard a professor lament a student stating that all CAD applications should work on phones.
  - dagw 4y ago
    I've heard a professor lament a student stating that all CAD applications should work on phones. And why is that such a lamentable idea? Modern phones have the processing power these days. Walking around a factory, building sites or a muddy field with a phone in your hand is a lot easier than walking around with a laptop. Plus modern phones have LiDAR and multiple cameras opening up for all kinds of interesting options. Frankly any CAD platform which doesn’t embrace mobile will probably fall out of favour over the next few years.
    - a9h74j 4y ago
      You are probably right to the extent of multimodal for some tasks or for sensor input. But redlining a 200 page set of drawings to capture as built info is still different from assembling that set of drawings in the first place. I doubt it will be all or nothing. E.g., supporting field service will require generating particular views, but I don't see engineering review meetings skimping on monitor pixels, at a cost of N laptops per hour just to assemble a meeting.
      - dagw 4y ago
        Indeed, I'm not suggesting that CAD tools go mobile only or even mobile first, just there is a lot of very practical uses for mobiles (and tablets) in the CAD (and BIM) space that shouldn't be ignored.
- kergonath 4y ago
  In terms of number of hours used daily, there is no context. Mobiles are the largest video game market, and the most used computing platforms. So, not quite all computing, but an awful lot of it.
- the_af 4y ago
  Yes, it's tongue in cheek.
aliqot 4y ago
I'm noticing a lot of the younger crowd don't seem as glued to the phone as their parents. Materialists will always be materialists, but as an adherent to Ordnung, I don't own/need a phone, so it sticks out and it's obvious to me that the normal garden variety youth these days are not as absorbed as the first generation to this little thing known to 'create fire' because it is now commonplace. A computer in your pocket has 0 novelty or wow-factor to this generation, as it should. Nobody fawns over a butane-lighter or debit card, they're commonplace despite being relatively new. This isn't just in my community, it's noticeable enough in my travels that it seems to be a trend. I assume it is because of more short-format digestible content, along with the shift of social being one-to-one and one-to-many, to being many-to-many, in the sense that you're not necessarily seeking out those you had a direct relationship with, you're seeking out elements and segments of a topical zeitgeist, whether that be tech videos, memes, cat compilations etc. I also have another hypothesis- when phones that provided a rich experience first debuted, it was the nerds and city folk who got it first. iPhone then brought this mobile-first-lifestyle to the stylemakers and artists and those whose inner monologue is narrated by Justin Long, folks who'd likely have bought anything apple anyway. From there, smartphones and rich experiences were disseminated into the lesser elements of the greater public who either are receptive to tastemaker's influences or have limited option to refute the convenience of popularity; popular hardware is cheap, ubiquitous and accessible, some might say in some regards modern smart phones are disposable. What I'm getting at is this, this stuff is no longer a mystery to this generation. We are now 2 or 3 generations removed from this type of pocket-computer being anything wow-inducing. I think of it sometimes like when I was a youngster, the class of people who traveled via air vs everyone else at ground level. Air travel had a mystique and prestige, this person must be doing something to be enjoying a cigarette and being served a glass of wine however many feet in the air, direct to destination. The same way I might not be in admiration of my neighbors boots for having a good welt, because a good welt is a given, I assume the youngster of today are no longer enamored by the novelty of a mobile phone or pocket-computer. As such, it is no longer a status symbol for most. So what the new iPhone came out and you got one, that's only a valid status symbol for maybe a few weeks, for over 1,000 USD invested in some models. Youth of today, I don't see them going for a pocket atlas or any such form factor, I see them going for augmented spectacles or lenses. Everything indicates that a new 'moores law' is taking effect around energy storage and thermodynamics - we are no longer optimizing per-core clock speed, we are optimizing core count and the amount of energy that can be stored to later be turned into CPU cycles rather than heat. As soon as the battery technology will allow it, you will see lenses, whether they be spectacles or contacts, that will take in and assimilate your surroundings, your focus, and the imperceptible changes to your heart rate, retinal dilation, and ocular pressure responses to commercial items. It's not far fetched, we already know of this research being done. Despite the cumbersome experience of VR, we are seeing a point where it is no longer 3D TV or bluray level tech, it's sub-standard as a whole but more and more people are buying it because it shows promise. I see in the future that our interface devices, whether they be communicators like phones, or additive interfaces like AR spectacles that can dole out retail info in response to a brief biomarker-spike like pupil dilation when glancing at a new pair of shoes. These devices will be funded by corporations much the same way tech learning materials, operating systems, and software is today. It makes most sense that before wider adoption, they'd first be available to those with the most capacity for realizing an ad-prompt via converting to a purchase, so think of like snapchat goggles release, but at your local best buy. pocket-held mobile phones are the least optimal form factor for every purpose or task it can accommodate other than "fits in pocket". Mark my words, as soon as it can be bonded to a wearable lens, it will be, and the corporations will subsidize it heavily. You think adtech is bad now, just wait.
soylentgraham 4y ago
Phones could be fine if 95% of the screen wasn't covered in popups, adverts, mailing list & cookie prompts.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  Firefox mobile + UBO brings the future to you today.
  - asdff 4y ago
    Only on android though
    - seba_dos1 4y ago
      Not only - uBlock Origin works great on GNU/Linux phones too.
    - haunter 4y ago
      And iOS with Firefox Focus
- egypturnash 4y ago
  I make comics. I grew up reading stuff that used the space of a magazine spread in all kinds of clever ways, I fell in love with the way I can play with layout across a page. I made an entire graphic novel with multiple storylines running in parallel across every page. A phone can show one or two panels at a time, at best. There’s a lot of stuff you just can’t do. It’s a tiny, limited canvas, even before it gets shitted up with ads and pop ups.
  - Torifyme12 4y ago
    Scott McCloud of Zot fame was an early adopter of the web, I attended a talk from him where he was talking about how frustrated he was that the 3 panel format had persisted to the web, when there were so many ways to use space creatively. He later adapted that talk for his "understanding comics" Ted talk. Worth a watch if you love the medium
Animats 4y ago
Yeah. This is a big problem with the "metaverse". Peering into a high-resolution 3D world via a hand-sized screen is tunnel vision. We're still a long way from the "swim goggles" form factor in VR headgear, which is what Carmack says is the minimum for reasonable consumer adoption levels. Playing "Papers Please" on a phone requires a good memory. Do you remember what the recognized visa issuing cities for Kolechia are? You need to know that. If you have to swipe to the rulebook to look it up, your productivity will drop and you won't make enough money for the day to keep your family fed.
mr_toad 4y ago
> when the average young adult has a device in their pocket that folds out to the size of a paperback The average young adult likes to use their phone one handed…

macintux 4y ago

Had to skim for a bit to figure out what was going on, because I distinctly remember playing on my iPad many years ago. Turns out it was iPad only, this was the first time it was redesigned to fit on the phone screen. The author didn’t want to force users into landscape mode, which I completely understand: playing games in landscape feels alien on my iPhone. Interesting look at the process of making the UI work well.

tosh 4y ago

Fantastic write-up. Thanks for sharing this!

simonbarker87 4y ago

I’m always amazed at how many programming languages there are. I’d never heard of Haxe, I don’t think it would have crossed my mind to look for something like it but here it is powering a highly successful game with, from what I can tell, a vibrant eco system around the language as well. Perhaps I’m not curious enough to go exploring for these languages. I’ve used a few smaller ones in my years (usually because of an external forcing factor - like Squirrel running on ElecticImp devices) but I tend to stick to the big names we all know

tokinonagare 4y ago
> I’d never heard of Haxe Well it was born in France in a web game company (some of their games were pretty famous domestically) as an internal language, and the main selling point at first was the multiple compilation targets (PHP, JS) which included Flash. It wasn't something developed in English in the open at first like a lot of new languages are nowadays, so obviously it took some time to get some international exposure.
- PoignardAzur 4y ago
  Wait, you mean Motion Twin?
  - govg 4y ago
    Yes, who are famous in large part for Dead Cells. One of the developers even went on to lead Shiro Games, which has done stuff like Dune and Northgard.
    - ptato 4y ago
      but also DinoRPG and My Brute. I played a ton of those when I was younger.
dhosek 4y ago
I came of age in an era in which it was often important which version of a language you were programming in. Not all C code could compile with all C compilers (which was part of the motivation behind the C preprocessor), likewise with Pascal, BASIC, FORTRAN, etc. IBM had two different Pascal compilers for VM/CMS named, confusingly, VS/Pascal and Pascal/VS which were almost but not quite identical in functionality and features. On timesharing systems, you might discover all manner of legacy languages lurking on the (dishwasher-sized) hard drives. I checked out a book on SNOBOL from the library to understand what was happening in some SPITBOL code that I found on UIC’s mainframe that was part of the source for a C compiler. Most personal computers came with some version of a Microsoft BASIC in ROM, but there were differences from one platform to the next so you couldn’t necessarily just type in a program written in AppleSoft BASIC and run it in QBASIC under DOS. The fact that in 2022 JVM languages run identically anywhere and that Rust is (almost) platform-agnostic is, to be honest, kind of miraculous.

rossvor 4y ago

If you see a devlog post from Lucas Pope you know it's going to be a goldmine. No matter the topic. Dude has a real knack in writing these, clearly describing the problem and the thought process on possible solution. And making it all very interesting so you yourself start thinking how would you address it or what other cool thing could be built instead. Here's some of his other huge devlogs on TIGSOURCE: 1. Papers, Please. https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=29750.0 https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=29750.0 2. Return of the Obra Dinn. https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=40832.0 https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=40832.0

scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
Yes - I remember even coming across those before Papers became a bigger thing. So thorough
aerovistae 4y ago
Yes, the guy is honestly some type of genius. To be this talented of a programmer, and across multiple platforms, languages, and toolsets just dazzles me. It's hard enough to just be competent with one platform. I can't imagine. And on top of that he composes the music and makes the art and literally everything else. I honestly just don't understand how a person can get that good at that many things.
- hbn 4y ago
  He's also a fantastic game designer. I played through Return of the Obra Dinn last year and it was one of the coolest game experiences I've had. It really doesn't hold your hand, it's just using logic and clues to piece together a mystery and put names to faces. Keep a notepad handy and it's a real fun time!
  - bspammer 4y ago
    This is what's truly mindblowing about Lucas Pope to me. Many people are technically talented, but good game designers are really, really hard to come by. Having both in one person just feels unfair. Obra Dinn, especially, is one of my favourite games of all time, it's such a unique experience.

chairhairair 4y ago

The productivity of solo indie game devs is just really impressive. While I’m aware of the “go fast alone, go far together” quote, I’m depressed by how inefficient app/ui development is at big tech companies compared to game studios, especially short staffed indies. Really makes me wonder about the “engineering excellence” that tech leads and “architects” pride themselves in when games are developed much more quickly and are - to my eye - much more stable and performant.

chairhairair 4y ago
Expanding on this in a reply to my own comment. Grinding Gear Games, as an example, is a NZ based game studio that releases a new expansion to their famous RPG - Path of Exile - every three months. The game is not a simple program by any stretch - which might be a fair criticism for Papers Please by comparison since it is purely client-side and all possible states of the game can be fairly easily enumerated. Path of Exile is a persistent cross-platform 3D online multiplayer game that has daunting requirements for consistency, latency, and graphical performance. Despite that, each three month release cycle introduces more new UI elements and features than I think the entirety of Google apps release in the same timeframe. And that’s not because Google isn’t trying to build new things - they are and I’ve written UI for several of those projects. Does anyone else feel a real sense of deflation when it comes to app/web development velocity compared to games?
- bestinterest 4y ago
  I have the exact same feelings. Is immediate mode GUI's just that much better? Instead of a complex React/Redux style setup, how much easier would state management be if we had a render loop like game dev? Does that even make sense? I am very envious at the pure programming skills of so many game developers. UI's in indie games are just a side thing in the deep complexity of a game and they end up looking incredible compared to the level of effort required for year long web app projects.
  - plorkyeran 4y ago
    They've drifted away from calling it that, but the whole idea behind React was to bring immediate-mode rendering to the web. It has an event loop where each "frame" you render the current state from scratch, rather than explicitly updating the state of retained controls.

keyle 4y ago

The blog post is really top tier. Consider how much time some engineers spend considering details when they're just being contracted to do a job (I've work with lots) and how this indie game project is being explained, nitpicked, loved and cherished. The blog post alone makes you want to purchase whatever this person has been working on based on how much passion is oozing off the explanation of how it's made. Side note... A lot of YouTubers also work like this: pushing the craftsmanship to beyond expectation to almost cause an emotional reaction. In this case though, it's genuine engineering with high standards.

lemming 4y ago
IMO you should absolutely buy what he produces, partly as you say to support a genuine craftsman, but also because (unsurprisingly) the games he produces are really good. I also think of my purchases as a donation to keep his blog posts coming.
kergonath 4y ago
> The blog post alone makes you want to purchase whatever this person has been working on based on how much passion is oozing off the explanation of how it's made. Papers Please is nice, but Return of the Obra Dinn is a masterpiece. Honestly. A very cool concept with some impressive attention to detail. Pixel-perfect 1-bit dithered graphics, amazing soundtrack, and a nice story. I don’t have a link here but there was a forum thread somewhere where he discussed his progress as he was making the game. It’s a bit long but we’ll worth a read as well.
- the_af 4y ago
  I consider both games to be masterpieces, keeping my attention even when I was bored with gaming in general. I also played Helsing's Fire on the iPad, which while not a masterpiece, is still pretty fun!
  - kergonath 4y ago
    I like the idea of Papers, Please more than actually playing it, I think. But I never played Helsing’s Fire, thanks for the suggestion!

unstatusthequo 4y ago

For those annoyed with the Apple Store not finding it under “papers please” and forcing you to use the comma instead of being sensical, here is the link: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/papers-please/id935216956 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/papers-please/id935216956 I scrolled several screens finding only knock offs without the comma. The App Store and Apple Music search experience is not great. Anyway, happily bought this game again in this new format! Well done, sir!

bbx 4y ago

I knew about this game at launch but only bought it last year to play on a Windows tablet. Always thought I’d love the game… And I did. My only regret was that I couldn’t play it more often, on the go, on my phone. I understood why, considering the intricate gameplay and the precise interface required, it wasn’t possible. And then suddenly… this. Instant buy.

krallja 4y ago

This is exactly how I would have hoped to find out “Papers, Please!” is out for mobile phones.

game-of-throws 4y ago

> I created Papers, Please in 2013 specifically for desktop computers with mouse control. This is interesting to read. When I first played it I was dying for touch controls. It seemed like such a natural fit for the gameplay of sliding papers around.

lupire 4y ago
It's largely a speed game, so you need mouse.

at_ 4y ago

Find his work endlessly inspiring not just in terms of how good it is, but also in the way it has proved there's an audience hungry for the experimental and conceptually quite challenging games he makes, too -- carved a path and set the bar for artistically inclined game-devs (and game-dev inclined artists)

yojo 4y ago

I played through Papers, Please back when it came out on desktop, and at the time I remember wondering: "why is this fun?" I enjoyed it tremendously, but on the surface that didn't make any sense. Who wants to play an immigration officer sim? Getting this peek behind the curtain helped me understand all the little decisions that add up to an unexpectedly fun experience. The level of thought given to tiny UI interactions here is wonderful. Details like being able to swipe around to "play" with the dangling pull chain. Any other dev would just make it a static image and call it a day. But these little bits of magic working together transform one of the most boring possible topics into a real gem of a game. This post should be required reading for interaction designers.

seba_dos1 4y ago
> Any other dev would just make it a static image and call it a day. You think so? Games are often full of little things like that. That's a good thing to point out, but it certainly doesn't seem as unusual as you paint it. Letting the user be playful is generally what games are good at ;)
- yojo 4y ago
  I agree that good games give you things to play with, but this is literally the toggle to slide out a UI element, and only exists because a phone screen was too small for the original design to fit. If it had been a little triangle that you tapped, no one would have said anything. Instead it’s got realistic chain physics and jingles around as you move the card. I’m trying to think of another instance of “sliding out a control” being given this level of attention, and I’m drawing a blank. It feels like an unusually high level of effort to put into a UI concession for a port that was going to sell well anyway. Granted, this game is mostly about sliding UI elements around, so maybe it is more integral to the experience than in other games.
  - seba_dos1 4y ago
    There is barely any external UI in this game (at least when you're actually playing), most of what you see is in universum. Had the game chosen a different art style, those could be 3D models that you would interact with in 3D space. You can easily imagine putting a VR headset on and having all these documents, stamps and pullchains around you, so it's only natural for them to behave in a realistic way - just like, say, SUPERHOT VR is started by pushing a floppy into the drive, when it could be just a simple button.

radiojasper 4y ago

This is one of the coolest things I've read in a while. I love the thought process behind each element of the game and it's all executed very well. As a fan of the desktop game, I can't wait to try this out on mobile.

ridiculous_fish 4y ago

Just wanted to say thank you for Papers, Please! I loved playing it on my iPad and it's awesome to have it available for my phone now too - a free update no less.

stijnsanders 4y ago

( https://dukope.com/devlogs/ https://dukope.com/devlogs/ doesn't appear to have a feed URL? )

diebeforei485 4y ago

I own the iPad version. Anyone know if I need to pay again for the iPhone version?

snoopy_telex 4y ago
https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/25/23277003/papers-please-mobile-port-app-ios-android-release-date-august-5 https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/25/23277003/papers-please-mo... > He added that the game would be available as an update to the 2014 iPad app
routerl 4y ago
You don't. Go buy it and the price will be gone.

lastdong 4y ago

Love this game, bought it for different platforms over the years. I’ll prob end up doing the same for mobile :) Papers Please, FTL and Don’t Starve (discovered them around the same time) are on my top list of games, it was a period of very fine releases.

macintux 4y ago
Thanks for reminding me I need to play Don’t Starve again. Dangerously addictive though.

jordanmorgan10 4y ago

There’s a certain energy that’s either unmatched, or it’s just new to me, specifically from indie game developers that invigorates me. His post is just kinda filled with a “love of the game” vibe. I don’t feel like other tech related industries have that same art house feel like game developers seem to have, or at least write about. You don’t really see it in the sass space, or in my world of iOS, etc. Just something I’ve noticed about the indie games world. Seems like an inspiring, genuine space.

spaceman_2020 4y ago
Imo, indie game devs don’t get nearly the amount of mainstream attention they get as artists. So many of them do everything on their own, from the art and music to, of course, the coding. That kind of cross-discipline talent is so hard to find.
marvin 4y ago
I think indie game devs of Pope's talent, motivation and ability are exceedingly rare. We're seeing only those who survive a filter that removes 99%. But the results are absolutely formidable.
- jordanmorgan10 4y ago
  True, I’m looking at the top 1% I’m sure when I made that comment. I guess another observation is someone of his stature could come off a lot more…entitled? I guess? But man, his post is pure though.

alexb_ 4y ago

I actually didn't know it was on mobile, so I searched for "Papers Please" on the Google Play store. Only complete garbage came up, and I had to actually go to the website to find a link to the game (which only has 5k downloads!) I wonder if there's a solution to this.

Hyperbolicum 4y ago
The issue is the missing comma, I ran into the same problem. Searching for "Papers, please" will yield the expected result. Maybe that's something that can be configured?
- danparsonson 4y ago
  And for me at least it was necessary to include the quotation marks too.
  - glandium 4y ago
    Same here. Without the comma AND the double quotes, I only see what's obviously a copycat.
komadori 4y ago
Oh, wow, thanks! I did likewise and assumed the mobile port hadn't actually been released yet. Google's search is clearly awful :-/.
- fragmede 4y ago
  Hilariously the correct play store link is the second hit for https://www.google.com/search?q=papers+please+android https://www.google.com/search?q=papers+please+android
djhworld 4y ago
Thanks, I searched the play store for both "papers please" and "papers, please" which didn't yield any meaningful results. If I hadn't have read this comment I would have (lazily) assumed it was iOS only. Play store says there have been 4000 downloads so at least some people are getting to that page, but probably through direct links rather than search

Eric_WVGG 4y ago

Magnificent craftsmanship. Another of my favorite games on the iPad is Darkest Dungeon. While perfectly legible and playable on the touch screen, the ignored opportunities for touch improvement (entire inches of “letterboxed” screen space, buttons sized for mouse but too small for pinkies, drag-to-scroll lists) are so disappointing.

funstuff007 4y ago

> here, in 2022, desktop computers no longer exist and all computing is done via handheld mobile telephone. Time to update this dinosaur. What a witty fellow.

Underphil 4y ago
I took it as tongue-in-cheek but as a desktop loving dinosaur I couldn't help feel mildly personally attacked :)

daguava 4y ago

The attention to detail and player experience in this is second to none, this article is a treat, thank you for sharing. Working in the gaming industry myself, everything here spoke to what I want gaming to be.

yieldcrv 4y ago

I thought this has been on ipad forever

MattRix 4y ago
Yes it has. He talks about the iPad version in the post.
- yieldcrv 4y ago
  I've gone through this post now, it is very well thought out!

dicytea 4y ago

Anyone else experiencing a weird visual illusion with the second code screenshot, or am I just going crazy? It looks almost as if the text is slightly tilted, but measuring it with a grid shows that they're perfectly aligned.

mastax 4y ago

Haxe is really unusual and interesting, and I don't think it gets talked about enough. > Haxe can build cross-platform applications targeting JavaScript, C++, C#, Java, JVM, Python, Lua, PHP, Flash, and allows access to each platform's native capabilities. Haxe has its own VMs (HashLink and NekoVM) but can also run in interpreted mode. Compiling from one language to another isnt particularly unusual, but compiling from one language to so many is very unusual. On first impression it sounds unserious—real compilers output machine code—it's tempting to denigrate it by calling it a transpiler. But there are a lot of advantages that come with this approach. You always have access to the full capabilities of your target platforms. From a single language you can write code that is massively portable while also targeting specific platforms with just an if statement. The "real" compiler authors spend months working on linkage, calling conventions, runtimes, symbol mangling, allocators, and debuginfo trying to get their native code to link properly to the objective-c frameworks on iOS—and it never feels quite right. If you instead compile to objective-c, a lot of things get easier. It's a very pragmatic approach.

boondaburrah 4y ago
There's also that Haxe is older than a lot of the stuff we take for granted today. It's roots are in ActionScript, and it started as basically a successor to AS2 before Adobe came out with ActionScript 3. It did "same codebase on server and client" by compiling to flash bytecode and PHP before node existed. It's ECMAScript/AS roots + static types + type inference make it feel like alternate-timeline TypeScript as it also compiles to JS. So it's completely comfortable for me. AND I can hit C++ if the platform demands it!
- chii 4y ago
  one aspect that's a bit underrated in haxe isn't just the cross-compilation, but the macro system - it's way more powerful a macro system than the regular macros found in C/C++. It's closer to a LISP macro, but only at compile time (rather than also runtime macros). For example, you can define a json file, and have a macro that produce a class that matches that json file's fields. It would type-check (and you get auto-complete, for example, if you called that class's fields in another function). Of course, there's nothing special about a json file...why not use a live schema fetched from the internet! https://code.haxe.org/category/macros/completion-from-url.html https://code.haxe.org/category/macros/completion-from-url.ht...

Ava433 4y ago

psyc 4y ago

I was ready to charge in here and pitch a fit because I thought the title was referring to storage / memory.

zbird 4y ago
Yeah, though on the other hand the title does not seem particularly taxing. "Shove it down to Unity" and then the big bulk of the work is cramming the game into a small screen. The 'Auto Player Testing' is smart and a token of good design, as he must have completely decoupled IO from the main game logic. That seemed the most interesting to me.

silisili 4y ago

I don't know a lot about Haxe, or C#, but that has to be the cleanest transpiler results I've seen to date. Most transpilers I've toyed with(admittedly, not many, and years ago) gave every variable and function awful autogenerated names.

xmprt 4y ago

The blog post was a blast to read and even better, it served as a great trailer for the game. Bought it immediately after reading. I wish more game devs wrote blog posts like this.

sintezcs 4y ago

Can’t find it in the AppStore :(( looks like some regional restrictions are set

metahost 4y ago
https://apps.apple.com/in/app/papers-please/id935216956 https://apps.apple.com/in/app/papers-please/id935216956
- mysterydip 4y ago
  I thought this just came out for mobile? There's reviews that say 7 years ago.
  - Hackbraten 4y ago
    Used to be iPad-only, now it supports iPhone, too. See also the v1.4.0 entry of the version history.

MOARDONGZPLZ 4y ago

This is such a good blog post. I also didn’t know this author was behind Obra Dinn, but that one is also great. I used to play Papers Please years ago and will certainly purchase it when it does come out for iPhone.

emllnd 4y ago
It’s available on the iPhone App Store for me!
- MOARDONGZPLZ 4y ago
  Wow thanks! I didn’t see it when I checked, but needed to scroll down a bit. One of the idiosyncrasies of the App Store not prioritizing exact text matches.

Linda703 4y ago

[dead]

wowokay 4y ago

Desktops still exist! In fact streamers and PC gamers use them! I don’t really play games on my phone I think the people that do are usually playing games because it’s convenient or prioritized in cost over desktops, since everyone believes they and there kids need phones.

neycoda 4y ago

Oh, I forgot that desktop computers don't exist. I'll have to do my work on my phone now.

rolph 4y ago

"I created Papers, Please in 2013 specifically for desktop computers with mouse control. Now, here, in 2022, desktop computers no longer exist and all computing is done via handheld mobile telephone." No . Desktop and mobile are 2 different ecosystems. The users have desktops; those who are used, have mobile; those who are kings, have both.

mr_toad 4y ago
Satire: The use of humour, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.

tinaa 4y ago