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Papers, Please - A Dystopian Document Thriller
- generj 13y agoI am enjoying the rise of video games as political commentary. It is important to note that "Papers please" was considered the worst case scenario for America. We now must produce driver's licenses for anything, even sporting events.
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- smacktoward 13y agoThe guy who wrote Papers, Please, Lucas Pope, has been doing some very creative games-as-political-statements stuff for some time now. He may be the most creative person working along those lines today. For another example, check out his earlier game, The Republia Times: http://dukope.com/play.php?g=trt http://dukope.com/play.php?g=trt (It's free and plays in the browser, no download required) The storyline there: you're the editor of a newspaper in a totalitarian state. Each day you see the unfiltered newswire, and you have to pick and choose which stories to feature and where to feature them on the paper's front page in order to maximize public support for the regime. It's a delicate dance; completely ignore events that make the regime look bad and you'll lose credibility and readers, but give them too much prominence and you'll drive public support down rather than up. Oh, and just to make sure your incentives are aligned properly, the regime is holding your family hostage. Fail to get people in line quickly enough and they will all be shot. Like Papers, Please, it's really a brilliant way to take some pretty simple game mechanics and use them to make a point that sticks in the player's memory.
- agrona 13y agoI appreciated that Republia shows up in Papers, Please. Didn't realize they were the same author. OT a bit: I remember reading the code and turning my nose up at some of the implementation specifics. But then I remembered that he's the one shipping and getting things done.
- twic 13y agoIf we're musing on who might be "the most creative person working along those lines today", Paolo Pedercini merits a shout.
- anigbrowl 13y agoWe now must produce driver's licenses for anything, even sporting events. Not actually true, but interesting point nonetheless.
- TheCraiggers 13y agoI haven't been to a sporting event in decades, but I can tell you that many concerts are starting to require ID in order to pick up tickets at the door. It doesn't matter if you have the receipt in hand, etc. If you don't have an ID that matches the name you're not getting the tickets you paid for months ago. Still, there is a distinction here: these are all privately owned businesses, and their rules. It's not the government.
- superuser2 13y agoIs there another effective defense against scalping that doesn't require ID?
- TheCraiggers 13y agoI'll do you one better: explain how requiring an ID prevents ticket scalping. To be honest, I couldn't care less about scalpers. The limit on ticket purchases already do a pretty good job preventing the "I'm going to buy ALL the tickets and resale them for 10% more" business plan. I see no reason a private individual shouldn't be able to resale their ticket for any amount they think they can get for it.
- superuser2 13y agoRequiring ID prevents scalping because you have to be the person who paid for the ticket in order to use it. IIRC my last TicketMaster ticket was transferable - there was a webpage where I could change the name. But presumably if one credit card/IP address transferred the majority of its tickets, you could say with some confidence that that person is a scalper and shut them down. The limit on purchases is reasonably effective, though.
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- jimmaswell 13y agoCan someone tell me what's so bad about this? I don't see what the big deal is about needing identification to function in / move into and out of a developed society. I really don't find it an inconvenience, more of a practicality.
- HarryHirsch 13y agoWhen I buy a ticket to go somewhere it's no one's business to know where I'm going. I don't have the imagination to see how the information can be abused, but the potential is there. If you don't need to know you have no business asking. That's all.
- jimmaswell 13y agoHow else do you verify you're who the ticket belongs to? Do you really think the person checking people's IDs memorizes them all to put into some database?
- HarryHirsch 13y agoWhen I buy a bus ticket at the counter with cash to go from here to there it's no one's business to know that I'm even on that bus. But even then they ask for a drivers license. I find it strange to see people on Hacker News post-Snowden defend the nothing-to-hide mindset.
- mikeash 13y agoThere should really be no need to know who I am before letting me board an airplane or purchase a beer. What's the practicality, exactly? It certainly doesn't help me.
- jimmaswell 13y agoSo you think people should be able to just waltz right onto an airplane without identification? Someone could easily just have their ticket purchased by someone else, use that ticket, and get on the airplane, which would be a security risk. It helps you by helping you not have someone who stole your ticket get on the plane in your place. And how do you expect age restrictions to be enforced without ID? Some people look a lot older or younger than they are.
- driverdan 13y agoWhat sporting events require you to show government issued ID?
- danso 13y agoI just got playing a round of this game. Easily the best political game ever made, even if it's not every gamer's cup of tea (although when you get down to it, is the entity-recognition-under-time-pressure and click-to-do-something mechanic any different in a document comparison game than in an FPS?) What makes it such a great political game is that the author came at it without much of a political message or agenda. He thought the document-matching mechanic was compelling enough for the game. As it stands, the game has a compelling political message for both border-guard and those waiting in line. Top notch work for a one-man side project.
- kevinmchugh 13y agoI'd recommend the ReDistricting Game, which is about gerrymandering: http://www.redistrictinggame.org/ http://www.redistrictinggame.org/. It's got a great core mechanic that makes you despise your own actions.
- nwhitehead 13y agoMy wife is addicted to this game already. Just hearing about the decisions she's making makes my skin crawl. She's a total graphical adventure game snob, so if you're one too it's worth checking out this game. The multiple endings are well done, which is often a tricky part to get right.
- vanderZwan 13y agoMy girlfriend is: - Lithuanian - Studying "International Migration and Ethnic Relations" I thought this would be a fun game to give as a joke - international student from a former Soviet country with that specialisation and all that - but she's actually really into it.
- foxpc 13y agoBeing Eastern European (Lithuanian with a Ukranian last name), I actually found a woman with my last name which was awesome! And actually, it kind of reflects on how living sort of was in that era. Shit.
- brianherbert 13y agoI'm going through the whole green card "papers" process now with my wife. Compared to almost every other country, the amount of time and effort it takes to even bring family over is incredibly long and arduous. All that makes me really look froward to this game. Just the fact that this exists is a great conversation starter to raise some awareness about immigration and ridiculous bureaucracy.
- sspiff 13y agoI don't know the green card process and what benchmarks you compare it with, but I've heard this about a lot of immigration procedures. Bringing a partner (with possibly a child) into Belgium for instance is also a long and error-prone procedure.
- knowtheory 13y ago
- jeltz 13y agoI hope it will get a Linux version since the idea sounds awesome. Recently I have decided to prefer Linux games over non-Linux to let my money encourage those who port their games.
- flyt 13y agoGood news from the game's FAQ: "I'm hopeful to get a Linux version out but there's no timeline for it."
- jeltz 13y agoIndeed, but since I do not know anything about the developer it is still a quite weak statement.
- jaegerpicker 13y agoI really REALLY wish people would cut indie devs some slack. It's really hard to be a profitable indie gamedev. Windows and Mac make way more money. I love linux but it's way down on the list of dev platforms for my development focus. Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android, X-Box one, PS4, PSVita are all better bets then Linux write now and I'm a long time linux user/developer. The money/value just isn't there for most game devs sadly. *I have a game in development that's going to indie published if I can successfully juggle work, a young family, and some bit of a social life. So in reality I have a snowball's chance in hell but I'm fighting the good fight :)
- jeltz 13y agoYou read way too much into my comment. I never said that there is anything wrong with issuing a weak statement. I prefer that to lies and promises which you cannot hold.
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- PBxdId7wFr 13y agoWow that's so cool what some guy with really bad graphics can make good game.
- pvdm 13y agohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4Ku17CqdZg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4Ku17CqdZg
- bentcorner 13y agoPlaythrough of some of the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brTJzrXQVLU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brTJzrXQVLU Gives you a great sense of what it's all about.
- duggieawesome 13y agoThis game is chilling.
- asperous 13y agoThose afraid of jumping into $10 might want to try the beta/demo on the game creator's website: http://dukope.com/ http://dukope.com/
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- jafaku 13y agoHow come it's not available for Linux? Oh well, back to chess.
- trimbo 13y agoI know, right? It doesn't seem like it would be a hard port. But I have a windows box around for Starcraft anyway...
- barbs 13y agoThat also works well under wine, in my experience anyway.
- matchu 13y agoThe beta worked very well for me on Wine, except the sound, which I had to mute. Haven't checked the full version yet.
- coldpie 13y agoSound should work in this game, and works fine for me. Please feel free to file a bug at winehq.org. If you CC me on the bug (aeikum@codeweavers.com), I'll give it faster attention :)
- matchu 13y agoTurns out it was my own personal (super-annoying) PulseAudio bug. The standard `pulseaudio --kill` fixed the sound, and the game now runs 100% for me on Wine. Woo!
- cbhl 13y agoThe Windows version of the full game works flawlessly (sound and all) for me under wine 1.6-0ubuntu1~ppa1 on Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS, although if you use Steam like I do then you'll need to launch Steam itself with the -no-dwrite option to get around a bug in wine 1.6's implementation of dwrite.
- aroman 13y agoI played this game in the free beta when I saw the Yogscast playing it... fantastic and unique game. Highly recommend giving it a go!
- millstone 13y agoI played it too. It's weirdly addictive, atmospheric and compelling, and I can't wait to play it again. Congrats on the 1.0 release, and thanks for the Mac version!
- cbhl 13y agoI discovered this game on Saturday after a recommendation from a friend, and I'm loving it. I ended up buying a copy and running it under wine, even though there's no Linux version. (The purist in me is raging, but the game is, IMO, good enough to set aside my values in the short term.) Previous Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5589041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5589041 (steamcommunity.com) (158 points, 111 days ago, 51 comments)
- Egregore 13y agoAs far as I know the game is made in Haxe with openfl, so let's hope that author will make a Linux version, as far as I know it's not difficult.
- nazgulnarsil 13y agoThe best part of this game is that it doesn't take the easy way out WRT being a morality tale. The mechanic of having your character also trying to fix his own shitty life while meeting the requirements of the job is what takes it to the next level.
- Deestan 13y ago[Slight spoiler alert] After spending 30 game days stamping hundreds of passports and ignoring a million pleas, I found myself and my family fleeing the country. We had spent all our savings buying fake Obristan passports and had illegally left our designated region to get to the Obristanian border. Then the game shows you the front of a checkpoint booth, with you handing crudely forged passports through the crack to the checkpoint official who is now in the same role as I've been playing for the entire game. The sudden realization that "That's who I've been playing. If that was me on a bad day, I would have them turned away or even detained if money was tight" was amazing. I immediately recalled every sob-story I had forgiven, denied, or worse. And that was all they needed to do to show you the morality of your actions. No hamfisted "you are being bad!", just silently hinting at you to think about it from another perspective.
- Tomis02 13y agoYou should buy this game on GOG.com, DRM-free.
- CrazedGeek 13y agoOr, better yet, buy it from the Humble Store, which gives you both a DRM-free version of the game and a Steam key. (And more money goes to the developer than Steam or GOG, too.)
- lucian1900 13y agoOr the Humble Store, which gives you both DRM-free packages and allows redeeming on Steam.
- homosaur 13y agoDo you know for a fact that the Steam version is DRM'ed?
- mesozoic 13y agoSteam IS DRM
- CrazedGeek 13y agoSteam is a DRM system, but there are plenty of games on Steam that don't have DRM: if you copy a game directory out of the SteamApps directory and remove any Steam support files (usually the Steam Community DLLs), quite a few games run perfectly.
- homosaur 13y agoI've heard this bullcrap forever and it's not true. Steam only restricts access, publishers choose to restrict software. Steam is available on the platforms the games are made available on, so once you download the game via their protected channel you are free to do whatever with a DRM free game. If you don't like it, don't buy from there. Steam has done nothing but help Linux since its Linux release. What do you honestly expect them to do, just allow anyone, paid or not, to download all their commercial software freely?
- cousin_it 13y agoI have just one question, why is the game centered around people trying to enter a totalitarian regime? Anyone who grew up in the Eastern bloc, or even just visited Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin, should know that the real tragedy was people trying to exit. Have we forgotten so quickly that Communist countries restrict their own citizens from leaving?
- bodo_leer 13y agoThe people in the game tell you the reasons. Many come for work or to visit relatives. It's not that everyone wants to go there.
- Deestan 13y agoTotalitarian or not, if it is economically stable and the neighboring countries are ravaged by poverty or war (like Kolechia), getting in may be your ticket to having a mostly decent life. Then there are people passing through, visiting friends, and smuggling.
- Kequc 13y agoYes but that was a very specific set of circumstances, such a specific set of circumstances that they built a wall around half a city. How often does that happen? It's why it's an iconic site that people travel to look at still today. It isn't a hallmark of totalitarianism people not be allowed to leave it, although North Koreans aren't.
- cousin_it 13y agoThe game is about a similar checkpoint in a city split in half, I thought it was a deliberate reference...
- thekiwi99 13y agoThe other games by the same creator are just as awesome!
- asnyder 13y agoBought this last night, I must say it's really fun. Though, I was forced to switch to an actual mouse to play. A touchpad isn't quick enough to move all those documents around. I also wish there was a hotkey (perhaps it'll be an upgrade) to get to the regional maps pages.
- mncolinlee 13y agoI was playing this over the weekend. Without revealing any spoilers, there are many different endings based upon what ethos you use to approach your job and on-the-job decisions. Like all time management games, you must make critical decisions under pressure. I find that the ambiguity and real consequences of the game's decisions make it a ton of fun. An instant classic.
- eric970 13y agoI love this game. It starts out simple, but as your country's relations with other countries change, the rules for letting people in and the amount of security in place changes.