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Lucas Pope's Mars After Midnight hits the Playdate console on March 12
Panic just held a games showcase for its portable Playdate console and announced a March 12 release date of Lucas Pope’s Mars After Midnight. Pope also made Papers, Please and Return of the Obra Dinn.
There’s a Playdate games showcase on February 28
Panic is holding a developer’s showcase for its Playdate portable console on February 28 at 12PM ET. The presentation will feature the new game from Lucas Pope, among other titles.
Indie favorite ‘Papers, Please’ has sold 5 million copies
The surprisingly emotional and strangely addictive dystopian document thriller ‘Papers, Please’ just turned ten years old and has officially sold five million copies across multiple platforms throughout the past decade. To celebrate the milestone, developer Lucas Pope and his company 3909 LLC released a web game called ‘LCD, Please’ that allows players to go through certain aspects of the original title.
Document thriller ‘Papers, Please’ heads to phones on August 5th
Nearly a decade after it propelled creator Lucas Pope to indie game stardom, “dystopian document thriller” Papers, Please is finally coming to phones.
'Return of the Obra Dinn' comes to consoles on October 18th
Roughly twelve months ago, Return of the Obra Dinn stunned Mac and PC players with its time-travelling detective work. We shouldn't have been surprised -- the monochromatic adventure was developed by Lucas Pope, the creative mind behind the award-winning Papers, Please. If you're a console player that's yet to explore the 19th-century ship, good news: the game is coming to PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch on October 18th. As far as we know, the console and PC versions are identical. (Fingers crossed you can still change the filter to emulate your favorite retro hardware!)
iPad version of Papers, Please to get nudity restored in update
Papers, Please arrived on iPad this week, but an initial build depicting nudity when players searched the bodies of travelers was rejected by Apple on the grounds of containing "pornographic content." That decision appears to have been reversed however – developer Lucas Pope recently tweeted about a conversation with Apple concerning the denied version, claiming that Apple described that rejection as a misunderstanding. Pope added that Apple has also suggested he resubmit the build that includes nudity. Though news of the rejected build drew ire from fans, Pope stated that the Apple representative "made it clear" that the decision was based on a mistake in their procedures rather than a response to backlash. Pope estimates that an update to restore the option of nudity should be available by next week. Papers, Please will also eventually travel to Vita, though Pope is hesitant to give a launch window for that version, suggesting he "probably announced it too early." [Image: Lucas Pope]
iPads, Please: Paper-pushing game hits iOS sans nudity
Immigration inspection game Papers, Please will reach iPad tomorrow, the game's creator Lucas Pope revealed on Twitter. The game, which has players accepting and rejecting immigrants attempting to enter the fictional state of Arstotzka, first launched in August 2013 on PC and Mac and reached 500,000 copies sold as of March. The iOS version of the game is slightly different than its PC sibling, however. Pope noted that the search scanner photos in the game no longer have the full nudity option, as Apple "rejected that build for containing 'pornographic content.'" Papers, Please will receive a PlayStation Vita port, though Pope expressed uncertainty in February on how that version would work, given that the handheld system presents a lot of "interesting UI challenges." The developer also tweeted today that he handled the iPad version on his own, but that there's no estimated launch date for the Vita version, adding he "probably announced it too early." [Image: 3909]
Ghost ship mystery Return of the Obra Dinn waves in a demo
Return of the Obra Dinn is the first-person ghost ship mystery game with 1-bit rendering from Papers, Please creator Lucas Pope. Whatever else it is, you can find out right now with an early demo, downloadable for PC and Mac. The demo covers the first 15 minutes of the game. "It's still very rough and very untested," Pope says. "For such a low-res game, performance is not great on a 2011 Macbook Air running BootCamp. Hopefully it runs OK on most machines. The core mechanic is only lightly touched on, but you should be able to mentally extrapolate out what's here to a full game." Papers, Please, Pope's breakout game, swept the IGF awards this year, and Pope had planned to submit Return of the Obra Dinn to the IGF for 2015, but he says the game isn't quite ready: "That deadline was pretty useful in getting me through these past few weeks of crunch, but in the end I've decided not to submit the game as it is. Maybe next year." In Return of the Obra Dinn, a ship declared missing in 1802 suddenly returns to a London port six years later, badly damaged and with no visible crew. Players are the insurance adjuster for the East India Company's London Office, and must board the ship and recover the Crew Muster Roll book. It wouldn't be a game from Pope if it didn't involve official documents, after all. [Image: Lucas Pope]
Papers, Please creator unveils 1-bit mystery Return of the Obra Dinn
Lucas Pope, the designer behind the surprisingly thoughtful Papers, Please, has revealed his next project, a first-person mystery set aboard a ghost ship using what he calls "1-bit rendering." Pope describes Return of the Obra Dinn as unlike anything he's done before. "There'll be less creativity with the gameplay and instead I want to experiment with the rendering, story, and a few technical features," Pope wrote on the TIGForums. "I'm hoping to capture a compelling mystery with suspense and twists in the limited space of an old merchant sailing ship. It won't be the typical 'collect items and look for clues' structure. There's a slightly cool gameplay hook but I won't go into details on that until much later." Though Pope is building Return of the Obra Dinn in the increasingly ubiquitous Unity 3D engine, the game will feature a notably archaic aesthetic. "I'd like to capture the detailed black & white look of old Mac games in a realtime 1st person game," said Pope. "I plan to push it grittier and less cartoon-like than those old games; the hard part will be keeping everything legible without it becoming an unreadable mess of dithered pixels." Pope has yet to determine a release date for Return of the Obra Dinn, but those looking for more information can find a full rundown of the game's plot and his goals as a designer on the TIGForums. [Image: Lucas Pope]
Gone Home and Papers, Please sweep Games For Change Awards
The Games For Change Festival hosted its annual awards ceremony on Wednesday night, honoring socially conscious games in three categories: Most Innovative, Most Impactful, and Best Gameplay. Game of the Year, the fourth and final award, was given to a game that embodied all three categories. Some 140 games were nominated, and a panel of experts in gaming, media, education and philanthropy whittled those selections down to eight finalists. Lucas Pope, though not in attendance at the awards, dominated the stage. Papers, Please, Pope's brutal game about playing a border crossing guard in the fictional communist nation Arstotzka, won both the Most Innovative and Best Gameplay awards. Speaking with Joystiq via email after the awards, Pope shared his thoughts on why his game seems to resonate so strongly with players. "It puts players in an unfamiliar position and asks them to make difficult decisions with no easy answers," said Pope. "The subject matter is unique enough to get people interested, so the challenge for me was to hook them early with the core gameplay, then build on that with an interesting story." Most Significant Impact, the award given to games about social issue that also encourages players to develop empathy and respect for the subject, went to Electric Funstuff's The Mission US: A Cheyenne Odyssey. Mission US simulates life for the Northern Cheyenne tribe as it confronted the institution of Native American reservations in the 19th century. The Games For Change Game of the Year award was given to The Fullbright Company for Gone Home, their divisive first-person adventure. Steve Gaynor and Karla Zimonja accepted their award in a brief video message which, as the ceremony's host put it, may have been the first ever selfie acceptance speech. Papers, Please and Gone Home both received year-end accolades from Joystiq and numerous other outlets. Lucas Pope offered some insight into why games that address social issues are gaining traction amongst players. "I think the changing audience is related to generations and technology," explained Pope. "I grew up playing games my entire life so they're a natural form of expression and entertainment for me. I don't necessarily look to games for only straight up fun times, and I'd say most of my generation is the same way. At the same time, the tools and resources to create games have exploded in the last five years. It's much easier now to make smaller games that reflect personal experiences. With more games like this being made, there's naturally going to be an audience to play and enjoy them."
Papers, Please, Gone Home, and more named finalists at the 11th Annual Games for Change Awards
The 11th Annual Games for Change Festival kicks off in New York on April 22, shining a spotlight on video games and developers pushing the medium not just as quality entertainment or educational tools but as venues for social justice. On Tuesday the organization announced its finalists for the Games for Change awards, honoring eight games for their gameplay, innovation, and their impact in highlighting specific issues from underage drinking to the dangers faced by migrants crossing the US-Mexico border. At least two nominees were amongst Joystiq's favorite games of 2013.
Papers, Please documents 500,000 copies sold
Papers, Please, the game in which you bureaucratically decide the fate of hopeful immigrants, has surpassed 500,000 copies sold, according to the BBC. Created by former Naughty Dog developer Lucas Pope, Papers, Please was a 2013 favorite among many members of the Joystiq staff. In a delightful bit of serendipity, Pope and Papers, Please shared the stage with Naughty Dog during yesterday's BAFTA award ceremony. Papers, Please took home the BAFTA for Strategy and Simulation, while Naughty Dog's The Last of Us was crowned Best Game. Papers, Please is available now on PC, Mac and Linux. Pope is also considering a port for PlayStation Vita. [Image: 3909]
Papers, Please dev split on how to handle PS Vita port
Lucas Pope, creator of border-crossing management game Papers, Please, has expressed interest in a PS Vita port, but is unsure if he should handle the port himself or hand it over to a third-party studio. "Up until now, I've been the only guy who's ever touched the source code or anything related to the game. And that's just kind of a control issue," Pope told VG247. "For a Vita version, I'm 50 percent I want to do it myself and 50 percent I should just hand it off to somebody who knows what they're doing and can take it over for me." Last year, Sony formed a third-party production division whose chief responsibility is facilitating ports. "I do want to do a Vita version, but the thing is there's a lot of kind of interesting UI challenges to make it work well on Vita: much smaller screen, much smaller hit targets. So that kind of stuff interests me to try to figure out how to make it work well on Vita," Pope said. "So that's the part of me that wants to be really involved in the port, but the other part is like, 'I got to do something else, I got to move onto something else' so I haven't really decided what to do there." In Papers, Please, players assume the role of an immigration worker checking passports at a border checkpoint for the fictional communist country of Arstotzka. Papers, Please made its debut last year on PC and Mac; a Linux port launched earlier this month. [Image: 3909]
Civilization 5 mod adds playable Papers, Please nation
Glory to Arstotzka! The bleak Papers, Please nation is now a playable world power in Sid Meier's Civilization 5 thanks to a Steam Workshop mod from Snakeeater337. Arstotzka comes to Sid Meier's Civilization 5 replete with its own unique units, buildings, custom dialogue and music. Arstotzka has its own custom Border Guard unit, a cheaper version of the Rifleman that gets combat bonuses fighting on native soil. There's also the Border Checkpoint building, which adds protection from spies and produces extra gold each turn. Arstotzka begins the game with its custom "Glory to Arstotzka" trait, which increases worker production at the cost of population happiness and city growth speed. All cities also start with a free worker. The only downside to this mod is that it requires Brave New World, the latest expansion for Sid Meier's Civilization 5, in order to play. Sid Meier's Civilization 5: The Complete Edition, along with several other games bearing the eponymous developer's name, are currently available in the Humble Sid Meier's Bundle. [Image: Snakeeater337 on Steam]
PSA: Spelunky, Guacamelee, Papers Please available on Steam
A triple-threat of indie games made their way to Steam today, starting with Papers, Please, which is debuting for $9.99. Additionally, Spelunky and Guacamelee Gold Edition are ten percent off (each game priced at $13.49) until August 15. The Gold Edition of Guacamelee includes a free copy of Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack for this week only, which is regularly priced at $7.99 on Steam.
Papers, Please legally enters Steam, Humble, GOG on August 8
Papers, Please – a Dystopian Document Thriller – launches on August 8 on Steam, GOG and the Humble Store for $10, on both PC and Mac. Pre-orders are live right now. The game has players take on the exciting role of an immigration inspector in the early 1980s at the border of the fictional communist state Arstotzka, which has just ended a six-year war with its neighbor, Kolechia. Players must feel out discrepancies in documents from people asking to cross, some of whom are terrorists, spies and smugglers, and some of whom are kind old grannies wanting to see their families. Papers, Please made its way through Steam Greenlight in May as part of the system's first "mini round" of games. The gameplay offers a twist on classic espionage mechanics, creator Lucas Pope told us in June: "I was inspired originally by my trips through airport immigration in the last few years .... Instead of playing the cool spy protagonist that slips through a checkpoint unsuspected, you can be the hard-ass inspector that casts their skeptical eye at every grandmother trodding through. That sort of role reversal sounded fun to me and I thought others might like it, too." Papers, Please has 20 different endings in Story mode, based on the decisions players make each day as immigration inspector, though a "unique save system" allows for easy replays of any days. One ending unlocks Endless mode, which offers three game types and four rule sets built around an endless stream of travelers, complete with online leaderboards on Steam.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Papers, Please
It's not that there are too many indie games; it's that there aren't enough hours in a day to play all of them. The Joystiq Indie Pitch curates the best indies to play now and watch out for in the future. What's your game called and what's it about? The game is called Papers, Please and it follows the daily grind of an immigration inspector working in a fictional communist country in the early 1980s. The gameplay is based around detecting discrepancies in the documents provided by entrants. Using the limited resources provided by the Ministry of Admission, you have to sort spies, terrorists, smugglers and criminals from the flow of hopeful immigrants. What inspired you to make Papers, Please? I was inspired originally by my trips through airport immigration in the last few years. In general I try to keep an eye out for new game ideas and figured that whatever rigamarole the immigration inspector was doing behind their desk might be fun. Once that idea started to grow, I noticed other aspects of the concept that could be fun. Instead of playing the cool spy protagonist that slips through a checkpoint unsuspected, you can be the hard-ass inspector that casts their skeptical eye at every grandmother trodding through. That sort of role reversal sounded fun to me and I thought others might like it, too.
