Papers, Please - A Dystopian Document Thriller
papersplea.se
papersplea.se
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.
For another example, check out his earlier game, The Republia Times:
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.
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.
Not actually true, but interesting point nonetheless.
Still, there is a distinction here: these are all privately owned businesses, and their rules. It's not the government.
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.
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.
I find it strange to see people on Hacker News post-Snowden defend the nothing-to-hide mindset.
How do I expect age restrictions to be enforced without ID? I don't. The US's age restrictions on alcohol are stupid and should go away.
Edit: actually, I don't see how the current regime prevents using stolen tickets in the first place. IDs are only checked at security, not when boarding. So you print out a fake boarding pass with your real name and use it to get past security, then use your stolen ticket to board the plane, where they make no effort to ensure that you are the person listed on the boarding pass you present. Easy! Well, until the real passenger shows up with a reprinted boarding pass and wonders why you're in their seat, at which point you get hauled off to jail.
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.
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.
- 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.
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.
Gives you a great sense of what it's all about.
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 (steamcommunity.com) (158 points, 111 days ago, 51 comments)
*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 :)
http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application...
I'm under the impression that the author used some sort of library/framework to build the game; porting that would probably be more meaningful than porting the game itself.
The developer's website [1] says that it uses OpenFL [2], which advertises itself as "an exciting cross-platform framework that targets Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Flash and HTML5."
So why no native Linux version then?
(For Mac ports, it's usually mostly people who insist on using MacOS 10.6.8 for religious reasons)
I've stopped being quite so idealistic. If it's DRM-free and runs on Wine, I'm satisfied.
I have even less reason to care strongly about a Linux version as I often use OS X. I want either all three platforms or just Windows, but working through Wine.
Then there are people passing through, visiting friends, and smuggling.
It isn't a hallmark of totalitarianism people not be allowed to leave it, although North Koreans aren't.
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.
But I have a windows box around for Starcraft anyway...
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?