dukope







Level 3 Papers, Please [Available 8/8] « on: November 14, 2012, 11:06:32 PM » Papers, Please





>> Release info in the announcement post here <<

Old Stuff



Ever taken an international flight to a foreign country and felt nervous passing through the immigration checkpoint? Papers, Please aims to turn that around and put you in the role of immigration inspector. Instead of working in a nice modern airport booth, you're assigned to the Ministry of Admission in the war-torn dystopian nation of Arstotzka.



The glorious and free country of Arstotzka has just ended a 6-year war with neighboring Kolechia and reclaimed its rightful half of the border town, Grestin. Your job is to control the flow of people entering the Arstotzkan side of Grestin from Kolechia. Among the throngs of immigrants and visitors looking for work are hidden smugglers, spies, and terrorists. Using only the documents provided by travelers and MoA's primitive computer dispatch system you must decide who can enter Arstotzka and who will be turned away or arrested.



Ok, that's the setup. Some elements of this are pretty similar to my other game, "The Republia Times". I'm a sucker for dystopian settings.



Let's have a mockup:





Lookin a bit empty at this point. The enemy country is on the left and your country is on the right. The top of the screen is the actual border checkpoint and the bottom is inside your booth. Travelers will queue on the top left, pass through your inspection building, then on to enter Arstotzka on the top right. People will enter the inspection booth, you click on their documents and vet them by looking for discrepancies, then you either approve their entry visa or deny their crossing (with or without prejudice).



A little closer:





I haven't completely worked out the precise mechanics yet, but it's probably going to boil down to inspecting all the documents and trying to find any two pieces of information that don't match. For example, if a traveler's passport says they weigh 70kgs, but their current measured weight is 74kgs, you have reason to be suspicious. Highlighting these two pieces of information in the UI will open up further options. In this case, you now need to run a metal detector over the guy or even strip search him. Turns out he just gained some weight so he's clear to pass. Enjoy your time in Arstotzka.



Motivation

The last few games I've worked on have been programming-first, art-second. This time I'm going to try to focus on the art. I'm envisioning lots of cool little pixel portraits and documents and not so many technical challenges. A big part of the game is the traveler portraits so I want to spend a fair amount of time creating those. I'm also considering a system to create face variations from my initial drawings. I guess that would be a technical task so we'll see.



More About the Art

I don't have any formal art training so I'm just gonna copy what I see elsewhere. One thing I like about some of the better pixel-art games is the limited palette. Instead of choosing a global palette though, I'm going to try limiting individual objects or backgrounds to ~3 shades. That's not a hard rule and if it doesn't look good I'm flexible. You can already see a few places in the mockup like that.



For the initial version of the game I'm going to do everything in mid-res pixel art. Pixel art is just way easier, faster, and more enjoyable for me. When it comes to most commercial games however I think pixel art may not be a good choice. It works great for indies and people close to the scene, but my feeling is that most mainstream players prefer a smoother non-pixelated look. I've made some rough experiments with converting the small character portraits to full vector images and they don't look half bad. If I decide to turn this in to a commercial game it's possible I'll do that for all the art. I kinda did the same thing with Helsing's Fire and that turned out ok.



Technical

I've got a really sweet custom C++ engine built on SDL just sitting here but I'm planning to use HaxeNME for this project. I've done 2 flash games before and really like the fact that they're so easy for others to play. HaxeNME looks interesting and is a slight hedge on this game getting good enough to sell as a native app. Actually I'm a full-time indie developer so I'm really hoping to sell the game when it's done. If it's any good. Next point..



DevLog

I've made a bunch of games but never kept a devlog before. I'll do my best to keep this thread updated with screenshots and builds. I don't expect the entire game to take more than a few weeks months to develop. I'll probably edit that sentence out in a few months . Any feedback is appreciated.







There are updates throughout the thread, but I'll just put this here:



>> Get the Latest Build <<



(Currently in beta so missing some stuff)



______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________There are updates throughout the thread, but I'll just put this here:(Currently in beta so missing some stuff)______________________________________________________________________

Want your name in the game?



I'm including real names for the immigrants. Add yours here:





dukope.com/usemyname



______________________________________________________________________





Papers, Please on Steam Greenlight



Please vote!



______________________________________________________________________



I'm including real names for the immigrants. Add yours here:______________________________________________________________________Please vote!______________________________________________________________________ Ever taken an international flight to a foreign country and felt nervous passing through the immigration checkpoint?aims to turn that around and put you in the role of immigration inspector. Instead of working in a nice modern airport booth, you're assigned to the Ministry of Admission in the war-torn dystopian nation of Arstotzka.The glorious and free country of Arstotzka has just ended a 6-year war with neighboring Kolechia and reclaimed its rightful half of the border town, Grestin. Your job is to control the flow of people entering the Arstotzkan side of Grestin from Kolechia. Among the throngs of immigrants and visitors looking for work are hidden smugglers, spies, and terrorists. Using only the documents provided by travelers and MoA's primitive computer dispatch system you must decide who can enter Arstotzka and who will be turned away or arrested.Ok, that's the setup. Some elements of this are pretty similar to my other game, "The Republia Times". I'm a sucker for dystopian settings.Let's have a mockup:Lookin a bit empty at this point. The enemy country is on the left and your country is on the right. The top of the screen is the actual border checkpoint and the bottom is inside your booth. Travelers will queue on the top left, pass through your inspection building, then on to enter Arstotzka on the top right. People will enter the inspection booth, you click on their documents and vet them by looking for discrepancies, then you either approve their entry visa or deny their crossing (with or without prejudice).A little closer:I haven't completely worked out the precise mechanics yet, but it's probably going to boil down to inspecting all the documents and trying to find any two pieces of information that don't match. For example, if a traveler's passport says they weigh 70kgs, but their current measured weight is 74kgs, you have reason to be suspicious. Highlighting these two pieces of information in the UI will open up further options. In this case, you now need to run a metal detector over the guy or even strip search him. Turns out he just gained some weight so he's clear to pass. Enjoy your time in Arstotzka.The last few games I've worked on have been programming-first, art-second. This time I'm going to try to focus on the art. I'm envisioning lots of cool little pixel portraits and documents and not so many technical challenges. A big part of the game is the traveler portraits so I want to spend a fair amount of time creating those. I'm also considering a system to create face variations from my initial drawings. I guess that would be a technical task so we'll see.I don't have any formal art training so I'm just gonna copy what I see elsewhere. One thing I like about some of the better pixel-art games is the limited palette. Instead of choosing a global palette though, I'm going to try limiting individual objects or backgrounds to ~3 shades. That's not a hard rule and if it doesn't look good I'm flexible. You can already see a few places in the mockup like that.For the initial version of the game I'm going to do everything in mid-res pixel art. Pixel art is just way easier, faster, and more enjoyable for me. When it comes to most commercial games however I think pixel art may not be a good choice. It works great for indies and people close to the scene, but my feeling is that most mainstream players prefer a smoother non-pixelated look. I've made some rough experiments with converting the small character portraits to full vector images and they don't look half bad. If I decide to turn this in to a commercial game it's possible I'll do that for all the art. I kinda did the same thing with Helsing's Fire and that turned out ok.I've got a really sweet custom C++ engine built on SDL just sitting here but I'm planning to use HaxeNME for this project. I've done 2 flash games before and really like the fact that they're so easy for others to play. HaxeNME looks interesting and is a slight hedge on this game getting good enough to sell as a native app. Actually I'm a full-time indie developer so I'm really hoping to sell the game when it's done. If it's any good. Next point..I've made a bunch of games but never kept a devlog before. I'll do my best to keep this thread updated with screenshots and builds. I don't expect the entire game to take more than a fewmonths to develop.. Any feedback is appreciated. « Last Edit: August 01, 2013, 07:20:07 AM by dukope » Logged @dukope - Return of the Obra Dinn - Papers, Please - 6 Degrees of Sabotage - The Republia Times - Helsing's Fire

dukope







Level 3 Re: Papers, Please - A Dystopian Document Thriller « Reply #7 on: November 17, 2012, 07:08:04 AM »







At the top you can now see the queue of people and several guards. I'm hoping to have all this animate naturally. It'll probably just look like an unholy mess of swimming pixels but I'm gonna try it anyways.



When called, one person will walk into the inspection booth and appear close-up at the bottom. Likewise anyone you approve for entry will visibly leave the booth and walk off to the right. If you reject someone's entry they may be sent home or arrested. In these cases they'll leave the booth back to the left side of the checkpoint. The passageway off the top leads to jail so the plan is to have the guards drag any smugglers/spies/terrorists up there.



Action

I'd like to include a small action element in the game and from this mockup you can kinda see where it would happen. The wall in the middle is quite tall, but not impossible to climb. If one of the travelers gets restless or desperate they may try to run past the guards, scale this wall, and escape into Arstotzka. If they make it over this wall, an action sequence begins where your cursor becomes a sniper crosshair. You'll have about 3 seconds to shoot them with a tranquilizer before the guards on the right open fire. So you get one last chance to save their life. Or maybe they're a suicide bomber and you're really saving the guards from instant death.



Misc

In the inspection screen, I've added the speaker (to ask questions and view the transcript) and the computer teletex handle (to request information from MoA computers and view results). These both show how many items are available.



Issues

Also in this mockup you can see the tight squeeze for the documents window. I really want to be able to inspect 2 docs at a time, but with this layout there's not enough room. Gonna have to think about how to handle that better. More progress on the mockup (slightly too wide for the forum, scroll to see it all):At the top you can now see the queue of people and several guards. I'm hoping to have all this animate naturally. It'll probably just look like an unholy mess of swimming pixels but I'm gonna try it anyways.When called, one person will walk into the inspection booth and appear close-up at the bottom. Likewise anyone you approve for entry will visibly leave the booth and walk off to the right. If you reject someone's entry they may be sent home or arrested. In these cases they'll leave the booth back to the left side of the checkpoint. The passageway off the top leads to jail so the plan is to have the guards drag any smugglers/spies/terrorists up there.I'd like to include a small action element in the game and from this mockup you can kinda see where it would happen. The wall in the middle is quite tall, but not impossible to climb. If one of the travelers gets restless or desperate they may try to run past the guards, scale this wall, and escape into Arstotzka. If they make it over this wall, an action sequence begins where your cursor becomes a sniper crosshair. You'll have about 3 seconds to shoot them with a tranquilizer before the guards on the right open fire. So you get one last chance to save their life. Or maybe they're a suicide bomber and you're really saving the guards from instant death.In the inspection screen, I've added the speaker (to ask questions and view the transcript) and the computer teletex handle (to request information from MoA computers and view results). These both show how many items are available.Also in this mockup you can see the tight squeeze for the documents window. I really want to be able to inspect 2 docs at a time, but with this layout there's not enough room. Gonna have to think about how to handle that better. « Last Edit: March 10, 2013, 02:06:32 AM by dukope » Logged @dukope - Return of the Obra Dinn - Papers, Please - 6 Degrees of Sabotage - The Republia Times - Helsing's Fire

Eigen







Brobdingnagian ding dong





Level 10Brobdingnagian ding dong Re: Papers, Please - A Dystopian Document Thriller « Reply #13 on: November 18, 2012, 05:58:54 AM »







I hope you don't mind me editing it's just that I've wrestled with limited screenspace a lot.



Quote Thanks Eigen! FWIW, I consider your Pioneers art utterly fantastic so I'm really happy to see you post here.

You're too kind. I see great potential in your game and so I posted for encouragement If your resolution is not set in stone, may I suggest you increase the height to 640, so that it'd be 960x640 which makes more sense. If you do, something like this could work for the layout. Done very quikcly, just copy-pasted the other document. It would probably be a different type of thing and most likely with a different width. I just widened the character bit to fill the space.I hope you don't mind me editing it's just that I've wrestled with limited screenspace a lot.You're too kind. I see great potential in your game and so I posted for encouragement Logged PIONEERS | Tumblr | Tweeter

dukope







Level 3 Re: Papers, Please - A Dystopian Document Thriller « Reply #16 on: November 19, 2012, 04:43:37 AM » Quote from: spolvid on November 18, 2012, 12:55:53 PM This looks awesome! I really liked The Republica Times, looking forward to seeing this develop.



Thanks spolvid. This game will probably have a similar flavor so I hope you enjoy it too.



Slightly updated layout with taller resolution:





Eigen's suggestion prompted me to keep experimenting with the mockup. With a 3:2 aspect, there's room to rearrange the inspection booth a bit and give the doc inspection area more space. Each document can be maximum 150x215 and 2 documents can be visible at any time. Teletex query results, the audio transcript, and the rule book will behave just like documents. This'll be nice for consistency and having the docs side-by-side makes it easier to find and highlight discrepancies. 150x215 is not a lot of space but my feeling is that the docs shouldn't be too complicated so hopefully it works out.



Closeup:





From left to right there's a clock, scale readout, microphone, computer screen, and notebook. Not sure what to do with the clock just yet but there'll probably be some time component to the gameplay. Scale shows the person's weight, mic will show the audio transcript document when clicked, computer screen will show the teletex document when clicked, and the notebook will show the rule book when clicked.



Rule Book

In order to establish the baseline regulations for which documents and information a traveler must have to enter, there's a rule book. This lists things like "Traveler must have an entry permit", "Traveler must be over 18", etc. If a rule is being broken, it can be highlighted for further options. One example would be the "Traveler must be over 18" rule. If you inspect their passport and calculate their age to be < 18, you can select both their passport birthdate and the age rule. This will highlight the discrepancy and open up a teletex query or a question you can ask the traveler. Thanks spolvid. This game will probably have a similar flavor so I hope you enjoy it too.Slightly updated layout with taller resolution:Eigen's suggestion prompted me to keep experimenting with the mockup. With a 3:2 aspect, there's room to rearrange the inspection booth a bit and give the doc inspection area more space. Each document can be maximum 150x215 and 2 documents can be visible at any time. Teletex query results, the audio transcript, and the rule book will behave just like documents. This'll be nice for consistency and having the docs side-by-side makes it easier to find and highlight discrepancies. 150x215 is not a lot of space but my feeling is that the docs shouldn't be too complicated so hopefully it works out.Closeup:From left to right there's a clock, scale readout, microphone, computer screen, and notebook. Not sure what to do with the clock just yet but there'll probably be some time component to the gameplay. Scale shows the person's weight, mic will show the audio transcript document when clicked, computer screen will show the teletex document when clicked, and the notebook will show the rule book when clicked.In order to establish the baseline regulations for which documents and information a traveler must have to enter, there's a rule book. This lists things like "Traveler must have an entry permit", "Traveler must be over 18", etc. If a rule is being broken, it can be highlighted for further options. One example would be the "Traveler must be over 18" rule. If you inspect their passport and calculate their age to be < 18, you can select both their passport birthdate and the age rule. This will highlight the discrepancy and open up a teletex query or a question you can ask the traveler. Logged @dukope - Return of the Obra Dinn - Papers, Please - 6 Degrees of Sabotage - The Republia Times - Helsing's Fire