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[pluckyporcupine]

Congrats on getting Greenlit man!

[Hipshot]

Congratulations! Another lit tig game.

[dukope]

Holy shit! Thanks everybody! That was fast! I'm thinking to write some nonsense on why I think it got greenlit in such a short time. I planned nothing but in hindsight might be able to explain it.

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@gene123: [Ideas]
There are some good ideas here. The reducing food costs was planned, but I completely forgot about it. I'll definitely do that. Luggage is something I cut for good after implementing the search system. It just turned out to not be necessary enough to be worth the work. The other stuff is cool, but not quite what I have in mind.

@qqqbbb:  [rightclick drag papers, slavic gender names]
Someone else suggested right-click for dragging papers back. My response was that I don't want to add a whole new drag mode to optimize out a part of the game that I think is important. For the names, I actually have some gender consideration for the names, but I guess it could be wrong. The problem unfortunately will only get worse when I integrate the user-submitted names. There's over 10,000 of them now so I'll probably just punt on any kind of gender correctness.

@arkhometha:  [newspaper bug]
Thank you for trying to reproduce this bug. Someone contacted me with a video showing the glitch. Basically, you have to correlate his name with the card, then when the detain button pops up, click it and immediately give him the card. The detain button will pop up a second time. If you hit it then, the newspaper will show both stories.

@Gila:  This kind of takes the challenge out of the game and reduces the replayability value at least for me
The main story mode will only have a small amount of randomness. I'm more inclined to get the narrative right than to make it replayable. Hopefully the endless mode can satisfy that itch.

@Angrytemplar:  For some reason medicine didn't work
Medicine doesn't immediately cure sickness. I'm not sure about the exact stats but it can take a few days to get better. Could this be what was happening?

@Monolith:  Consider adding a one-off immigrant who wants to buy your "dirty" photos.
SSSHHHH.

@GepardenK:  [family stuff]
I'm 80% set on the current family setup. But people are pretty consistent in asking for more. So I'm going to keep thinking about it. I doubt I'll go as far as adding a shop menu. I've been thinking about ways to expand what's there while maintaining the vagueness that I like.

Re: Sniping
Trust me, you will want to pull the trigger and it will feel good when you hit your target. I've worked out a story arc that's deeply integrated with the sniping. This is my favorite arc so far so the matter is completely settled in my mind.

Re: The Eagle
As JohnnyG says, the eagle is not only a fascist mark. The world is overflowing with countries that use the eagle. I realize it's not normally associated with communism but it's a more eye-catching government-y symbol for me than a star or sickle. The original eagle was based on the Romanian shield. I wanted something more crazy and so switched to the current mix of screaming bird and American eagle.

Re: Ideas/Suggestions
Part of my goal for this game is to do a lot with very little. It's basically a single-screen game with a mostly-static interface. I've worked out enough of the story to think that I can make a good game using only the elements that are already there. That means I probably won't add new modes like night-time duty, walking-to-work, or pulling-guns-on-entrants. I know this sounds short-sighted, but please just give me the benefit of the doubt. There is still a lot of unexplored territory in only the features available in the beta. There's more I haven't shown and I want to explore that thoroughly before adding anything else.

[Nebula268]

Congrats on making such an amazing game, I thoroughly enjoyed the beta
And just a thought, perhaps you could add a few more families trying to pass through? Normally you get plenty of wailing kids and tired parentsat checkpoints, and that'd make a dark and somewhat fitting decision of whether or not you let discrepancies pass if they're a family (Kid's got a bad passport... let him through or deny the poor little guy? Sounds like harsh choice to have to make but it kinda matches the whole atmosphere, i think). I know you kinda have your own view on how the game will turn out and what you'd like in terms of moral choices and content, but its only a suggestion anyway. Thanks, and I'm looking forward to seeing what you'll do next :D

[Johnyliltoe]

Love Papers, Please! Finally finished my Let's Play on YouTube. Split into 4 parts, so here's the playlist:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoN9hgE6w-Rm7Nlh9KJfYh-XtXNK06KLG

[tterrag]

I'm running into a minor problem where I'm getting cited for invalid expiration dates, when the expiration dates are in 1983 or 1984.

Edit: Also, how do you check for district? It's different from issuing city.

[Hempuli‽]

Edit: Also, how do you check for district? It's different from issuing city.

I'm quite certain only Arstotzka has its districts listed in the guidebook.

[tterrag]

I didn't see districts listed for Arstotzka either, but I can check the game again.

[pakoito]

I came to congratulate you for this game. I'm at the 8th day and I don't think I can play anymore, because I started hating the emigrants. Being one myself and having dealt with bureaucracy the irony was too strong.

[Monolith]

Re: Ideas/Suggestions

Doesn't sound near-sighted at all. There's a beauty in simplicity and holding fast to your creative principles is a sort of virtue. The concept and execution of the game so far has been very clever, and I for one trust you to do what's right. Congrats again on the success! Looking forward to seeing new builds/the final product!

[Eigen]

Will you be adding Steam achievements?

[pluckyporcupine]

I know this sounds short-sighted, but please just give me the benefit of the doubt.

Actually, I rather applaud it. Keeping a small range of features and doing a lot with them is the ultimate way to combat feature creep and it keeps a well-designed core in mind at all times, rather than overextending with a ton of features that only partially work.

Definitely interested in seeing what's next from here.

[player1 fanatic]

I have one suggestion.

Instead of an option of not buying any food, to save money (20$), there should be option to buy less food (10$), normal amount (20$), or none. It's more realistic.

[Ghost13]

Thanks for the great game! I loved mechanics and classical "back into 1990s" feel. Got carried avay for hours. It would be nice to have leaderboards and more story. Some tutorial or game guide will also be nice sometimes you are not sure how to use some of the features.

Suggestions
UV light, there was already a suggestion for watermarks in the documents. But I have feeling it will be difficult to implement in current interface and game pallet. It would be nice if the game include UV light to reveal forged passports just like it done in real world. Some of passport elements will change color under UV light so the player should remember which elements of the passports will shine in what color. It surely should be later in the game.  

As for the fingerprints
It would be nice to have bulletin of criminals or some other unwanted individuals where fingerprints are the only clue to the culprit (no name, or photo or else). There may be special rewards for capturing these criminals via fingerprints identification. Also there may be people who will have been previously deported but changed the name and\or identity so fingerings are also the only way to get them.  I think this will make the fingerprint feature more useful and interesting.  

[SuperBunnyBun]

UV light, there was already a suggestion for watermarks in the documents. But I have feeling it will be difficult to implement in current interface and game pallet. It would be nice if the game include UV light to reveal forged passports just like it done in real world. Some of passport elements will change color under UV light so the player should remember which elements of the passports will shine in what color. It surely should be later in the game. 

As for the fingerprints
It would be nice to have bulletin of criminals or some other unwanted individuals where fingerprints are the only clue to the culprit (no name, or photo or else). There may be special rewards for capturing these criminals via fingerprints identification. Also there may be people who will have been previously deported but changed the name and\or identity so fingerings are also the only way to get them.  I think this will make the fingerprint feature more useful and interesting.   

I disagree with the UV Light.  It would be an interesting approach to forgeries, HOWEVER, it wouldn't fit the scenario.  It takes place at the end of 1982.  Not only did no documents at the time get printed with invisible watermarks, but the only way you'd get a UV Light would be to attach a blacklight bulb into a flashlight.  Their only purpose was looking for traces of blood at crime scenes, or to make blackvelvet paintings look awesome.

As for the other suggestion, a wanted poster thing would be interesting.  A list of known rebels, or even a day where in the newspaper it contains a photo of a fugitive you have to look out for, who will be using a falsified name and nothing visibly wrong on his papers.

[Schrikvis]

Congratulations on your greenlightening! Your game is certainly deserving of such praise, as it is indeed very, very well made. It feels refreshing to play something so fun that has nothing to do with anything fun at all.


This has probably been discussed quite a few times already, but I'd still like to suggest the following;
- scanlines, film grain and blur filters applied to everything seen through a monitor/camera
- terrorist attack on people waiting in the queue
- the photo's correct but the name has been used already (shot in the dark)

[traetig]

I just want to say that you're doing good work with Papers, Please.
I just had my first playthrough and I fell in love with the art and sound immediately. I even set speech-announce as my default message-tone on my phone, I hope that's ok.
I'm really looking forward to the finished product, and with what I've seen so far I'm positive you're making all the right choices. I will pop in again with some real feedback, I need a couple of more playthroughs for that.

Now, if you don't mind I'll try out some other things you've made before I head back to Arstotzka.

[deathtotheweird]

jesus a lot of manbabies in this thread huh

[metasynthie]

I'm yet another person who signed up just to comment on this game (although I've read these forums many times).

dukope: Congrats on the greenlight and the excellent, really interesting game! I've played through a bunch and haven't encountered any bugs of note, which is also pretty impressive. I wanted to give you a playthrough report that might help you make some decisions about balance, since the results seemed interesting.

Because Papers, Please is a game with such interesting ethical choices about who to take a citation for -- from people who obviously just have one misspelled vowel in their name all the way to political refugees and Jorji -- I thought about doing the equivalent of the "pacifist runs" that people do in games where killing is a main mechanic. So I tried a few different "extra rules" of the kinds that people use when they're doing special runs:

"Open Borders" Run
The rule for this run was to never turn ANYONE away from the border, but still try to keep your family alive and healthy. This is possible as long as you can process at least 10 (or after rent increase 11) "correct" entries to the country; basically you just have to approve every single person as fast as possible. You also have to make up for the shortfall in pay on days where there's a terrorist attack, which are a little more predictable in terms of how many correct/incorrect entries you'll be handling.

I was able to keep my family in rent, food, and heat until Day 7, where you must search every Kolechian, and you really start to have few "correct passes" coming through. After that, people started to get sick, but I made it to the end without anyone dying. You can also increase your # of successes by prodding the people who just haven't taken out their missing documents, fingerprinting people to get a correct alias or match, etc and the extra seconds are usually worth it.

It's also worth noting that there's no "increased terrorism" downside in the game for playing like this, which I'm not saying there should be; the presence or absence of an effect for passing everyone through a border could be seen by some as an endorsement or rejection of the right-wing idea that borders are needed for safety, though!

"Revolutionary Conscience" Run
In order to try and stay in the black I made a different set of "ethical" rules. (Note that I don't believe doing a "pacifist run" necessarily means you're a pacifist in real life, so various kinds of ethical rulesets could be used for games regardless of your real-world politics.)

• People who just seem lazy/inattentive about their missing / expired documents get sent back. People who have a compelling reason (sudden change in requiring tickets/permits, had passport taken away, want to see son, etc) get sent through.
• Jorji goes through because he's clearly a little more helpless than just lazy/inattentive.
• People forging documents are resisting the system or desperate for work, or trying to overthrow the regime you work for, so get sent through.
• Anyone with a name mismatch or misspelling goes through, because bureaucratic crap.
• You may not searcn anyone based on racial profiling (Kolechians).
• You may not scan or reject people for gender mismatch, since as in real life that's unfairly detains/rejects transgender people, or anyone who just doesn't "look like" the gender on their ID, etc.
• You may only detain the human trafficker and the suspected girlfriend-murderer.

This method is a lot more survivable for your family, even though the only people you're "correctly rejecting" are those who just didn't really bother to get their paperwork in order. You still just accept as many people as fast as you can to reach your quote of 10 or 11. (And you still have an economic incentive to help fix those whose situation can be addressed via fingerprinting or asking for documents they forgot to give you.) Basically, you can build up a big stockpile in the early days and then use it up at the end where you have to let the Kolechians through. (I considered saying that you can detain people carrying weapons, but since there's no way to detect them without racial profiling, it didn't fit the ruleset.) Still, it's quite possible to play this way and have a healthy family at Day 9. (I imagine you'll make it more difficult later, perhaps.)

"Racist Asshole" Run
This was sort of the opposite scenario, where you are ignoring the criteria given you in favor of some... different logic. And you mostly just rapid-fire reject people to reach your quota of 10 or 11 "correct rejects."

• No Kolechians can enter.
• All other non-Arstotzkans can enter only for transit or visits of less than a month, anyone immigrating or working is not allowed. (Including anyone whose purpose is unknown in early days.)
• Anyone with a mismatched gender or who can be searched due to gender discrepancy is kept out, even if they are Arstotzkan.
• You may detain anyone who can be detained.

This method is VERY profitable, because you can rapidly reject a lot of people without looking for errors, and there are enough people with even minor errors (forgot to produce a document, etc) that you always make your minimum 10/11 needed except on terrorism days.

However, when you get to day 6, rule one causes you to hit an endless loop: there is an infinite line of Kolechian suicide bombers, all with perfect paperwork, who continue to stream in even after the clock runs out and turns into a blank grey box. So it's not possible to play as a 100% anti-Kolechian racist.

Some last thoughts -- if these playstyles seem weird and unrealistic, it's probably because racking up 12 "correct processing" cases and 24 mistakes would probably get someone fired in real life, not let them go home with $60. I don't really want to suggest rebalancing the penalty / payout system since it seems to work pretty well for typical play, and these lopsided ways of playing are still fun. Still, if they need to be capped so that a super-simple strategy doesn't become dominant, maybe it's worth having an extra penalty kick in after five or ten mistakes, etc.

Other things: you can fingerprint to clear up a radically-different photo mismatch, but not a gender mismatch? That seems like a discrepancy. Also, if names are being picked from a random list and won't have an "obvious" gender anymore, I'm not sure how easy it's going to be to spot gender mismatches. A lot of the portraits are kind of androgynous as is, although I guess inexperienced players can just use the discrepancy-finder to determine if the "system" believes someone's appearance is male or female? I guess that's kind of realistic, in a way; gender is notoriously problematic as a validation measure for security checkpoints because it's fairly subjective when security personnel have to make a guess about someone androgynous.

[Willowcat]

I was reading this, and I had a few ideas of my own that I'd like to share:

1-Your uncle/wife could possibly acquire a job part way into the game, providing a temporary source of extra income, this could later be offset when you have to start paying for your son's education.

2-Maybe cold weather could be a small mechanic, as the newspaper could warn that snow is coming that night or something (increases the cost of heat that night)

3-Personally I think that the game needs a few more corrupt/dangerous figures, ie: a fleeing Republian leader (Rebulia times anyone?) or maybe someone who arrives without an entry permit, and points a gun at you if you mention anything. Should you wait to long, you may have a high amount of medical bills to pay that night...

4-Lastly (and maybe someone can confirm this for me if it's already a thing) I think there should be more options for things like, well, *cough* *cough* censorship... I really don't mean to be 'that guy' but I really think this game would do better if it at least had the option...