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[Zaratustra]

Denying entry to Vince Lestrade spits a error message on the warning slip. (How do I even recognize him from the news, anyway?)

[pluckyporcupine]

Denying entry to Vince Lestrade spits a error message on the warning slip. (How do I even recognize him from the news, anyway?)

I'm pretty sure they mention his name in a memo or something.

[dukope]

Back from GDC! Another great show this year. The big surprise for me was seeing my game, The Republia Times, mentioned in the DIY Game Revolution talk by Porpentine and Terry Cavanagh. I should probably quit now while I'm ahead.

I have to say, given the time period you're hearkening back to, the pixelly version seems to evoke that feeling the best, even if it's actually better than what was possible at the time from what I remember/can research.

Thought you had my back, arne!

**Spoilerish**
Anyways, I just had a few clarification I wanted to make. When I played it seems like I completed a few "missions" and I got two token things. At first, I thought this was money and was thrilled. But when I got the EOD screen, I didn't know what to do with my new shiny things. I'm assuming the tokens are just a means to mark advancements, but I think this could be made more clear in the End of Day screen.

I haven't fully worked out what to do with the tokens. I like that they're unmentioned and mostly hidden. They'll probably just stay as meaningless achievements but I'll try to add some explanation.

Yeah keep the pixels, I do like the higher res font but, the pixels are better.

Games that mix pixel resolutions make my eyes twitch. So, unfortunately, going with pixels means accepting the blocky font.

Pixels vs Vectors

When I say stupid stuff like "the general population prefers vectors", I'm really just talking about myself. To me, the look of the game is not dependent on the pixels, but on the clean shapes and colors. Cleaner = better IMO. Pixels are great but they introduce an unintended roughness. My ideal game is nothing but razor-sharp visuals.

BUT, after a week at GDC, considering everyone's input, and some more thought, I've decided to just stick with pixels for Papers Please. I guess the look has grown on me and I'm also not enamored with the vector alternatives. After all the game content is done I may re-evaluate the visuals but for now I'm happy with chunky pixels and low-res fonts.

Thanks to everybody (except traitor arne) for chiming in!

[Uykered]

Aww, shame

[phi6]

Great decision about the pixels mate!

I think either vectors or pixels look great, as long as they were originally designed from scratch as intended. Perhaps it was not vectors that were a problem per se, but the 2xSai etc.. filters you applied that was a bit jarring?

[arnemeyer]

Thought you had my back, arne!

I bet you went to that neo-retro smoothing out pixels for HD displays talk at GDC too didn't you? *smh*
Glad you went the pixel route though. Validates my existence on this world.

I haven't fully worked out what to do with the tokens. I like that they're unmentioned and mostly hidden. They'll probably just stay as meaningless achievements but I'll try to add some explanation.

Going against the grain here, I kind of like how they are meaningless and perhaps don't have much of an explanation. Even as tokens, and imagining how things may have been in the Bloc way back when, I can imagine dangling a token reward (get it) as a carrot without really explaining why you would want it or what it actually means. Like, "Congratulations, here is your Arstotzka Broze Award! You will be the envy of your housing block!" And just leave it at that.

[team_q]

Just played through this, it's really great!

[dukope]

Trailin'

I've taken a break from development and spent the last few days working on a trailer. This is in preparation for setting up a Steam Greenlight page. There's still a month or so of work left on the game but I figure I should take the time now to get my ducks in a row. I'm not too optimistic about Greenlight so the sooner it's set up, the longer I have to collect votes.

I hate doing trailers until the moment it's done, then I'm glad I did it. For the past few projects I used iMovie but this time I'm upgrading to FCPX. So far so good. I really prefer this clip-style editing over other NLEs like Premiere.



My main problem with trailers is that I am a complete slave to synced music & visuals. I almost always end up writing tons of custom code to export synced frames from the game. I tell myself: "This'll be useful later, I can swap out the characters and re-export easily". It's always BS but I can't help it. Papers Please is even a little tougher because the theme music changes tempo as it progresses. This gives the track a nice racing effect but man is it a bitch to sync video with.



Anyways, I'll probably end up spending a week on this trailer. From there I'll do the rest of the Greenlight rigamarole, then get back to development and finish up the game.

[dukope]

New Bird
Old bird was boring. New bird is nonstop screaming at top volume.

[dukope]

Greenlight

Finally finished the trailer and set up a Greenlight page. Please vote the living hell out of it.

[team_q]

Voted with all my might.

[ImaginaryThomas]

Green Lights For Arstotzka!

[Belimoth]

Hmm, the logo on Greenlight doesn't look quite right...



DISCREPANCY DETECTED
No thanks / Not interested
Next item in qeue

[dukope]

Hmm, the logo on Greenlight doesn't look quite right...

DISCREPANCY DETECTED
No thanks / Not interested
Next item in qeue

There's another way in.

[Belimoth]

 

[randomshade]

Voted! And forced all my comrades to do the same :D

[pluckyporcupine]

Voted!

[arnemeyer]

GLORY TO ARSTOTZKA!

I voted. Good luck, this would be awesome.

[gimymblert]

Voted, this is a top game

[effete_denizen]

 Voted for the game! I've asked  my friends to have a look and upvote too!

 Can you be bribed in the game? In the video when they slide their papers through to you I imagined a small wad of money coming in-between the pages. I guess the money would be useless to the player though as it would have no purpose other than to identify someone as ejection material.