Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Papers, Please
deepens the experience with a variety of story elements that appear as the pro-
cessing of paperwork becomes increasingly complex and challenging. Most of the people you
examine are randomly generated, and some have incorrect or forged paperwork, but all want
to get across the border.
It's up to the player to decide whose sob story is worth breaking the rules for, from immigrants
with apparently misspelled names and smugglers offering bribes to families trying to stay
together and a revolutionary cell trying to bring down the oppressive government. Your pay
is docked for making too many broken rules or mistakes, and at the end of each day, you see if
there's enough money left to keep your family from starving and getting sick. The game uses a
series of nonrandom characters to weave in an authored story structure that branches depend-
ing on who the player chooses to help, leading to many different outcomes.
Papers, Please
accomplishes all this with a simple and unusual set of verbs: “stamp” paperwork with APPROVE
or DENY, “give” items on your desk to the person being inspected, and sometimes “fingerprint,”
“strip-search,” or “detain” them for questioning.
Platform:
Windows, Mac
Price:
US $10 (Limited beta version available for free at http://dukope.com/)
h t t p : / / p a p e r s p l e a . s e /
Verbs, Scenes, Resistance
Many games open up possibilities and increase complexity by giving the player more verbs to
experiment and push into the game with. As the player masters verbs, she finds more verbs to
try out, creating a feeling of progression and accomplishment.
Persist
turns this idea around,
increasing resistance by taking the player's abilities away one at a time. You start off with verbs
common to many platform games: the avatar can “run,” “jump,” and “swim” through water.
In each of the game's sections, the avatar loses something. First, water becomes a danger-
ous hazard that can no longer be crossed; next, the “jump” verb is removed. Interestingly, the
lack of jumping focuses the player's attention on and develops the “move” verb, as timing left
and right movements are all that remains. Finally, the player loses the ability to see the avatar,
except for a small “spark” when it moves, and must navigate levels under a kind of blindness.
Platform
: Flash
Price
: F r e e
http://www.kongregate.com/games/AdventureIslands/persist
