Make no trouble.
Word from Lucas Pope on Twitter: he’s bringing Papers, Please to iPad tomorrow. If you haven’t played Papers, Please on PC, then you’ve missed one of the most extraordinary games of recent years. It’s quite rightly bagged more awards than a kleptomaniac in Things Remembered — and rightly so.
Papers, Please is an empathy-flexing experience that casts you as a border control officer in a fictional Soviet bloc nation, charged with inspecting the entry paperwork of migrants and visitors to your country. The arbitrary rules about what people need to do to pass security are constantly changing for no apparent reason (if you’ve flown on an airplane to or from the United States since 9/11, this might be familiar) and you have to stay on top of your current orders — every mistake means a dock in the pay you take home to feed your struggling family.
I immediately dispatched the Mount Hexmap Secret Police and Discount Bail Bondsmen to ask creator Lucas Pope a few questions. His answers–plus a selection of iPad screenshots he sent us–are after the jump.
Has Terry Gilliam played this? He should.
Papers, Please is already so tactile, even through a mouse and keyboard. Did you have touchscreen UIs in mind from the very beginning, or did it occur to you later?
I focused exclusively on the mouse+keyboard interface from the beginning. The game has a lot of small buttons, papers, targets, etc which were all tuned for mouse precision. The game’s original resolution (570×320) is also completely tablet unfriendly. Getting it to work and feel right for touch took a fair bit of careful consideration.
Do you think the greater intimacy of a touchscreen device (you sort of cradle it in your arms, as opposed to a computer screen you’re a couple of feet away from) will change the way people experience Papers, Please?
That’s a good question. I’m not sure. I know that I personally enjoy playing more on the iPad, which surprises me. The game was already fairly tactile with the mouse, but with touch controls it’s even more so. The portrait layout on iPad also has a nice visual symmetry compared to the desktop’s landscape layout.
Have you played any other iPad games that influenced your thinking about the new UI?
No. Going into the conversion, I just knew that I wanted it to be portrait mode, and that I wanted it to feel as natural as possible.
Stamp act.
How are you expecting the game to sell on iPad? What’s the cost going to be?
To be honest I have no idea or expectations about sales. I’ve been so busy on the implementation and supporting work that there’s been no time at all for analytics. It’ll be $5.99 during launch weekend, then up to its regular price of $7.99.
Have you got any plans to bring the game to Android as well?
I originally wanted to bring it to Android and iOS at the same time. When it came to actually making that happen though, I was overwhelmed by the amount of work required to support the many, many Android tablets out there. I’m also worried that the market on Android won’t be happy about the game’s pricing, and an ad-supported version is out of the question. I’m not ruling out an Android tablet version but unfortunately I can’t commit to it at the moment.
Hat-tip to Justin Hall.
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