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Cramming 'Papers, Please' onto Phones

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Re: Cramming 'Papers, Please' onto Phones

#111

Post by boondaburrah »

asojfdowgh wrote: post #101
egypturnash wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I make comics. I grew up reading stuff that used the space of a magazine spread in all kinds of clever ways, I fell in love with the way I can play with layout across a page. I made an entire graphic novel with multiple storylines running in parallel across every page. A phone can show one or two panels at a time, at best. There’s a lot of stuff you just can’t do. It’s a tiny, limited canvas, even before it gets shit…

randomly grabbing the first thing on tapas: https://tapas.io/episode/1123711 I don't think any book could give the feeling of transitions as the webtoon format can, yes, its only a panel (or less!) at a time, but the artist can give a halting thought-by-thought feel of a man on his deathbed, or roll out an entire red carpet of flourishes to introduce a character of nobility You can't go super transition-heavy in prin…

I've noticed this smartphone layout in comics before and I recognise the strengths but find it really less enjoyable to read. I have to be constantly scrolling and it's difficult to ever settle into a scene and feel it since they're gone in the blink of an eye. In regular pages that panel is still on the page and/or you can play with panel size and layout to create impact, but I just don't feel it with these scrolling comics.

That being said, I /do/ like the transition thing you mentioned.

Re: Cramming 'Papers, Please' onto Phones

#112

Post by boondaburrah »

simonbarker87 wrote: post #5

I’m always amazed at how many programming languages there are. I’d never heard of Haxe, I don’t think it would have crossed my mind to look for something like it but here it is powering a highly successful game with, from what I can tell, a vibrant eco system around the language as well. Perhaps I’m not curious enough to go exploring for these languages. I’ve used a few smaller ones in my years (usually because of an…

Haxe is wild to me since I recently started learning it and realised it's basically TypeScript but before TypeScript. Since it's statically typed and can hit C#/Java/C++/JS, I really want to try it in line of business applications as well.

Re: Cramming 'Papers, Please' onto Phones

#113

Post by chii »

boondaburrah wrote: post #110
mastax wrote: post #99

Haxe is really unusual and interesting, and I don't think it gets talked about enough. > Haxe can build cross-platform applications targeting JavaScript, C++, C#, Java, JVM, Python, Lua, PHP, Flash, and allows access to each platform's native capabilities. Haxe has its own VMs (HashLink and NekoVM) but can also run in interpreted mode. Compiling from one language to another isnt particularly unusual, but compiling fr…

There's also that Haxe is older than a lot of the stuff we take for granted today. It's roots are in ActionScript, and it started as basically a successor to AS2 before Adobe came out with ActionScript 3. It did "same codebase on server and client" by compiling to flash bytecode and PHP before node existed. It's ECMAScript/AS roots + static types + type inference make it feel like alternate-timeline TypeScript as it…

one aspect that's a bit underrated in haxe isn't just the cross-compilation, but the macro system - it's way more powerful a macro system than the regular macros found in C/C++. It's closer to a LISP macro, but only at compile time (rather than also runtime macros).

For example, you can define a json file, and have a macro that produce a class that matches that json file's fields. It would type-check (and you get auto-complete, for example, if you called that class's fields in another function). Of course, there's nothing special about a json file...why not use a live schema fetched from the internet! https://code.haxe.org/category/macros/completion-from-url.ht...

Re: Cramming 'Papers, Please' onto Phones

#114

Post by chii »

yojo wrote: post #30

I played through Papers, Please back when it came out on desktop, and at the time I remember wondering: "why is this fun?" I enjoyed it tremendously, but on the surface that didn't make any sense. Who wants to play an immigration officer sim? Getting this peek behind the curtain helped me understand all the little decisions that add up to an unexpectedly fun experience. The level of thought given to tiny UI interacti…

> I remember wondering: "why is this fun?"

Other than the tactility of the UI (which is a major part of the game), the reason, i believe, it is fun is because the game's mechanics matches that of the actual role you play in the story. Many games don't really get this correct (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludonarrative_dissonance).

In papers please, your decisions aren't clear cut, like in a regular RPG game, where you can "choose" to be a good guy or a bad guy by selecting one of two options, and one is clearly meant to be the good choice with the good ending, and the other bad. Papers please actually make you think like someone surviving a authoritarian regime, and your actions reflect that role too (you would, for example, choose not to feed, if family isn't absolutely hungry, or that you would attempt to deny entry as fast as possible, since a denied entry doesn't make you any money - no room for sympathies).

It makes the game feel "real".

Re: Cramming 'Papers, Please' onto Phones

#115

Post by jb1991 »

JoeyJoJoJr wrote: post #95
seba_dos1 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Immediate mode GUI makes perfect sense for applications that repaint themselves all the time 60 (or more) times per second, as they're already doing the work and there's little overhead added by handling such GUI. I can deal with 3D editor working this way, but I don't think I would be very happy if my e-mail client did.

I don’t have much understanding of the internals of the immediate mode renderers, but I think there are optimisations to only redraw regions where component inputs have changed.

You typically have to implement those optimizations yourself, and most people don’t. It’s outside the scope of the renderer in most cases for it to decide what should or should not be rendered. As a result, immediate mode GUI, while fast to develop, typically really kills a battery life on mobile.

Re: Cramming 'Papers, Please' onto Phones

#116

Post by spaceman_2020 »

chairhairair wrote: post #7

The productivity of solo indie game devs is just really impressive. While I’m aware of the “go fast alone, go far together” quote, I’m depressed by how inefficient app/ui development is at big tech companies compared to game studios, especially short staffed indies. Really makes me wonder about the “engineering excellence” that tech leads and “architects” pride themselves in when games are developed much more quickly…

I don’t play a lot of games anymore, but the last one I spent a considerable amount of time with was Stardew Valley. And I couldn’t believe it was made by just one guy.

Re: Cramming 'Papers, Please' onto Phones

#117

Post by spaceman_2020 »

chairhairair wrote: post #16
chairhairair wrote: post #7

The productivity of solo indie game devs is just really impressive. While I’m aware of the “go fast alone, go far together” quote, I’m depressed by how inefficient app/ui development is at big tech companies compared to game studios, especially short staffed indies. Really makes me wonder about the “engineering excellence” that tech leads and “architects” pride themselves in when games are developed much more quickly…

Expanding on this in a reply to my own comment. Grinding Gear Games, as an example, is a NZ based game studio that releases a new expansion to their famous RPG - Path of Exile - every three months. The game is not a simple program by any stretch - which might be a fair criticism for Papers Please by comparison since it is purely client-side and all possible states of the game can be fairly easily enumerated. Path of…

The inertia at big tech companies is likely from the overwhelming weight of the business itself. No one wants to push out updates lest it upset the finally tuned business machinery.

A UI change can impact usage. Which can impact revenue. Which can impact stock price.

The end users for large tech companies are essentially shareholders and investors.

Re: Cramming 'Papers, Please' onto Phones

#118

Post by spaceman_2020 »

jordanmorgan10 wrote: post #62

There’s a certain energy that’s either unmatched, or it’s just new to me, specifically from indie game developers that invigorates me. His post is just kinda filled with a “love of the game” vibe. I don’t feel like other tech related industries have that same art house feel like game developers seem to have, or at least write about. You don’t really see it in the sass space, or in my world of iOS, etc. Just something…

Imo, indie game devs don’t get nearly the amount of mainstream attention they get as artists. So many of them do everything on their own, from the art and music to, of course, the coding.

That kind of cross-discipline talent is so hard to find.

Re: Cramming 'Papers, Please' onto Phones

#119

Post by dagw »

a9h74j wrote: post #18
blooalien wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From the article: "Now, here, in 2022, desktop computers no longer exist and all computing is done via handheld mobile telephone." They're kidding, right? Nobody in their right mind actually believes that, do they?

I took that as either [kidding] overstatement (to bypass discussion of why ) or short for desktop computers no longer exist [for my market purposes] . To your general question, I've heard a professor lament a student stating that all CAD applications should work on phones.

I've heard a professor lament a student stating that all CAD applications should work on phones.

And why is that such a lamentable idea? Modern phones have the processing power these days. Walking around a factory, building sites or a muddy field with a phone in your hand is a lot easier than walking around with a laptop. Plus modern phones have LiDAR and multiple cameras opening up for all kinds of interesting options. Frankly any CAD platform which doesn’t embrace mobile will probably fall out of favour over the next few years.

Re: Cramming 'Papers, Please' onto Phones

#120

Post by grapeskin »

chairhairair wrote: post #7

The productivity of solo indie game devs is just really impressive. While I’m aware of the “go fast alone, go far together” quote, I’m depressed by how inefficient app/ui development is at big tech companies compared to game studios, especially short staffed indies. Really makes me wonder about the “engineering excellence” that tech leads and “architects” pride themselves in when games are developed much more quickly…

Having a complete mental map of your work environment is the key. Nothing changes without your approval and you have some idea of when and where every change was made along with what it does.

Most of dev work is making sure other people can make sense of your work. With solo dev, that step is basically unnecessary.

I think it’s also why some indie games (eg binding of Isaac) get completely remade instead of making updates a year later. Walk away from the project for a couple months and it’s an untamable beast.

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