Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Cramming 'Papers, Please' onto Phones

dukope.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 187 posts

Re: Cramming 'Papers, Please' onto Phones

#51

Post by 999900000999 »

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…

I really like Haxe.

I want smaller game engines to succeed, but the tooling is just painful to use.

From the time I spent with Haxe, it's very neat language. At the same time, half of why I make games is to learn.

If I have to use your custom language I'm not learning skills to use at work.

For example, with C# you can make games with several languages, you can also work on boring Fintech so you can pay your rent.

With .net core open source I'd love for more engines to use it. Godot 4 with Mono will be a very very strong contender.

Re: Cramming 'Papers, Please' onto Phones

#52

Post by MrDresden »

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…

Not to take anything away from the game devs (PoE is great and I wish I had started playing sooner) but I wonder how much internal politics plays a part.

I can imagine that the game studio has most if not everyone onboard helping collectively to make the game better each iteration. It is a common goal.

How many different product teams and managers get in the way for products at other companies where each is fighting for funding or privilege?

Being in that kind of environment is draining for the product teams.

Having worked at places that matched both these situations, I know where the quality and quantity of my output was greater.

Re: Cramming 'Papers, Please' onto Phones

#53

Post by bspammer »

hbn wrote: post #40
aerovistae wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the guy is honestly some type of genius. To be this talented of a programmer, and across multiple platforms, languages, and toolsets just dazzles me. It's hard enough to just be competent with one platform. I can't imagine. And on top of that he composes the music and makes the art and literally everything else. I honestly just don't understand how a person can get that good at that many things.

He's also a fantastic game designer. I played through Return of the Obra Dinn last year and it was one of the coolest game experiences I've had. It really doesn't hold your hand, it's just using logic and clues to piece together a mystery and put names to faces. Keep a notepad handy and it's a real fun time!

This is what's truly mindblowing about Lucas Pope to me. Many people are technically talented, but good game designers are really, really hard to come by. Having both in one person just feels unfair.

Obra Dinn, especially, is one of my favourite games of all time, it's such a unique experience.

Re: Cramming 'Papers, Please' onto Phones

#55

Post by lastdong »

Love this game, bought it for different platforms over the years. I’ll prob end up doing the same for mobile :) Papers Please, FTL and Don’t Starve (discovered them around the same time) are on my top list of games, it was a period of very fine releases.

Re: Cramming 'Papers, Please' onto Phones

#56

Post by the_af »

hbn wrote: post #40
aerovistae wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the guy is honestly some type of genius. To be this talented of a programmer, and across multiple platforms, languages, and toolsets just dazzles me. It's hard enough to just be competent with one platform. I can't imagine. And on top of that he composes the music and makes the art and literally everything else. I honestly just don't understand how a person can get that good at that many things.

He's also a fantastic game designer. I played through Return of the Obra Dinn last year and it was one of the coolest game experiences I've had. It really doesn't hold your hand, it's just using logic and clues to piece together a mystery and put names to faces. Keep a notepad handy and it's a real fun time!

I was about to write this. Lukas Pope is not only technically talented, he's also a brilliant games designer.

As for Obra Dinn, I found it very cool that many puzzles have more than one answer, in particular when it's a subjective matter!

Re: Cramming 'Papers, Please' onto Phones

#57

Post by the_af »

kergonath wrote: post #48
keyle wrote: post #8

The blog post is really top tier. Consider how much time some engineers spend considering details when they're just being contracted to do a job (I've work with lots) and how this indie game project is being explained, nitpicked, loved and cherished. The blog post alone makes you want to purchase whatever this person has been working on based on how much passion is oozing off the explanation of how it's made. Side no…

> The blog post alone makes you want to purchase whatever this person has been working on based on how much passion is oozing off the explanation of how it's made. Papers Please is nice, but Return of the Obra Dinn is a masterpiece. Honestly. A very cool concept with some impressive attention to detail. Pixel-perfect 1-bit dithered graphics, amazing soundtrack, and a nice story. I don’t have a link here but there was…

I consider both games to be masterpieces, keeping my attention even when I was bored with gaming in general.

I also played Helsing's Fire on the iPad, which while not a masterpiece, is still pretty fun!

Re: Cramming 'Papers, Please' onto Phones

#58

Post by the_af »

blooalien wrote: post #9
egypturnash wrote: post #2

Man it is gonna be so nice when the average young adult has a device in their pocket that folds out to the size of a paperback, or even a magazine, and we can start making popular culture that fits that size again instead of everything having to make sense through the tiny window of a phone.

> 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?

Yes, it's tongue in cheek.

Re: Cramming 'Papers, Please' onto Phones

#59

Post by franknine »

rossvor wrote: post #6

If you see a devlog post from Lucas Pope you know it's going to be a goldmine. No matter the topic. Dude has a real knack in writing these, clearly describing the problem and the thought process on possible solution. And making it all very interesting so you yourself start thinking how would you address it or what other cool thing could be built instead. Here's some of his other huge devlogs on TIGSOURCE: 1. Papers,…

Another great devlog thread on TIGSOURCE is Leilani's Island by Craig Forrester, it's a treasure trove of 2D platformer development:

https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=46289.0

Re: Cramming 'Papers, Please' onto Phones

#60

Post by Torifyme12 »

egypturnash wrote: post #50
soylentgraham wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phones could be fine if 95% of the screen wasn't covered in popups, adverts, mailing list & cookie prompts.

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…

Scott McCloud of Zot fame was an early adopter of the web, I attended a talk from him where he was talking about how frustrated he was that the 3 panel format had persisted to the web, when there were so many ways to use space creatively.

He later adapted that talk for his "understanding comics" Ted talk. Worth a watch if you love the medium

Post reply on HN