2026-04-07 18:11 UTC · Rock, Paper, Shotgun
This current era of the internet is very easily the worst one, even within its comparatively short existence. A myriad of reasons contributes to this, the most annoying and newest one being the advent of AI preying upon every last post you release unto the world. Artists are essentially in a constant state of looking over their shoulder in a dark alleyway in fear of their works being stolen. So what is Lucas Pope, creator of Papers, Place and Return of the Obra Dinn doing to combat this? Simply not sharing his work. Read more
2026-04-06 22:24 UTC · PC Gamer · Ted Litchfield
Papers, Please and Return of the Obra Dinn creator Lucas Pope spoke about what he's working on next—and why we're not hearing about it more—on the latest episode of Mike & Rami Are Still Here, the podcast of Nuclear throne developer Rami Ismail and No More Robots founder Mike Rose... Read more.
2026-04-06 18:26 UTC · PCGamesN · editor@pcgamesn.com
There are few game developers quite like Lucas Pope. He created two of our favorite games of the 2010s with Papers, Please and The Return of the Obra Dinn, and practically created two brand new genres, too. Since that grand success, he's released some understated titles, including flash games and the Playdate-exclusive Mars After Midnight, but nothing on Steam. However, in a new podcast appearance, he's said that he's worried about announcing his next project because of AI. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Papers, Please short film is out now, and free to watch The Papers, Please m
2025-03-20 19:08 UTC · PC Gamer · Wes Fenlon
Papers, Please, first released in 2013, was among the vanguard of indie games that felt like they had something to say, turning the simple act of processing paperwork into a pointed commentary on the political brutality of immigration. It was set in a fictional Soviet-esque country in 1982, which creator Lucas Pope used to amplify the painful decisionmaking of who to allow across the border—defy your authoritarian leaders and your family would go hungry; enforce the letter of the law, and you were turning away refugees who were pinning their hopes on a new life on your understanding and grace.
2024-03-14 20:38 UTC · PC Gamer · Wes Fenlon
It took Mars After Midnight six seconds to make me laugh. Before starting a new save file I checked the settings menu—always check the settings menu—to find only a single option with a check box: "Mirth." Uncheck it, and Mars After Midnight's playful squiggly text stops shaking about so much. I wouldn't dare, to be clear. Mirth is what I'm here for in Lucas Pope's new game, which has the air of Ryan Gosling doing Serious Actor roles for years before embracing his inner Kenergy... Read more.
2023-08-10 23:36 UTC · PC Gamer · Russell Adderson
Papers, Please was a singular experience when it released in 2013: A subdued narrative game in which you check the papers of immigrants to a fictional eastern bloc country and determine whether or not to let them in, leading to hard decisions and heart wrenching consequences. The influential game has sold over five million copies in the last 10 years, and in celebration of that anniversary, developer Lucas Pope has released some cool stuff for fans and made a contribution to those suffering in real life... Read more.
2023-08-10 15:36 UTC · GamingOnLinux
Papers, Please is a game about being an immigration officer in a fictional dystopian country named Arstotzka. It's quite a unique experience and clearly did well for the developer Lucas Pope. Read the full article here: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/08/papers-please-turns-10-and-hits-5-million-sales
2023-08-09 15:02 UTC · Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Dystopian border control simulator Papers, Please turns 10 years old this week, and developer Lucas Pope has marked the occasion by demaking it. Created in collaboration with Keiko Pope, the resulting browser-based LCD, Please "runs" on a mocked-up LCD console, akin to Nintendo's Game & Watch. Pope is also celebrating the anniversary by donating $100,000 to the International Rescue Committee. The demake gives you the simplified strokes of the celebrated 2013 game: you're a border control officer, approving or denying entry to the fictional country of Arstotzka, which boils down to checking mug
2023-08-09 10:42 UTC · Community Announcements · dukope
{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/4987388/2d87098994d64e590508b0f49e1d8e6f30ed7ad6.png Papers, Please is 10 years old! Hard to believe! I owe a sincere thanks to everyone that's supported me and my games over the last decade. A few things to celebrate the anniversary: Set up a $1.99 sale until the weekend, just a few days. Designed some fresh goods (shirts, stickers, posters, etc) Released the soundtrack on a few streaming services Made a $100K donation to the International Rescue Committee (rescue.org) Created a free de-make game: "LCD, Please" More details on the homepage: https://papersplea.se/#year10 Tha
2023-03-21 08:16 UTC · Community Announcements · dukope
Taking care of a few more issues. Mainly, super slow animations when running at insane framerates, and muted sounds. Changelist Reworked frame sync logic, again, to fix slow animations. Tries 60fps vsync first, then CPU sync. Fixed bad language selection dialog when booted with unknown language Fixed zeroed sound volumes on locales with "," decimal point Always stretch screen to extents in windowed mode Added 720p and 1080p commandline options to override native fullscreen resolution
2023-03-12 08:07 UTC · Community Announcements · dukope
This is a small update to address issues reported in version 1.4.9. Please comment below or send a support request if you're still seeing problems with the game. Changes Fix softlock when detaining Simon Wens while he's leaving Fix crash when too many items appear on night list Fix day 4 rent increase to apply immediately Fix repeated dialog when multi-clicking interrogation button Possible fix for animation/physics stutter by always capping framerate at 60fps Possible fix for zeroed music and sound volumes on startup Increase mouse double-click timing from 0.15 to 0.2 seconds Remove booth upg
2023-03-07 08:00 UTC · Community Announcements · dukope
Version 1.4.9 is a technical update to "Papers, Please" that transitions the underlying engine from Haxe/OpenFL to Haxe/Unity. This is a major change that will hopefully fix a number of systemic issues that have been building up over the years on modern OSes and hardware. In addition to the engine change, some small logic, localization, graphic, sound, etc issues have been fixed. If you see something that looks broken, please report it in the comments or through https://3909.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new There is no new game content in this update. A brief changelist: Engine converted to u
2022-11-27 02:36 UTC · Community Announcements · dukope
As part of porting this game to phones, I re-wrote most of the code in Haxe and switched from OpenFL to Unity as the core engine. That's worked ok so far on phones and now it's time to transition the desktop builds to this new version. This is intended to be a mostly invisible update on desktop - no content changes and no loss of progress. Still, the fact that so much has changed behind the scenes has made me cautious. Beta Testing Version 1.4.5 covers Windows/Mac/Linux and is now available on the preview branch. If you're feeling brave, please give this version a try and let me know if you no
2022-03-09 16:09 UTC · Community Announcements · dukope
1.2.76 Added a Ukrainian localization (from Skovoroda l10n) Changed some Identity Supplement feature descriptions
2020-01-31 15:00 UTC · Rock, Paper, Shotgun · contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Alice Bell)
I did not expect that I would ever Google something like “will Big Ben bong?” in service to an article for RPS, and yet here we are – and it turns out it will not. The big B day has arrived, not with a bong but a whimper. It’s a sore subject for a lot of us (stuff disappearing off of Netflix; my partner is European and won’t have to queue as long at airports), a genuinely frightening one for others (unknown economic impact; forced repatriation). As in most times of stress, I turn to video games for both a distraction from and mirror to life. I don’t
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