Once upon a time, I wanted to Change The World (tm) with a game. This game. I was younger, stupid definitely more naive and a ton less experienced. This is why Heart. Papers. Border. mutated very fast from a cute little travel game As One Should Do For Her First Commercial Indie into a Grand Strategy horror fuficulator* with confusing SJW elements and a terrifying amount of systems and complexities.
Warning! Here's a bunch of disturbing and really terrifying Unity screenshots:
I am really sorry you had to see this.
I do not know what was in my head.
But back in 2018, a HPB country ended up having a geographical area, streets and vegetation, a bunch of objectives to visit And Also:
- a visa that must be bought, has a processing time and expires;
- a flag and a passport stamp;
- a cost of living - later, depending on the objective you were at, cause it wasn't enough;
- travel costs TO the country and IN the country;
- a deportation, of course, with a country specific fine;
- country specific UBI;
- starting money;
- network connection quality!!! I mean how plausible is to Just Blog in a Retro futuristic imagined planet;
- chance encounters that may happen more or less;
- ideal visit duration Per Objective;
- oh right. Hashtags!!!! Per each objective!!!! and in 5. FIVE! Separate. Categories.
As months passed by, we tried to fix this horror. And it was a very painful task, not only because of external reasons, but because, as you can see, we were dealing with a monster. And my brain was finally accepting the reality that knowing - in theory - how game design should be is no guarantee for not royally phookin up anyhow.
So now, among designing properly simple and humane new mechanics, we must first face this monster and give it a serious feature cut. Almost everything must go. I am placing HPB on a Monster discount until we can give it a proper trim. Beware though - it'll be a bit until we can nurse Heart. Papers. Border. to decency. At least we are doing it Very Publicly so you can PLEASE pull the alarm as soon as you feel its needed.
Bonus!
I give ye an easy and comprehensive guide on how NOT to have fun with naming your files! Please observe the classics:
- "HPB_marketing_final_hashtag_famous_last_words"
- "HPB_marketing_final_hashtag_famous_last_words_except_they_wernt" (they really weren't, nor were they these ones, actually)
- ... and my favourite:
- "HPB_map_its_starting_too_look_cool_and_all_with_all_that_ui_stuff_going_on_but_im_gonna_stop_now_cause_we_dont_like_novells_in_file_names"
* don't even ask