It's been a while.
If you are reading this, we owe you a great deal of gratitude. You held on to a tiny promise that we did not yet keep. We said "life happened" and you trusted us that we won't bury Heart. Papers. Border. That we'll eventually turn the lights back on.
The life that happened involved the transformation of a twenty year old relationship. Heart. Papers. Border. is a game made by two people who used to be married when this project started. To a tiny extent, Heart. Papers. Border. played a part in a beautiful, peaceful, painful divorce. It took a while for us to heal. We're back as friends and creators. We think this healing might have led to the healing of Heart. Papers. Border., too. But you will be the judge of that! Here's what you're judging....
Some antidotes to a severe Heart. Papers. Border. feature creep
Why do you travel? It's a general question, indeed, but when applied to Heart. Papers. Border., you don't really have a great reason. The old reason, poorly explained, was this: you travel to gather hashtags to publish blogs to change national opinions to contribute to the opening of borders. It's a conceptually nice idea, I guess but... Take that for a game loop! Heart. Papers. Border. was not fun. As a matter of fact, Heart. Papers. Border. was not - we started with the intention of making a tiny game, and ended up with a grand strategy kind of feature creep that did not really led anywhere.
Here is a brief summary of what we will be changing. We are still in design phase and this is an early access game, so your thoughts on this are really, really, really important!
Congratulations! Instead of being an aimless traveller, you now have an important job in Heart. Papers. Border. You are a photo journalist, and you are tasked to "offer a complete picture" of all 26 countries of planet Heart! You've got 125 years, a super professional camera and your own wits on how to frame and publish your progress and adventures on your photo blog. But beware! Some countries are more welcoming than others, visas expire and certain things happen regardless of your camera being present to immortalise them or not. Can you complete the picture? And what story will you tell as you complete it?
What do you think about this new design? Stay tuned for many a detailed design blogs that we hope you'll scrutinise!
[ 2020-09-08 20:52:43 CET ] [ Original post ]
- Heart. Papers. Border. Depot Linux/SteamOS [3.84 G]
You are a freelance adventurer who wants to experience everything planet Heart has to offer, regardless of the inherited privileges determined by the country of your birth.
The current Heart. Papers. Border. build is in Early Access because it is an Early Alpha build featuring enough core mechanics and content to let you, awesome players, help us develop the best possible game from this concept!
Concept
You travel to learn, and as you pay a closer attention to what each country has to offer, you gather wisdom that you channel in a blog that grows in popularity. Eventually you come to grasp the power of your influence: where you pass, things change faster to the better, and locals that you have met increasingly demand openness from their governments. You have always been an optimist and dreamed of a completely border free world, but as you travel, you realize your influence into actually living to see your dream come true - that of living in a world without borders!Visuals
Heart. Papers. Border. is inspired by NASA's Visions of the Future posters, The Jetsons' cartoon series and current real life events. We chose vibrant colors and a retro futuristic style to gently remind you that Heart, just like Earth, is moving towards openness, kindness and love, even though the movement might sometimes seem too slow to notice. But you can always make a difference!Gameplay
Heart. Papers. Border. is as easy or as challenging as you want it to be. Through very simple control mechanics and up front information, you can strategize an optimal life that allows you to see the last border disappear in the course of your long and safe life. With multiple win conditions, challenging puzzles and morally difficult quests, Heart. Papers. Border. simply asks you how do you choose to live this virtual lifeSo how will you play?
- Create your Multipass and choose your Citizenship (Easy, Med, High, Random); this determines your starting conditions
- Take a look at your native country, look at the Top Bar to see your situation and starting conditions
- Click on touristic objectives to visit them, click on countries to apply for Visas and then visit them
- Gather hashtags from visiting objectives and write blog posts in your SpacePad
- Gain followers, become influential, and notice how planet Heart responds to your actions
A few Development Details
- This is a Pre Alpha game, and we have many features in the pipeline which are Work in Progress now. If you wish to keep track of our progress, we shared our live game design wiki so check our presence on the web. Please keep in mind:
- We aim to launch the first version of Heart. Papers. Border. somewhere this summer
- This is an evolving game, we aim to progressively update it until we or our community is out of ideas (which we hope is for years to come)
- We practice Open Game Design and welcome any feedback
Team
The core team is composed of Laura and Sebastian, who have been thinking about this idea long enough to invest their savings and spare time into actually building it. We were joined by the brilliant Pontus Lundén (The Westport Independent) for art and by the amazing Retro Brothers (of Easily Embarassed fame) for music- OS: Ubuntu 12++
- Processor: Intel Core 2. 2 GHzMemory: 4 GB RAM
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 5th Generation
- Storage: 4 GB available space
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