072 - Lil' Guardsman, While Waiting, & Papers, Please - Underplayed

Episode Transcript
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(00:05):
Thank you for pressing start on episode 72 of Underplayed, KZUMS
indie video game podcast. Today we have two secret games,
followed by a review of our featured game papers, please.

(00:28):
Here on Underlayed we review indie games of all kinds, the
games with small budgets but bighearts, the lesser known
exeriences with imaginative ideas.
I'm Bo Poe, but it's not only me.
There's a guy with a flow who's on a journey.
So won't you put your hands together please?
For the Zeo Drifter, the indie game Sifter, the Curse, Kraken,

(00:52):
Mr. Disco Cola, What is going on?
I'm just passing through today. I should only be here for the
day, maybe less, but I'm ready to go.
Got my notes and all my documents here.
How are you? I'm doing just fine.
My asylum seeking work pass carrying polio vaccine.
Certified diplomat. Those are references to our

(01:13):
featured game papers please. The game from Lucas Pope that's
over 10 years old. It's one of those older.
Games. I thought it was even older than
that honestly. I looked up this game on Steam
and you know when you look at a game in your Steam library and
you can see announcements and updates from the developer about
it? I click on this game in my

(01:34):
library and I see that update stream and one of the most
recent updates said Papers Please is 10 years old.
Wow. I was like, wow, it's ten.
Look at the date that update wasfrom August of 2023.
OK, so originally came out in 2013, I believe, which is super

(01:55):
cool. I like dipping back in time and
and, you know, talking about these really classic games that
a lot of people know. So that will be our featured
review later in the episode. And here at the top, we have a
couple of topics to discuss. Actually, there's something
really cool. We have a first that's just
recently happened. Oh, I am really excited to hear

(02:17):
this little story. Yeah, my oldest kid, they are at
time of recording just about to turn 5, got their first trophy.
It was in the game, everything from our last episode, Amazing.
And I couldn't tell you which one it was.
Some of those trophies are just kind of nonsense.
But they were playing and it popped and I'm like, gay you got

(02:41):
you got 1. They've also been playing a lot
of Donut County, but I have since earned the trophies on
every possible profile for that game, so no trophies to achieve
there. Had there not been all those
trophies earned, it's likely they would have gotten one of
those, though. Yeah.
Everything seems like one of those games where you could just
be playing it, get a trophy, andjust not even realize what you

(03:04):
were doing. It's just, whoa, what do you
like, Know any of the trophies in the list?
Like what they're? For yeah, I mean, a lot of the
ones that I'm missing are like everything finds itself in
reptiles and that you just get that for having collected 20% of
the reptiles in the game. It's it's stuff kind of like
that. So there's some sensical stuff,
like stuff that's easy to follow.

(03:24):
Right, but it could just like happen because you're pressing
buttons and you wouldn't even know it.
And what was the the elation like in the room?
What? What was the response from your
kid about? This I don't think anybody give.
I gave a damn except for myself.You're just the proud dad in the
moment. I was just like, hey, yeah,

(03:45):
nice. Well, someday they'll have their
own profile on PSN profiles. Yeah, unless they're like APC
Master Ace Knob or something, which could happen.
Probably not though. I don't think I can afford that
for them, but. You're not setting them on that
path as the PlayStation bad yet,but you never know how they'll
turn out right? You know, anything could happen.

(04:06):
Well, as per tradition, when we reach a certain milestone with
achievements and trophies, I want to play a little thing here
for your kids. So maybe your kid can listen to
this one day and, like, kind of feel a sense of accomplishment.
There you go. Yeah.
Congratulations bug. Because it wasn't a platinum
trophy. So we'll play the platinum

(04:28):
sounds at another time. Congratulations, Bug.
All that's sweet. Speaking of playing games,
that's what we're always talkingabout here, so it's always
relevant to bring this up. I've set a goal this year and
this is something I've unofficially done past years,
but I just wanted to report thatI made a list of classic and AAA

(04:50):
games I want to play in 2025. A lot of these have been in my
backlog for years. Some of them are more fresh in
my backlog, but this is a range of games that are, you know, 20
plus years old, more recent games, games that are around 10
or 15 years old, and just games that are sort of outside of the

(05:12):
indie space. And I wanted to know if you've
played any of these games or if you are interested in any of
them. There's there was a perception
for a long time with people thatknew me that I was like a retro
gamer, but that's not really true.
I have like 14 games and most ofthem were Mega Man.

(05:32):
Do you attribute that assumptionto the fact that you're just a
huge like physical collector? That and for the longest time I
just like wouldn't try anything new.
Yeah, I was. Stuck in your way?
I would yes. Exactly.
No, that's literally what I would just keep playing Mega Man
inspiro. That's fair.
And those are classic games. Yeah.
So they just assumed, oh, that'sall you play.
Yeah, I get that. But some people specialize, so

(05:54):
here's I made a list and I triedto do a range of genres.
And do I actually think I'll getto all these games this year?
Not necessary. Maybe you've been knocking out a
lot of stuff. I've been trying to, but we're
now a couple months into the year as we recorded this and
I've I've crossed a few off my list, but I'm not going at the

(06:14):
pace that I was expecting because I actually didn't quite
get as far with a game that I started that I put on my back
burner. Now I kind of ran out of steam
with it, but here's my list in alphabetical order.
So we've got Banjo Kazooie, and these are all games I've never
played. OK, you've never played banjo.
I haven't either, but I assumed you had.
No. So these are all games that are
like in my backlog, but classic and or AAA games that I want to

(06:38):
play because they're alluring tome and I recognize their
significance and their influenceon gaming.
So Banjo Kazooie, Chrono Trigger, which I've started and
I will say something about in a moment.
Dishonored 1 and 2, Ghost of Sushima, Iki Island.
This is the DLC for Ghost of Sushima, a game I loved in like
2020 and I actually finished this in January.

(07:00):
So that one's crossed off Horizon Forbidden W Burning
Shores, similar deal. It's a PlayStation first party
DLC for a game that I love already.
I just need to play this DLC Legend of Zelda Link to the
Past. I've tried to play a Link to the
pasts two or three different times and I get a little further
each time and I I put it down because I just get distracted by

(07:22):
something else. So I want to finally finish this
game. The secret of Monkey Island and
Monkey Island 2. Lechuck's Revenge.
These are classic point and click games near Automata Okami.
This is the one that I started and I ran out of steam with.
Oh, that's too bad. Yeah, I got like 8 hours in.
I'm pretty far in it, but it's like a 35 hour game.

(07:44):
Is it? I didn't know it was that long.
So I still have so much to see in this game I want to return
to. It I remember when that was
coming out and Best Buy still had like demo play games like
and Okami was one of. Them like he could sit, stand
there in the store and play. Yeah, The Outer Worlds, not
Outer Wilds. Outer Worlds.
This is the game that a lot of people mixed up with Outer Wilds

(08:06):
because it came out in the same year.
Pikmin 3, which I think I'll start in about a month's time.
I do plan on playing that one soon.
Mist, which I have finished as of the other day, I finished
Real Mist Masterpiece Edition. That was very good and it held
up and I understand its significance and why people love

(08:28):
it. That's awesome.
I really recommend that to people who like first person
puzzle games. You might really like it
actually. And then Red Dead Redemption 2.
This is a big game, many dozens of hours to to play through it.
I've never played it and I want to play that.
And then finally, Super Mario World two Yoshi's Islands.
I have that one. I've never, never played it.

(08:49):
I think I've maybe I've played the DS follow up Yoshi's Island
DS and for years I thought it was a DS port.
Like a one to one copy? There's extra stuff, yeah.
I think it's a largely different.
Game is it. And so I want to play the
original through like the SwitchNintendo online subscription.

(09:10):
I have it. I haven't beaten it, but for the
longest time my grandmother had it at her place and anytime I
was there I would play it and itwas the one I loved the most.
So for a little while there it was a grail for me.
And I did. I did eventually pick it up on
the SNES. It's one of those ones that a
lot of people have at least likeseen or.

(09:30):
It's have tried. I think it's really fun.
I think it's a completionist nightmare, but it's really fun.
And I'm, I'm just going to plan on finishing it.
Not going for 100%. That's the case with a lot of
these. So yeah, I've finished the DLC
for Ghost of Sushima and Mist and I've started Okami and I've
also started Chrono Trigger. I'm, that's the one I'm playing
when I have free time now. So Chrono Trigger, what I wanted

(09:53):
to say is in just five hours or so, I already see so much
inspiration that Sea of Stars had from it.
And it, you know how we talked about Sea of Stars having
different styles of aesthetics and even like time periods and
just, yeah, just visual styles going on.

(10:14):
A lot of that is already going on in Chrono Trigger.
Like I'll just say aesthetics that you don't chase and also
aesthetics that you would reallydig happening in very close
proximity. Yeah, that doesn't.
I know a little about Chrono Trigger.
Mostly I know kind of what it looks like, but that doesn't
surprise me. Yeah, So it holds up.

(10:36):
It's really good. It's got more active turn based
combat than I expected. It's actually less like Sea of
Stars in that way, where your attacks refresh pretty quickly
and you choose what to do, but while you're choosing what to
do, you can be attacked. So it's kind of this halfway
point between active and turn based that I kind of like.

(10:59):
It can be a little chaotic and stressful.
But like probably not quite as chaotic as like a Mega Man
battle network which is still kind of turn based, but.
Also because I I've never reallyplayed those, but yeah,
probably. Yeah, OK.
So just wanted to say I'm doing that and maybe closer to the end
of the year, I'll, I'll check inwith you again about those.

(11:20):
But do you have any like? I mean, I've got a lot that are
always on the back burner. I've got tons of physical copies
of stuff that I are just sittingon my shelves.
But I mean if I had to pick some.
Recently the next Digimon game was announced and I'm super
hyped about that because the trailer had Titam on and AG Oman

(11:40):
which means the Olympus 12 Digimon.
So Diana Mon that that Digimon that I gifted you would be in
the game and I guess she was in the last one anyway.
But all of the ones that are in the same team which I've been
waiting for forever because I'm so sick of the Royal Knights.
I know this doesn't mean a damn thing to you.
I kind of get it because it's like they can't always include

(12:02):
everything in one release so. This, but the one thing they
tend to always include is the damn Royal Knights and I'm.
So over it now they're taking a step back, I hope.
Yeah. OK.
And this is this is the next Digimon Story game.
So it's sort of a follow up to Cyber Sleuth, which you played
and really likes. Yes, yeah, that's probably if
you're never played a Digimon game, that's probably your

(12:25):
safest bet is to play the Cyber Sleuth games.
That's the one that I see peopletalk about when people bring up
Digimon. Anything.
I see people talk about Cyber Sleuth specifically.
I think like story wise personally it's kind of boring
and long winded but like that Digimon selection man is and the

(12:46):
digivolve system, it's so good. But other than that, the thing
that I've been the most interested in recently is trying
to play the old Sonic games. I've never beaten any of them
and my kids are really into Sonic right now.
Oh. Yeah.
Interesting. Yeah, Sonic's an very old
property. It's been around for decades.
How do they get attached to Sonic?

(13:08):
Is it through? Through the movies, yeah.
So one of the 1st movies I ever took a bug to, not the first,
but one of the first was Sonic 3.
And so they talk about Shadow and and spoiler thing at the
end. And now that it's hit streaming
recently, we've watched Sonic 3 like everyday.
So I kind of want to get the oldSonic games up on the TV.

(13:31):
I think they're kind of hard andI'm very sure that my kids will
struggle with them. But I've I have them and I
wanted to play them for like 20 years.
I just am bad at them. Do you have like the like old
media versions of them or do youhave collections?
I don't have a Genesis, but I dohave a collection on PS2 that
has a lot of Sonic games and then I also have the Sonic

(13:53):
Origins collection on PS4, so I like have it multiple times
over. I love how they've collected.
That stuff over the years, it just makes it easier to jump
back in. And I don't think I've ever
beaten one of those old school Sonic games, but I used to play
the same few levels in, I don't know if it was Sonic one or two.
Back when I was in elementary school, I went to a rec center

(14:15):
after school every day and they had old game system set up and
kids would just take turns playing the same levels over and
over. So I've seen those first few
zones a couple times and the game would always be reset the
next day. Of course we wouldn't keep a
save file going, you know, So fun stuff and it always kind of
intimidated me. Yeah, I played a lot of Sonic 3D

(14:35):
Blast and I got close. I think my brother Quoka beat
that one. My brother Quoka beat a bunch of
Sonic games. He loved Sonic for a really long
time. Nice.
So yeah, just I was always more of a Mario kid myself.
That's a good list. I hope you can get to those when
it makes sense. Apologies if you're an indie
purist and didn't want to hear about our our mainstream BS.

(14:57):
Who are these guys, the posers? Oh my gosh, let's just quit now.
No, instead we're going to move on.
But before we do, if you're listening to Underplayed right
now, thank you so much. If you haven't already, give us
a follow and a five star rating on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
That would only take a few seconds and it would really help

(15:19):
us. And if you have a friend who
likes indie games, share a podcast with them too.
We would love if you would help us get the word out about
underplayed. It is time for our secret games.
Secret games. Secret games.
I know you're playing without me.
Secret games. Well, I'm here to tell you baby.
Secret games. I've been playing too.

(15:41):
Secret Games, Secret Games, We each review an indie game we've
been playing recently, and we don't talk about what we're
going to review ahead of time. So I don't know what Disco Cole
is going to review in a moment. He doesn't know what I'm going
to review. And I know you're playing
without me. And we're always playing without
each other. And any indie game can be chosen

(16:04):
to review as long as we haven't talked about it on the show
before. So we'll start with you, Disco
Cola. Let the mystery be no more.
Reveal your secret game for Episode 72.
I want to do something we haven't done yet.
OK. You know, I like to do the
synergy thing. Yeah.
Is this part of the recording? Right now I like to do the
synergy thing. I haven't done a great job of it

(16:25):
this season. Some of the synergies have been
pretty weak. Not the case this episode.
There is one game that synergizes like incredibly well
with Papers Please. So I kind of want you to try and
guess my game. OK, am I allowed to ask
questions? Let's keep it to like one or

(16:46):
two. One or two.
OK. Is it like, so I assume it's
like a simulation game where you're looking at people's
information. Is that a question?
That's my question. That's one of the questions.
Yes, it is that. OK, can I ask another question?
Yes. Is it a game that came out in

(17:08):
the last, like let's say 3 or 4 years?
Yes. Oh, OK.
More recent game, yes. Oh, I wonder if it's like a
dystopian thriller. There's one that takes place.
I'm trying to think of a game that takes place on like a
computer screen where you're processing information.
There's a lot of games like that, but OK, So did it come out

(17:33):
like in the last year? Yes.
Oh, it did. Yes.
Oh, there was one. I've, oh, I've seen people
stream. What's it called?
Oh gosh, it's like more cartoony.
Hold on, I'm almost there. You're going to get it.
It's like little, not I'm Why amI thinking of tiny Bookshop?

(17:54):
Why do I keep thinking of that little, little Guardsman?
My secret game is from Hilltop Studios.
It's called Little Guardsman. Yeah, that's my secret game.
I'm bringing a basket of baked Kutch to my family.
She's not doing any of the things we told her to do.
We couldn't have been more clear.

(18:16):
She's supposed to be enforcing martial law.
You're sending me to jail and the children's birthday party
magician, increasing my sphere of influence.
The Princess goes missing and all of a sudden there's a no
goblins order. I forget what I told her to do,
but I think it involved somebody's pet.
I confess I was smuggling illegal Pixie dust inside the

(18:39):
dead cat. How do we get it through her
thick skull that she's supposed to be listening to us?
I am listening. Did you forget I was here again?
Oh, amazing. I've so I've seen this game
quite a bit. Yeah, I've seen several people
stream this. Yeah.
And yeah, please keep going. Sorry.
That's all I want to say. So yeah, Lil Guardsman is a

(19:02):
point and click choices matter. Papers, Please Like starring the
titular Lil, which in this case is short for Lilith.
At the beginning of Lil Guardsmen, we as Lil have a
conversation with our father andhe is asking us to cover his
shift at the guard shed at the castle gate so that our father
can instead head to the stadium and place bets on a goblin ball

(19:26):
game. As everybody.
Does, of course. Why?
Why else would you cover for your dad at work?
Dude, I would love to watch somegoblin ball.
You kidding me? It is then we go to the shed.
We get a quick orientation and learn how to approve or deny
those seeking to enter the Kingdom of the Sprawl.
Little Guardsman gives us something like 12 levels and in

(19:48):
each one we will meet up to fiveto eight people seeking to get
into the sprawl. Sorry, I can we have a getaway
from the sprawl? I just keep thinking of that.
Living in the sprawl. 10 job in miles.
Please tell me that plays duringthe crowd.
That would be dope. But anyways, in each level we'll

(20:12):
meet 5 to 8 people seeking to get into the sprawl.
So in that case, it's a little bit different from papers,
please. And that your ability to get
through people is based on how fast you work.
These are a set number of people.
OK, there's. No randomization with the
people. Right.
Well, no, not randomization, no.With each person we will have

(20:35):
three actions we can perform, and these actions include
interrogation, which is simply asking a predetermined question
about their intentions in the Sprawl.
This is one of the actions we can use more than once for each
character. Other actions include the
ability to call the princess's advisors.
These advisors play a big role in the story.

(20:59):
Hey, this is Disco Cola coming at you.
Well, after the recording, I'm about to talk about a character
in Little Guardsmen. I refer to her as General
Striker. General Striker is not General
Striker, She is Lieutenant Striker, Captain of the Guard.
I don't know a lot about military ranks, but I do know

(21:22):
that Lieutenant and General are different words.
So whenever I say General Striker, just pretend I said
Lieutenant Striker, Captain of the Guard.
OK, back to the episode. So we have Stryker, a general in
the military, Ash, a high class politician, and Malcolm, a truly

(21:47):
chaotic neutral moron. And you can call each one of
these to get their take on the person at the gate.
And then another action you can use is the tools you have access
to. An X-ray scanner, a metal
detector, truth spray, a decoderring and a bullwhip.
I'm already seeing some similarities here with papers,

(22:09):
please, with the different toolswe get, yeah.
And then these tools, they run on energy.
So you only at the beginning of a level, you'll get 3 charges to
put into your tools however you want.
And then if your tools run out of those charges, you don't get
to use that tool for the remainder of the level.
However, you also get to carry the unused charges to the next

(22:31):
level. So in general, tools are going
to be your most useful action items, which is why the game
sort of nudges you to be strategic about their use.
And then based on what you learnin these action items, you can
either approve deny entry, or eventually you can send them to
jail. Depending on some of your

(22:51):
decisions. You'll affect the impending
marriage of the Princess Revolutions, as well as a war
that starts during the game. So different endings I assume.
Are in store I? As far as I can tell, yes.
The what is considered an endingis interesting to me and I
haven't explored that a lot. Now.

(23:13):
Additionally, if you don't like some of the choices you made,
you also have access to a special and experimental time
travel device. In practice, this is basically
like a level select or a sub level select, but it does also
play a pivotal role in the story.
This is something you're gifted near the beginning of the game
and just changes from a tool that you can use as an excuse to

(23:36):
replay the stuff and becomes a story item.
Oh, OK. And then in between shifts at
the guard shed, you will be ableto visit certain parts of the
sprawl and meet different inhabitants, as well as some of
the people that you let through the gate.
So some of your interactions here will also have ripple
effects on how the story unfolds, even between levels.
So this is where we're departingfrom papers, please a little bit

(23:59):
in that you have these in between moments of doing this
job. And I saw this on stream.
I I feel like I saw lots of morecutscene like moments where
there's a lot of dialogue and you're getting a whole room of
people talking. Yep, you can get some
exposition. You can get some more character
depth. You can also upgrade your items

(24:19):
in between levels and buy charges based on how much gold
you happen to make, but that does it I think for the most
part as far as like gameplay andstuff.
So I'll move on to what I like about Little Guardsmen up first
coming as no surprise. I really love the art direction.
It's like a really great cartoonand I think all the character

(24:42):
designs are really solid and unique, and it just makes
everyone, even the more minor characters, that much more
memorable. In this game, you can make
choices that will negatively affect your level rating, but
might ultimately lead to a better outcome for The Sprawl,
or at least maybe by your own standards is a better outcome.

(25:02):
And this is because your score is mostly based on whether you
followed the directives given toyou by the three main advisors.
But maybe their intentions are not always what a player like
myself would consider Just so I get to use that contrarian
nature of mine. And that's, that's just really
satisfying. You can.
You were. You were just not following any

(25:23):
direction. Yeah, I mean, sometimes I'm just
like, oh, I'm supposed to deny entry to all goblins?
Not me, baby. Yeah.
So I don't do that. That sounds like what we do in
papers. Please, it sure does.
But my score, like in papers, please, takes a hit.
And yeah, I just I don't really get a practice that contrarian

(25:45):
stuff in any meaningful way in my actual life.
So it's it's satisfying to play that out in the game.
And sometimes, you know, being acontrarian leads to cool story
moments. The game does this really cool
thing to set you up for each shift at the shed.
So like the interlude in betweenshifts might give hints at what
your choices ultimately result in from your previous shift, as

(26:06):
well as might be important coming up.
So that paired with the bulletinposted up in the shed, each
shift clues you into like the intentions of the advisors.
And all of this helps because people will show up that we're
supposed to be expecting, so we know what action item to use on
them, if any. In some cases, we just let them

(26:27):
through and then if we get another character seeking entry,
but we're unsure of where to start with our action items, we
can kind of do a bit of a vibe check with them, like based on
what we've learned in that interlude and the bulletin.
So if this character has this moronic or chaotic vibe, maybe
we'll call Malcolm. Maybe that's a great place to

(26:47):
start. Or if they're speaking with a
more affluent voice, we'll call Ash.
And so that's sort of like we get the vibe check.
And I think, I think that's a really fun way to like clue me
in with subtext with what I'm supposed.
To yeah, you're not always usingexplicit written information and
facts that are presented to you.You're using your gut.
You're using your intuition, you're using these context

(27:10):
clues. Yeah.
Like Chris Tales from a few episodes ago, this game is fully
voice acted, even more so than Chris Tales was.
This can allow us to take that vibe check even further because
we get that pitch and inflectionfrom the characters that allow
us to maybe be a bit more skeptical or a bit more trusting
at times. That's not always the case

(27:31):
though, as pretty much everyone has what they call a a character
voice. So pretty much everything
everyone is saying is pretty exaggerated.
But you know, you you still can kind of get the vibe check.
And I do want to shout out a couple of specific voice
performances here that I thoughtwere especially good compared to
the rest Striker and Malcolm, because I felt their voice

(27:53):
performances were particularly good and really matched their
characters the best. So.
Yeah, every time I watched someone stream this game again,
I had several friends streaming on Twitch.
I was just really impressed withhow good the voices were
throughout in my opinion. Like so many distinct voices
that just tell a lot about that character through how they are

(28:16):
enunciating. And I Co wrote an article with
our friend Emily from No Small Games while back.
It was 15 indie game trends thatwe noticed throughout 2024.
And one of the trends we wrote about was unexpectedly
phenomenal voice acting games where you look at them and they

(28:37):
might be a little simple on the surface, they might be a little
unassuming. But the more you listen to the
characters, the more you realizethey have very distinct stories
to tell. And the voice acting
performances are just off the charts.
And I, I, this game was in that list.
Cool. And then for most of the game,
for me at least, the humor hits mostly in the post level

(28:58):
breakdown and how certain actions affect certain
characters. So like after each level, we'll
get a little bit of flavor text of what happened to each
character or what each characterdid after we approved or denied
them, you know? And even then sometimes we can
confiscate or give items to certain characters and that will
trigger a dialogue that can be unique and pretty funny.

(29:18):
So for the most part, at least for me, the the humor hit nice.
And then Speaking of dialogues, this is more of like, I'm
impressed by it is that there's just like so much work going
into the game here, each character seeking entry and
there there are a lot of them will have some sort of reaction

(29:38):
built into the game for each of our tools.
Wow. Or 3:00-ish levels of
interrogation and then dialoguesfor Malcolm Ashe and Striker
each. So there's a lot of dialogue.
There's a lot of dialogue written in the game and I'm
never going to see all of it, but it's it's really very
impressive how much they put into that.
And I love games where you and Icould each spend a handful of

(30:01):
hours playing it, and we'll eachhear different things.
Yeah. Totally.
Just just with like interrogation alone.
Like you can do that up to threetimes with each character, but
I'll probably only do it like once for most characters.
But if you go three times with some of them, it goes to crazy
places and you wouldn't expect it.
I feel like a lot of streamers that I watched would exhaust all

(30:24):
those options because you might feel remiss not doing that,
especially when you're showing the game to lots of people.
A lot of people in your community are watching it.
They might want to get every angle of the story and that gets
them more involved sometimes. But you were still able to make
it through even though you didn't always want to do.
That Yeah, well, I found myself like leaning on the truth spray

(30:44):
a lot because that kind of skipsthe line a little bit.
You get to find. Out what's going on?
Not always the case. Sounds like what I would use
too. Yeah, yeah.
As far as dislikes, I don't usually like choices matter
games because it makes it that much harder to see all the game
has to offer, or maybe because those games will frequently
present multiple forks in the road that actually have very

(31:07):
little consequence on the ending.
So for the longest time, I really was actually enjoying the
choices matter aspect, surprisingly, mainly because I
got to enact my contrarian nature.
But once I got to around chapter8 or 9, it did really start to
be too much. It seemed like every third thing

(31:27):
I did gave me the notification that this would affect the
sprawl in some way. And so when you have that
notification coming up so many times, it's impossible to know
like which detail made which change where because there's so
much. It happens so much at a certain
point. Next, while the game does a

(31:48):
great job of setting up the vibefor each character, like I
mentioned, some of the things you have to do to get like a
four-star rating on that character are not always
intuitive. It can be kind of guess and
checky. So I'll have someone come up and
I'm not expecting them. I've got no directive to keep
them out. They're not giving off a
specific vibe. So I'll I'll just kind of guess

(32:09):
with like the metal detector since I haven't really used it
in a while. And then I'll still, I still
won't learn much. And maybe what I was supposed to
do was interrogate them twice and then use a decoder ring?
But how would you know? That How would I know that?
Yeah, yeah. So some of them don't give you
much to work with. To get 100% it might feel like
you have to look up a guide. I will have to look up a guide
and I used a guide for part of it.

(32:31):
I did play every character through at least once as I would
have without a guide, but then if I was feeling like I could
get the four-star rating withoutaffecting a story that I wanted
to achieve, I would start the level over and and get the four
stars. That does mean that there are
about 3 levels that I don't havefour stars on because I wanted

(32:52):
the path that had, neglecting the the rules.
Yeah, makes sense. You want to.
You want to preserve that contrarian.
Nature. Yes, exactly.
And then my really my only othercomplaint is a little bit about
the voice acting. Like there is an impressive
amount of work going on here, but in my opinion some of the
prominently featured characters don't necessarily have the most

(33:14):
stellar performance. But more specifically, and maybe
this is too nitpicky for some people, but I think the vocal
recording quality doesn't match across the board.
Like 1 character's VO tracks will seem to have some like room
noise where another might sound overcompressed, and then many
minor characters will just have really great quality with no

(33:36):
issues at all. Makes you wonder if they
recorded in different situations.
I'm fairly certain that's the case, which is great.
You know that if you're going tolive in the age of the Internet,
where you can prevent people from having to commute to do a
job, like, I'm all for that. But yeah, I don't know, maybe
I'm imagining, but it seemed like there was like a difference
in sound quality across different characters.

(33:59):
Yeah, I didn't notice that ever,but I did not see close to this
whole game. So there are entire characters I
I didn't see. And I think that comes with like
playing with headphones on and Ididn't stream this of course.
So I don't have like the volume turned down sounds.
Like yeah, it. Was really in my ears.
But ultimately though, Lil Guardsman was an overall pretty
enjoyable experience. I think there are a couple of

(34:21):
small QC things here and there that would improve the game.
And I think the game could be about two chapters shorter so
that I could get a better idea of what actions are affecting
what a little bit easier. And if it were just a little bit
shorter, I would have been able to stay invested a lot easier
because I was I was really invested for a large majority of
the game. Like I I thought about the game

(34:43):
a lot when I wasn't playing it. I wanted to see what happened
with the goblins and the princess's marriage.
I just, I really wanted to see what would happen.
But after a while it was just like too much, but I did I did
like this game. It's a fun, interactive and
slightly mature cartoon. And I love, I love cartoons.
So I'm still going to give Little Guardsman a nine point O

(35:05):
out of 10. Nice.
So as you're going through here,I'm curious, just because I'm
thinking about papers, please. In fact, I pulled up the trailer
for this game. One of the top comments under
the video on YouTube is this game is like Papers Please if it
turned into a Cartoon Network fantasy show.
And based on what I've seen and heard, it kind of does sound

(35:27):
accurate. And since I'm thinking about
Papers Please, which is a game that makes us make really hard
decisions, I'm curious, like, without spoiling anything, if
possible, what were the decisions in this game that were
hardest for you? Or what were the decisions that
made you really take a pause? I, I alluded to it, but pretty
much anything involving goblins that counsel the powers that be

(35:49):
very racist, like they're, well,maybe they're not, but their
policies are very racist. And so I'm supposed to reject
like pretty much anything that'snot human.
Like that is my directive. So those were, I mean,
simultaneously those were easy and hard decisions to make
because I knew that, you know, my score would be affected.
But I just I knew because that these directives were unjust,

(36:13):
that if I let them through, I would see something that I
wanted to see. There'd be a reward, not
necessarily something given to Lil like, you know, in the form
of a payment, but there'd be something that was really
fulfilling for you. Yeah.
And in the back of my mind this whole time, I know that
eventually there will be a war in this game.

(36:35):
And so I don't necessarily know if I am letting in, you know,
people that will ultimately start a war.
I'm pretty sure I'm not. But yeah, that is in the back of
my mind the whole time I'm in. War.
You have enemies and you also have allies.
Yeah, and so you want. And you also have victims, yes,
so. Yeah, people caught in the

(36:55):
crossfire and people targeted. Interesting.
So those were both simultaneously easy and hard
decisions to make. Another thing you pointed out,
which, you know, I immediately agree with, is that the designs
of the characters are great. And I remember some of the
clothing choices for characters and even just like, their

(37:16):
posture, their facial expressions, all that stuff told
a story. And sometimes someone would be
telling you a story, but even what they're wearing might be
telling you the exact opposite. I remember chat calling that
out, and it's like, I won't spoil any of it, but that was
always so fun because you're using another clue available to
you, using visuals to make an inference about these people,

(37:39):
too. Yeah, I think that's just so
cool. This is maybe in the running to
be a jealous game of mine, I think.
You'd like it. Yeah.
I think you you might, you mightlike it more than me.
It's one of those ones. How about how long is it?
You know, I lost track of how long I was playing.
It was like I probably played itfor like 16 or 17 hours.

(38:04):
How long to beat little Guardsmen?
It took me longer than how long to beat has it.
OK, well how long to beat has itfor the main story at 8 hours or
so. Maybe I I don't know that I
doubled it, but I'd I played it for quite a while.
OK cool. Well awesome.
Where can you play Little Guardsmen as well?
All right, according to backlogged, which I found out

(38:24):
lists everything is available on.
With accuracy. Is probably more accurate than
Google Home screen, so I'm goingto say yes.
Well, Guardsman is available on PC, Mac, PlayStation 4,
PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Switch,and Xbox Series X&S.
And you played it on PlayStation?
I played the PlayStation five version but with it also came

(38:48):
the PS4 version so I might go through and get double double
stacks. Oh, nice, very cool.
Well, it is time for my secret game.
My secret game is, you know, kind of similar to Papers,
please, where there's some seemingly mundane things going
on, but then there's more going on that makes it exciting and

(39:08):
interesting. I guess that's something that
you can find in my game, but I didn't try to create that
synergy. My secret game is a newer one.
It's called Wall Waiting. This game is for everyone, every
being. Plants are alive too, right?

(39:28):
And everything, Even a skeleton I guess.
Oh, I know this one. So yeah, While Waiting is a 2025
comedy adventure game. It was developed and published

(39:50):
by Optalusian Games. The game synopsis from the Steam
Storefront reads quote. Presented by the team behind
critically acclaimed Mon Cage, this is a transformative
adventure exploring the art of waiting.
Clear the game by doing nothing but discover the power of
acceptance and patience in numerous situations from birth

(40:10):
to death. Learn to embrace life as you
wait. End Quote.
I also want to thank Opt Illusion Games for gifting me a
key to this game. So this is actually a game I did
stream. I didn't play the whole game on
stream. I played about 80% of it on
stream and then I finished it off stream.
Saw a little bit of that myself.Yes, but you know, I've I've

(40:31):
been playing more and more secret games on stream, but you
don't always know which. Ones I don't, there's you pick,
there's one that you streams that I already know is not a
secret game for the season. You know, I actually went back
and forth on several games to pick for this episode.
I ended up going with while waiting because it was so fresh
on my mind and I think there's alot more going on here than

(40:51):
first meets the eye. If you watch the trailer.
So this is a third person adventure.
You control a guy throughout hisentire life.
Each level focuses on a time in his life where he's waiting.
I don't think this guy is named.So it's just a guy.
These times where you're waitingcan be for large things like a

(41:12):
graduation ceremony or a wedding, but many levels focus
on the minuscule moments of lifewhere we spend our time just
waiting. Times where you're maybe more
prone to just not really doing anything.
Waiting for the bus, waiting forclass to end, waiting to fall

(41:33):
asleep. These are some examples.
That's my least favorite one. There's a whole level about it.
Oh, nightmare. There are actually a couple
levels that take place during the night when you're either
just trying to fall asleep or you're eagerly anticipating.
Something so bad at sleeping. There's one where you're just
like trying to fall asleep, but there's also one where you're a
kid waiting for Santa to show up, you know, so you can't

(41:55):
really go to sleep. You can't focus on it.
And there are 100 levels, and they truly span an entire life.
The first level, in fact, is youas a spirit waiting to be born.
You're in line as like a little ghosty spirit thing.
And you can kind of cut in line and bump people off the bridge
and they fall into the clouds below and you see earth and

(42:17):
you're just like waiting to get to the the front of the line so
you can be born. And then you can imagine where
the end of this game goes since it spans an entire life as well.
Each level is around 3 to 5 minutes long on average.
Once the time for the level elapses, we move on to the next
level. So the game is always pushing
you forward. You're not even like pressing a

(42:37):
button to select A level. It's just once a level ends,
transition time, you go to the next 1.
And in each level, we're gettinga little bit older, and there
are various acts to the game too.
So you can take all the levels in here and categorize them into
childhood, college, early adulthood, middle age and old

(42:59):
age. And you can play this entire
game by doing absolutely nothing.
I think it was a maybe a couple episodes ago.
It might have been last episode,actually.
You mentioned appreciating gamesthat don't necessarily require
your tactile attention. You know, obviously you like
tactile. Probably was with everything.
Yes, I think that's where you did say it.

(43:20):
And so this is an example of that where you can put the
controller down every so often if you want, and you can just
let the game time elapse and youwill make progress in the game.
But every level also has miscellaneous tasks.
And this is actually where I think the the game is hiding a
huge part of it in its marketingmaterials.

(43:41):
Like you get the general goal for a level, which is wait for
the bus, and you could do nothing.
But every level has a notebook page with vague hints about
miscellaneous tasks, and when you do them you get a sticker in
the notebook page and it feels alot like Untitled Goose Game
tasks. An example of this is there's a

(44:03):
level where you wait for the rain to stop outside of a shop,
but there's a sticker called Watch Out.
And if you get splashed by a cardriving by the the car splashes
the puddle and you get all wet, you get the watch out sticker.
So the stickers are never explicitly explaining what
you're supposed to do, but usingcontext clues, you can figure it
out. And because the levels are so

(44:24):
brief, you often only have a moment to figure out what you
want to do. Maybe you want to go for some of
those miscellaneous things. Maybe you can't quite figure
them all out, so you just wait, and then you'll never do those
things again. You're on to the next level.
So it to me, it kind of feels like a warrior wear game.
Yeah, but it's a lot slower in Warrior where you're playing all

(44:46):
these mini games for like 3 seconds.
Yeah, it's like three to five. Yeah, it's crazy fast.
In this, it's a little bit elongated.
It's stretched out. You're doing miscellaneous thing
after miscellaneous thing. You're always playing with a
different gameplay idea. Maybe you're on a remote control
controlling the TV and you can play a game of Snake for a
second. Or like some of the examples I

(45:08):
mentioned already, and in many of the levels we walk around,
sometimes we see things in the first person, sometimes we use
our hands and interact with objects.
And every level also has a fidget item that you can click
over and over. So there's a dedicated button on
your controller, we can just tapit over and over.
And this little fidget item, maybe it's a pen you click will

(45:30):
show up in the corner and it will, you'll just play with it.
So you can just sit there tapping a button and the game
knows you're doing that. And this, this is a game about a
life. So it does have a story and it
has connecting threads throughout the game.
There are family members, there are friends that show up again
and again. But the entire game is

(45:51):
speechless. And this game relies heavily on
these hand drawn graphics and text on screen to guide you
through. So here's what I liked about
while waiting. This game centers around a
philosophy that so much of our lives is about waiting, yet we
don't really think about that a lot.

(46:12):
At least, I don't. I don't think about how much
time I spend every day, every week waiting.
This is a game that asks us to pay attention to that idea, and
it made me reflect on that. While there's seemingly little
to do, there's actually a lot ofchoice in how you spend your
time. Do you do nothing?
Do you try to make the most of it?
Do you try to understand those tasks and the tasks at a touch

(46:35):
of imagination and magical realism to the world they
celebrate the perspective we might have about our lives.
When I'm waiting for something to happen, it's a chance for me
to maybe Daydream or to, you know, imagine a little
creativity in that moments. And so in the past couple weeks

(46:56):
since playing this game, it's actually made me think about
waiting more and how I use my time.
So I think that's really powerful.
I don't think a lot of games have made me feel that way.
The sticker tasks are also so impressively diverse.
There are dozens and dozens of gameplay ideas in wall waiting.
Some examples of things you do in this game.

(47:18):
There is a moment where you're stargazing.
There's a constellation of starsand you can connect stars to
make a picture for the person that you're with.
And then your character, your guy will like pretend like they
know everything about constellations and the.
I think he's on a date or something.
And the his date is just like, Oh yeah, OK, OK, you know, but
you're just making random shapeswith these stars.

(47:38):
There's a minesweeper game in a forest where you're looking for
your missing underpants. I will not expound on that any
further, but I've just never done.
That in the game I've done that,you know, in real life,
searching for my underwear in the forest.
It's a documentary game about disco call.
There's a there's a Sokoban sliding block puzzle where you
use a member of your family as amovable obstacle to get yourself

(48:02):
across ice. Just really interesting ideas
all over this game. This game is bursting with ideas
and I really commend the game for that.
In many cases the levels convey these complex ideas with very
simple visual metaphors too. This game talks about so many
topics in life. One of them is love.

(48:23):
We have a girlfriend that we eventually break up with, and
then she's our ex and our character is trying to forget
her. And the way the game visualizes
this is there's a version of ourguy in his mind as like a window
washer, and he's trying to eraseher image, but it keeps coming
back up. So that's just showing us a lot.

(48:44):
It's telling us a lot through what it's showing us.
This game is funny. It has a really modest, clever
wit to it. They're these just really simple
visual jokes that are going on all over the place.
We get to see how differently some life events look depending
on how old we are too. There are several levels about

(49:05):
waiting for the ball to drop on New Year's Eve.
When we're a kid waiting for theball to drop on New Year's Eve,
that looks a lot different than when we're a busy adults waiting
for the ball to drop on New Year's Eve.
And so through repetition, sometimes this game is really
blunt with how life changes depending on how old you are.

(49:26):
And it's one of those games where I can just sit here and I
can keep remembering thing afterthing that happens.
Even within one level, so many things can happen and each
levels like 5 or less minutes long, so it's hard to remember
everything that happens. This game is jam packed 100
levels with multiple things going on in each.
I also like the use of classicalmusic throughout.

(49:48):
It adds an elegance to the game.It fits the concept of waiting
too. It feels like the soundtrack
that you'd hear in a waiting room.
OK, but then it also contrasts really well with the humor too.
You've got this elegant music and this sort of goofy,
slapsticky stuff going on too. I'm thinking of a secret game
that you played several seasons ago, inspired by like Monty

(50:12):
Python. Oh yeah.
That I kind of get the same vibefrom that game.
Yes, that is a really good observation.
I would compare it to that. This game is not as violence and
vulgar. Probably, yeah.
I would expect the humor is way different.
This game is much more appropriate for all ages.

(50:32):
But that use of like music. Yes, the humor in this game kind
of reminds me of a more all agesappropriate version of Thank
Goodness you're Here too. Thank goodness You're here has
very like, you know, crude humor.
This this game is appropriate for all ages.
But it's that that kind of humorwhere it's really simple.
It's cartoony, but you know, thejokes are just flying.

(50:54):
A lot of them are visual. It's kind of universal because
of it. Yes, I think anybody can play
this game and get the humor, getthe story, and I love games
where anybody can play it. Anybody who speaks any language
could play this and kind of understand it.
Some dislikes I had for this game mainly had to do with
controls. Every single scenario uses a

(51:16):
handful of inputs differently, and sometimes the controls
aren't so intuitive. So you'll you'll use the same
buttons over and over in this game.
But because every single miscellaneous task and activity
imagines the controls a little bit differently, you're doing
this learning step of OK, how does this miscellaneous thing
work? Sometimes you have to use the
analog stick in weird ways or the D pad in certain ways, and

(51:39):
it's not explains to you and youhave to play around to figure it
out. And there are so many things in
this game that I just did not figure out because the time was
so limited. Some things just aren't
communicated well. Some things I just didn't get,
and I think that's bound to happen in a game with hundreds
of ideas. Some things just aren't going to

(52:00):
hit, and that's the case here. Movement can sometimes be really
slow, especially when you control a hand.
You'll sometimes go into the first person and you're just
seeing your hands, you know, moving things across a bulletin
board or on a table and just themovement of your hand is so
painfully slow. And I, I have to imagine this is
a conscious choice to just really drive home the fact that

(52:23):
we're in a game about waiting, but a hand wouldn't actually
move that slow. You're actually making me want
this to be over with a little bit sooner.
So I wish some things were a little bit faster.
And then hit boxes and boundaries for things are
sometimes unclear where you're controlling a hand.
Sometimes maybe you need to like, poke something or tap a

(52:45):
button, and just where you're actually supposed to click your
finger isn't precisely tunes, probably.
Because they're playing with perspective, but what you think
is the right point of perspective is actually above or
something. Yeah.
And so you're clicking on the thing and it's not working and
then you move it a little bit and now you can click it.
So I think they could have just made the hit boxes for these

(53:06):
things bigger and I don't think that would have subtracted
anything. And some of the levels are just
asking for vague behavior. And I couldn't figure out an
entire level sometimes. And I'm sitting there trying and
trying and trying. And then the time for the level
is elapsed and I it just moves on and I just go, oh, I guess I
didn't get that one time for thenext level.
So that happens a couple times throughout for me.

(53:28):
And then finally the last acts when you're the oldest, it wraps
up pretty abruptly. I would have liked more levels
and ideas when we're in our older years, and I think knowing
how long, like potentially how many years the last act covers,
I think there was maybe some potential for more.
But maybe the game is also saying something there.

(53:50):
I just kind of wanted to see more at the end.
So overall, while Waiting is so much more than meets the eye, it
is a comical and poignant journey through an entire life
that left me feeling full. The controls can be a little
frustrating and it's tough for every level to be a winner, but
there's no shortage of ideas here.

(54:11):
I am going to give this game an 8 out of 10.
All right, and. It's playable on PC which is the
version I played Mac and Switch.Cool.
I don't have a lot of questions because I think you explained it
all really well. And I did notice that a lot of
the different tasks would obviously be mapped differently

(54:32):
with different control layouts. So no questions there as far as
like what do you do? Because you just do what you
can. But I guess what I do have is an
anecdote is that I, I haven't thought about how much waiting I
do, but I did the other night goout to pick up some food for the
family, which we don't do often.And I had to wait for quite a

(54:54):
long time and I was with my youngest kid and instead we just
spent that time playing. And I, that's usually not
something I do. I'm, I'm more of a parent that
tends to be like, OK, we need tobe quiet and not bother anybody
around us. And there were a lot of people
around us, but I was just like, Nah, we're going to play this

(55:15):
time, so. Was there anything particular
about that time that made you want to do that?
I guess I don't get to spend a lot of time with my youngest
alone outside of the house. OK, they usually definitely
prefer mom by a lot. So it I guess I was just happy
to be there with them. Well, that's sweet.

(55:35):
So I love that. And this game has moments that
are particularly special for parents.
It has moments that are special for kids and people in their
college years, people who work an office job, people who are

(55:55):
artists. I I guess a lot of people will
seen by this game. Yeah, when I, when you were
streaming it, there was a a moment where parenthood was
going to become a an item. And I was like, oh, I bet
there's some, some tearjerker moments hidden in here.
So I. Was Yeah.
And this game blindsides you sometimes.
You'll you'll be laughing one minute and then the next minute

(56:18):
something. And again, it's wordless, but
something will happen and you'llkind of go, whoa, OK, we're
doing this now. And then the next level is
taking that moment that just blindsided you, and it's making
a whole level about waiting about that.
And then the next level after that might be something
completely different, and then you don't know when you'll be

(56:41):
caught off guard. Yeah, sometimes the things we're
waiting for the most are impending disasters.
And so I imagine there's, yeah, maybe a little bit of that.
There is a little bit of that. So I think that's maybe a good
content warning is just content warning life like without saying
anything specific. Sad stuff happens sometimes.

(57:02):
Sad baby. Sad stuff happens, but then this
game just it's it's magical how this game balances emotions,
such different emotions. And so I do recommend this game
to lots of people. I think if it fine tunes the
controls and what it's communicating to you, if some

(57:23):
things were a little less vague,I think this would be a, you
know, an even higher score. But I still give it a positive
score. I think it's really worth
playing. And it's so much more complex
emotionally than I expected. So yeah, I I recommend it.
And also, something this has in common with Papers, Please, is

(57:43):
I'm not sure if this game cured my ADHD or amplified it.
That's something that I kept thinking about with our featured
game today. So yeah.
But then also you can just let the game play itself, and that's
pretty magical, too. So those are our secret games,
Little Guardsmen. And while waiting, let's move on

(58:03):
to our review of Papers, Please.It is our featured game.
Papers Please is a puzzle simulation game first released
in 2013. It was developed and published

(58:26):
by 39 O 9 LLC, which is Lucas Pope's company, and Lucas Pope
is developer that we know quite well because we reviewed Return
of the Oprah Den back several seasons ago.
Three or 4I. Think and so we actually
featured his games a little out of order.
So we did his more recent game Return of the Oberden first, and

(58:49):
now we're going back to one of his earliest games.
The game synopsis from the Steamstorefront reads quote.
Congratulations, the October Labor lottery is complete.
Your name was pulled for immediate placement.
Report to the Ministry of Admission at Greston Border
Checkpoints. An apartment will be provided
for you and your family in East Greston.

(59:10):
Expect a Class 8 dwelling. So that description we just read

(59:44):
actually isn't that helpful. I usually point out when when
descriptions are really good, that's actually not a very good
one. So I'll set up the story and the
setting a little bit. So you play as an unnamed,
unseen character working for theMinistry of Admission of the
fictional nation of Arstotska. And Arstotska is modeled after

(01:00:06):
the Soviet states of the Cold War era.
It's an oppressive place, and the game takes place from
November 23rd to December 23rd, 1982.
You are in a booth on the borderbetween.
Arstotska and Colecia, who have just ended a six year war with
each other and your job is to check people's passports and

(01:00:29):
other papers and admit or deny them admission into Arstotska
and travelers from one of several nations can show up.
There's Arstotska, your country.There's Coletia, the country
that Arstotska was just in a warwith.
There's Oberstan, Antigria, Republica, Impor, and United
Federation. These are all fictional
countries made for this game. And this is a job that pays.

(01:00:53):
The better you do or the more you process in a day, the more
money you have to care for your family.
You have a wife, a son, a mother-in-law and an uncle, and
along the way there are many surprises, from resistance
groups and terrorist attacks to moral and ethical decision
making to be made with the many people who approach your window

(01:01:15):
in line. Now Disco this is classified as
a simulation puzzle game, so some people might hear that term
and they might not quite understand or be able to paint
the picture in their minds of what's going on.
So what? What does the actual gameplay
look like? Well, it's also, it's a point
and click in practice. So as you might imagine,
controls are pretty easy. You point and you click.

(01:01:38):
Yeah, sometimes drags, you drag things.
You, you do yeah, you do drag things.
And you do eventually have the option to unlock a couple of hot
keys that might be useful or not, but that's like literally
as far as action input controls,that's pretty much it as far as
what you do. You're going to cross check

(01:01:59):
documents from those seeking entry against each other of
their documents, as well as cross checking against the rules
given to you for the day. If you find any discrepancies,
you will point them out and interrogate further.
Interrogating further might takethe form of a photographic strip
search or fingerprinting the entrance.

(01:02:21):
And then you will decide whetherto approve, deny, or eventually
detain people. And then depending on how
interactions go, someone may tryto bribe you or give you some
sort of plea to request entry, and you can decide whether or
not you want to allow entry based on those things.
However, anytime you approve someone that violates that day's

(01:02:44):
rules or deny someone that should be cleared for entry, you
will receive an automatic warning from your employer, and
after a couple of warnings per day, you will begin to receive
docs to your pay. So if you make choices that
violate the guidelines, it will cost you.
The stakes are much higher in this game than in Lil Guardsmen.
Oh I bet. Yeah, I think it's 3 citations

(01:03:06):
and you start losing pay. I think it's just two.
Is it OK? Yeah.
But like, the incremental pay loss for each violation after
that is pretty significant. As Bopo alluded to, there will
be opportunities to provide assistance to secretive
organizations. And sometimes that will take the
form of using like a cipher or maybe you're keeping an eye out

(01:03:28):
for a specific person. And then in between days, you
pay your bills based on how muchfood you made.
So what you'll pay for is rent, food, medicine if your family
members are sick, and then if you don't earn enough to pay the
day's bills, you'll have to start choosing which things go
unpaid, usually being heat or medicine for a specific family

(01:03:50):
member. And at times you were possibly
making the choice to forsake specific family members and they
could die. Yeah, you've got mouths to feed
in the scam, and you never see your family.
You get a result screen at the end of every level where it just
simply lists with text against ablack background how much money
you made, where that money came from, you know, whether it's

(01:04:13):
through detaining people or justdoing your job.
And then it lists all your expenses, and you have a grand
total at the bottom of how much is leftover, if you're able to
save any money after. And you can check and uncheck
things like the medicine and thefood if you want to rearrange
your expenses. And that's where decisions are
made. Yeah, they can be pretty rough.

(01:04:35):
And then as far as a wind condition, there are several
endings in this game that you can get at almost any point.
These could be dependent on deaths of family, assisting the
secret organization, and a few other actions in late game that
I would count as surprises. So I would I would count those
spoilery, but if you don't meet any of the requirements for any

(01:04:57):
of those endings, you will find one specific day where you
receive an ending. And can we say what that is
like? Is that a spoiler?
I I feel like it would have helped me starting out in the
game if I would have known like.The final day.
Yeah, there's there's like an official end point.
No matter. Where there is, yeah, I
mentioned that this game can go all the way to December 23rd or

(01:05:17):
so. So it's about 3132 days or so.
It's about a month that this game can last.
So if you don't meet any ending conditions before that, you will
receive a day 31 specific ending.
Yeah, you're gonna get an endingwhen you play this game.
If you make it to date, well, yeah, you'll get an ending.
You will get an ending or you will quit.

(01:05:37):
Right, exactly. But that's pretty much it as far
as I could recall to mention. Is there anything that you think
I should have mentioned? Well, one thing I think is
really interesting about this game is its layout.
What you're looking at, aside from that result screen at the
end, you're always looking at the same layout.
It's like the top, I don't know,third or fourth of your screen

(01:06:00):
is an overhead map of this line and your booth.
And you can click on your littlePA announcement speaker thing
and that will call the next person into the line.
In the bottom left corner, you've got your, you've got your
window where people walk up, yousee their face and then a lot of
the screen on the bottom 3/4 you've got your examination

(01:06:22):
table. And so that's where you're
really doing a lot of looking atthings.
I just think it's interesting that this game always looks
pretty much the same. The kinds of documents you're
looking at change, the people that approach you change.
But unlike Little Guardsmen, you're never going into like a
scene where there's exposition. It's all happening in your
window. Yep, and occasionally, not

(01:06:45):
often, but occasionally you can see some action in the the top
third. So every once in a while, like
just like driving, check your rearview mirrors every once in a
while just be like check the line real quick.
Yeah, and spoilers for thoughts later, but there were so many
times where I was just caught off guard because I wasn't
looking up there. Things happen sometimes things

(01:07:06):
can happen fast up there. So yeah, early piece of advice
for new players, always look allover your yeah.
Do do your do. You will be rewarded for being
observant in this game. Full stop.
This game is all about perception and noticing things,
noticing details, noticing discrepancies, a couple of

(01:07:27):
history and significance points.This game was nominated for and
won tons of gaming industry awards in 2013 and 2014.
A lot of awards were for outstanding achievement in
innovation. Innovation awards are the kinds
of awards you'll see over and over again.
When you look up like what this game won.
There's this 11 minute short film that was based on the game

(01:07:50):
that was released in 2018 as well.
And I watched that last night and some of the characters in
this game show up in that live action film.
It's it's really well done and the game has sold more than 5
million copies in all the time that it's been released.
So it's one of those games that a lot of people own, a lot of
people have played now that we've played it.

(01:08:12):
Disco Cola. What are your thoughts on Papers
please? Well, I am happy to report that
I had a pretty much overall goodtime.
I'm going to tell you what I liked first and foremost, and
often I will start with like artdirection.
Not going to be the case here. One one of my favorite things
about papers, please is actuallythe sound design, which overall

(01:08:35):
is pretty minimal. There's not music going on
really, apart from like the title screen, which is a banger,
by the way, but like the sound effects.
I love that, like sound that's plays over the speakers when
you're asking for the next person.
Yeah, I love that. That's one of my favorite sound

(01:08:56):
effects. I would just click it even if
the next person couldn't come tothe window yet.
And it's it says our stones go welcome.
Yeah, it's like a really nice. Or like have your documents
ready. Have your documents.
Ready. Yeah, I love it.
But you've also got like the discrepancy sound, you've got
the stamping sound and it this is what I think gets me so

(01:09:17):
immersed in this game. I got really immersed in in
checking these documents, which is to say my next, you know,
praise for the game is the gameplay loop.
It's like small bite sized puzzles.
I imagine if, if I liked doing Sudoku, but you know, smaller
and bite size, like that's, that's kind.

(01:09:38):
I'm just sitting down to do a little Sudoku puzzle, but it's
like, yeah, you know, five and two minutes or something.
Totally. Like even a Sudoku puzzle, you
don't have to do the whole thingin one sitting.
You can say I want to do the topleft corner or I want to do the
top row. And so that's a series of little
puzzles. You haven't solved the whole
puzzle yet. I I equate the whole puzzle of

(01:09:59):
the Sudoku to like maybe a full day in this game.
Yeah, and so I just, I loved thegameplay loop.
I I had when you I I explained this to my wife and I was like,
yeah, you check documents against each other and you look
for things that are incorrect. And she's like, that sounds like
work. I'm like, yeah, it does it,
doesn't it? But it's also it's also like a

(01:10:21):
spot the difference game. And that's really.
I don't usually care about those, but this was, it's
whenever you see those on like social media and it's just like,
can you spot the difference? You got to stop.
I bet I can. Yeah, you got to stop scrolling
and look at that. That is such a good comparison.
I never thought about this, about the difference thing, but
that is so accurate. And this game opens with you

(01:10:44):
getting the job. You know, your your name gets
pulled and you're forced to basically do this job.
I should've been drafted. Yes, exactly.
And so that's the heart of this game is you're doing a job.
Yeah, you are doing a job, but they made they made it fun.
So, like, hats off to Lucas Pope, you know, do that with
more jobs. Please hire him as your

(01:11:04):
efficiency expert. I'll take anything over what we
have. I like that as rules get more
plentiful, occasionally some rules will sort of receive this
like consolidation to put a slight ease on the workload.
It doesn't happen a lot and it doesn't alleviate too much, but

(01:11:28):
occasionally you'll get something where it's like you
only have to check this now. As long as that thing doesn't
work, then everything else is denied.
And so I appreciate that that happens throughout the game
because you have a lot of stuff by the end of the game that
you're looking at for each person.
Yeah, you have a just a page of rules and I was consulting that
every day. It's that and that rule set gets

(01:11:49):
extensive after a while. Yeah, I think up to 9 or 10
different rules. Yeah, maybe a dozen.
Another thing I love is I love keeping my eye out for a
specific political envoys. There will be kind of like
little guardsmen where it's likelet this kind of person in, but
this in, in papers, please. It's very specific, like this
person is coming or like a political envoy from this

(01:12:12):
country is coming. We're expecting them, you know,
let them in. Or like the newspaper will
mention a person in between the level and you can sort of make a
judgement call based on what that news story was about.
Yeah, that's a good call too. Yeah, we didn't mention the the
newspaper necessarily, but the newspaper is just this really
quick moment between levels where it tells you about current

(01:12:33):
events. It's just headlines and it's
usually a clue about the larger worlds and what you might see.
It's, it's a little bit like, oh, clean up.
Serial cleaner. Serial cleaner?
Really. You get a little bit of that in
between the level 2. Cool, I like that levels give
you breathing room for rebellion, but not so much that

(01:12:54):
it feels like there's no consequences like in Lil
guardsmen. For the most part you can
forsake your score. You do get fired if your score
gets too low, but in this, it's like you only get so much.
And usually there's like a perfect way to play a level
meeting. Like usually each level will
have to people where you can like, choose to bend the rules.

(01:13:15):
And there's like a reason to do that.
And then everyone else is prettycut and dry.
And it puts the stakes at just the right level for me.
So like, if I bend the rules forthis one person, it's like, OK,
now if I see something else thatseems suspicious, that's the
other one for this level. And everyone else is like cut

(01:13:36):
and dry. So once I deny someone I like, I
can't doubt that decision. Every level feels different, but
you pick up on a formula. Yeah.
And there's actually, if you go to the wiki for this game, you
can look up a list of days and there are all of the prescribed
scripted things listed out for every day.
And you, you can actually cheat a little bit and you can see

(01:13:58):
like, OK, scripted event number one for day X will be the third
person in line. And then the second one will be
person #5 in the line. Yeah.
And then there's some randomization in between.
Yeah, and that's kind of what I,I wouldn't have put it in that
terms. I wouldn't have thought to have
put it in that terms. But yeah, there are people that
are like, this is someone that you're supposed to pay extra

(01:14:20):
attention to, and it's one of the ones where you can spend one
of your. Yeah, exactly.
If you're playing this game super well, you get rewarded in
that you then have more freedom to make moral judgments that
your boss might not agree with. You won't get penalized as much
if you're playing the game superwell.
In those more randomized moments, you can then choose to

(01:14:41):
let someone in who shouldn't be in or vice versa, and you'll
still be able to maybe feed yourfamily at the end of the day.
Yeah. And I love that.
I love that they struck that balance so well that I was able
to pick up on it. Yeah, that's so true.
Yeah, I I was very thankful for those moments when the game was
rewarding me for being extra perceptive and careful in those

(01:15:02):
times where there were people toprocess that didn't have to do
with some of the side stories. I like that things from several
days ago can sometimes unexpectedly become relevant
again. So to give one specific example,
we have the option to hang something up on our wall and

(01:15:24):
something like this is maybe in another game, just like a
special prize that we would get to look at, you know, just like
a decoration for our room. But as it turns out, this is our
federal workspace. We're not playing a video game.
We're working here. And if our our boss comes in and
sees this hanging on the wall, you get you get a warning and if
he sees it again, you'll get fired.
If I think as I understand I. Think that leads to an ending

(01:15:47):
but I never got to see. It yeah, 'cause I was scared.
I took that crap down. And it goes to show that this
game scares you. Like you, you're intimidated in
this game. Yeah, absolutely.
There I was immersed. I don't get immersed often.
It was awesome. Nice.
Lastly, I love that with very few exceptions, making a mistake
in this game usually feels like it is actually my fault.

(01:16:08):
This is what pushes me to becomemore observant and keeps me
coming back for more. You know, I've I've learned that
I particularly learn best from failure and I get that in this
game and it makes me better for all the future in game days
because I get to fail a lot. So I I learned my lesson pretty
quick. You do.
And then something I want to mention.

(01:16:29):
I don't necessarily love or hatethis.
Mostly I'm just alarmed by how relevant much of the game's
subject matter is becoming. That time of recording including
but not at all limited to the resurfacing of polio, of all
things. So.
Oh. Yeah.
How fun was that? I didn't even think about that.
Yeah. No, This game came out over a
decade ago. It is prescient.

(01:16:50):
It is relevant. It is a game for our time now
just as much, maybe more so, than it was for the time 10
years ago. Yeah, I when when I got to the
part with the polio headline, I'm like, oh, I'm going to take
a screenshot of that and then save it under a passive
aggressive title. Yeah.
But anyways, As for things I don't like, I really only have

(01:17:13):
two and they're very specific. OK, first, getting dinged on
gender mismatch is really frustrating.
Even if it didn't bother me on like the principle of needing
someone to look traditionally masculine or traditionally
feminine, and even apart from the gender identity not matching
like one's body type, this art style is pretty low fidelity.

(01:17:35):
So even if I am supposed to keepin that binary mindset, it still
doesn't always work because the art lacks the detail that makes
some of that discretion a lot more difficult.
Like I can't always tell what's a hat and what is hair, you
know? Yeah, it's a very low
resolution. Very few colors used, just in
general. That's fair.

(01:17:56):
So there's not a lot of detail you're working with to it.
Yeah, all those problems aside, which we might talk about in a
little bit, it's hard to make those distinctions.
And I actually want to ask, did you play with nudity on?
I I intended to and I thought that I had it on, but it wasn't
on so. It wasn't on, so you were seeing
people's underwear. Yes.

(01:18:17):
OK, Because I actually thought that helped me to get in the
mindset of what this oppressive government was asking me to do
because I would see certain garments under the scan.
That's what clued me in to what I was supposed to be looking
for. But I feel like if I had nudity
on, I would have had a tougher time.

(01:18:37):
But I didn't test it. Yeah.
I mean, I intended to have it on, but it it didn't work out.
So I was just, I just left it. It wasn't that big of a deal for
me. Totally get that and I had the
same issue just with looking at faces.
You're supposed to check people's visage against the
picture in their passport. And sometimes it was just really

(01:18:57):
obvious, like, oh, yeah, you pass.
Like, that's you. Yeah.
Then other times the face is like, just different enough.
I'm like, wait, is that supposedto be you?
I don't quite know the boundaries that this game is
establishing for how different someone might look.
I had one. I had one image that was like
mirrored of the other. Oh yeah, That was weird.
That was weird and I had two different pictures on two

(01:19:20):
different documents, like one ofthem matched but one of them
didn't so. And then sometimes, just to be
safe, I'm spending a few extra seconds to check and there's not
a discrepancy. It's the same person, but it's
just different enough where I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be
that particular. And then the other thing is that
there were more than one examples of like getting dinged

(01:19:41):
for reason for visit, not matching what I was told.
But then sometimes when speakingto people, I will not be given a
reason for the visit. So all I have to go on is like
their entry permit. So when I need to point out a
discrepancy, I don't have anything to match it to because
all I have is the entry permit. And whenever you want to further

(01:20:01):
investigate or detain, you need to activate the discrepancy.
And in order to activate the discrepancy, you need two things
to point to, right? But in this case, I only have
the one thing. So I in those cases I just kind
of like. Made a call and hoped that I was
right. Usually I wasn't because this
game is really strict which is actually a lot of the fun.

(01:20:23):
But some of those instances feltunwinnable because I was like, I
know that my reason for entry isn't matching, but I don't have
anything to point it. To this is one of my complaints
too is that the modus operandi is not always clear to me.
Like how are exactly are we supposed to process someone if

(01:20:44):
they misspeak about their duration of stay?
Like when that first happened, someone said I'm going to be
here several months, but their papers say that they're going to
be here 2 days. I'm like, well, that's a
discrepancy. You know, you're in trouble.
And then they correct what they say.
And I'm actually not sure what the rules are on that.
That's something that the game doesn't like, explain and I

(01:21:05):
they're just sometimes these rules that you learn by failing.
You just have to process enough people where.
Oh yeah, I've done this before, but the first time I really
messed it up because I just didn't understand.
Right. Yeah, exactly.
It feels a little unfair. It does, yeah.
So anyways, just the two small complaints for me.
NIT picky maybe, but they were especially frustrating for me.

(01:21:29):
So in the end I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about
papers. Please.
I'd heard amazing things for years, and when I had watched
previous playthrough content, I had a lot of fun as a viewer.
That doesn't necessarily always translate to playing the game.
I can never be someone that has to make these kinds of decisions
in real life, so it's certainly more of a relief that I get to
experience this without real lives at stake.

(01:21:52):
I did have a slow start with this game where I was concerned
I would never achieve a substantive ending, but after I
got to a certain point I couldn't put it down.
I feel observant when I noticed discrepancies.
I like that I can occasionally use my judgment to make a call
that's outside of the rules. This is a fun little spot the
difference puzzle system and I am actually thrilled by the

(01:22:12):
prospect of the endless mode. I think this is a game that
sounds like work and is somehow just plain fun.
I love Papers Please and I want to give it a 9.5.
Amazing. Wow, I did not expect you to
love this this much. I, I didn't know whether I would
love it or hate it. At the beginning I was like, Oh

(01:22:33):
no, I'm never going to finish this because I was only getting
to like day 2 and day three several times over.
It's a rough Rd. at first. You have to get acclimated I
would say before you start cruising.
And I was like, that was my story.
Too, I don't think I'll ever be fast enough to like, earn enough
money. But something that's interesting
is like you get to maybe a deathor something.

(01:22:56):
You don't quite make it to the 31 days.
I also didn't even make it to like day 10 at first.
And then you might want to restart just from the beginning,
and you already have a lot of experience with the rules
changing. The rules change all the time in
this game. They're changing every day.
It gets to be like kind of a light point of frustration in
those first few hours because it's like, I cannot get these

(01:23:17):
rules cemented in my mind because this game is always
changing the rules. But when you reset and you go
back to day one, it's like you're back on a bike with
training wheels. You've been riding with the two
wheels, but now you're putting the training wheels back on.
It's like, oh, this is super simple.
Like I only have two rules to worry about.
It's fine. So you get acclimated with time.

(01:23:38):
I love how you pointed out stuffabout the sound design.
Just everything. I I agree with so many of your
thoughts. I thought this game was a blast.
I had a blast with this game. A blast as explosive as a
terrorist bomb. Nailed it.
I love how tactile this game is.This is perhaps one of the most
tactile games I've played that involve mouse and keyboards.

(01:24:00):
Oh yeah, that's true. The way you click things, the
satisfying button sounds that happen there is great visual and
auditory feedback. Some of the sounds might not
actually be periods, some of them might actually be a little
bit too modern. To to the discrepancy sound 100%
you never you never would have heard that in the. 80s, but it

(01:24:22):
does not RIP me out of this experience.
It's not it doesn't ruin the immersion.
I think it just adds so much when you hear this old school
digital sounds. It's so good and there are up to
31 days of gameplay, but each day is bringing surprises and
changes that's just keep me guessing about what's going to
happen there's this unique starting concepts that we have.

(01:24:45):
I don't know that a game like this existed before, you know,
2013, but just the concept of what this game is is unique.
And then we reinvent that formula a little bit every day
for up to 30 plus days, which isincredible.
There are twists abound. I was on edge even during the

(01:25:08):
most mundane moments because at a certain point I was wondering,
what if a terrorist attack happens today?
What if someone leaves a bomb onmy desk?
What if I let a wanted criminal through?
And even when you're playing it right, when you are doing so
well at this game, there's always this hint of doubt in
what you are doing. And that's because speed is
everything. The faster you go, the more

(01:25:30):
family members you can provide food and heat and medicine for.
And so the faster you're going though, the more you're feeling
like I'm going to miss. Something.
So that balance is kind of at the heart of this game too.
There are so many layers of stakes overlapping at once.
There's your family, there's your country's well-being,

(01:25:52):
there's your own well-being. There's the responsibilities of
the job and what your boss wantsyou to do.
There's the empathy that you feel for others, and all these
things can be swirling around inyour mind at once.
And like you said, we kind of learned to lookout for new kinds
of people, maybe through a name.And I'll put names in the back

(01:26:12):
of my mind. And I'm playing the game
differently now because I haven't had to think about
people's names. I've just had to worry about
does their name match? Yeah, but that's a totally
different part of your brain. Different part of my brain.
So I I'm using all kinds of parts of my brain.
The part that empathizes with people, the part that remembers
things, the analytical parts. It's incredible.

(01:26:34):
Not a lot of games make me use this many parts of my brain at
once. This game shocked me with how
much it made me feel for the characters.
There were many situations whereI needed to make a moral
decision that was based on a bribe, or maybe it was about
justice or my perception of whatjustice would be in this

(01:26:55):
situation. Maybe it was about a family
being separated and I have to make a decision on that in this
moment when there are hundreds of people waiting in line and I
just have to decide because I have to also make money.
And so the pressure's on in thisgame.
And that's this is a compliment.This is a compliment that the
game puts me there emotionally. The puzzle aspect was highly

(01:27:18):
satisfying. It does feel like a job.
But the dopamine hits are constant.
Like the Sudoku comparison. You know, you're, you're just
getting these little hits of progress.
You're, you're doing your job. Every time you process someone,
that's a dopamine hits, and every day lasts between 3:00 and
8:00 minutes or so. In that time, you can process

(01:27:39):
several people and make multipledecisions.
And so for this reason, I think this game really works as a game
that you can play in short bursts too.
You don't have to sit there for hours and hours to make
progress. You can just do one day and then
take a break. And I think the game saves your
progress between each level. So yeah.

(01:27:59):
And even just 8 minutes, you canmake progress in papers, please,
if you don't have that much timeto play.
The music is great. I totally get what Lucas Pope's
signature style is with music now, now that we've played both
these games. Like just simple melodies that
hit you hard. The melody in here, this, it

(01:28:24):
evokes this sense of place and this brutal reality, just with
how hard the music's hitting you.
I do have some dislikes with this game.
I kind of mentioned the rules and how they're not always
explained super well, so we haveto do some trial and error.
There's a lot of this game that's scripted, and it's maybe
a little bit more scripted than I would have wanted.

(01:28:46):
I wouldn't have minded a little bit more randomization.
We do get like 20 different endings, so that adds a lot of
variance to how you and I might play, but I kind of wish there
was a little bit more randomization every time I sat
down to play this game. Some systems like stuff that
happens with your family, like sickness and heat and hunger,

(01:29:08):
those were mysterious to me because I don't know how long
someone needs to be sick before they die.
I I'm assuming that not being warm, like not getting warmth at
night, causes sickness which then causes death, but I don't
actually know what causes what and how long it takes for things
to happen. And then you also can get the

(01:29:30):
option to change your dwelling class like you can upgrade your
dwelling class. Yeah.
So what are the benefits of that?
And that's a big investment. And I don't know, I I did do
that at least once and I don't know for sure what the benefits
were. Yeah.
Does that imrove heat? I would I would assume that
improves the heat. I think so because none of my

(01:29:54):
maybe a spoiler but none of my family was like getting sick
after that. OK, but I also don't know if I
was just playing a lot better atthat point.
Too. I mean, maybe you were feeding
them and still paying for heat in the right way so they weren't
getting sick. I am unsure.
I theorize that might play a role, but yeah.
So I can't make educated guessesabout how to spend my money.

(01:30:17):
And that's so important in this game, spending money and
choosing your resources, choosing what to sacrifice so
that you can save something else.
That's so huge when it comes to decision making in this game.
And I can't always make educateddecisions because I don't know
how long does someone need to behungry before they die, for
instance. Some rules will take a back seat

(01:30:40):
after they've been established for a while.
So you mentioned there can be many, many rules going on at
once. Sometimes you get like 789 rules
going on. That's a lot to juggle.
I found that in this game there were rules that had been
established for a while. Like let's say work permits need

(01:31:01):
to have valid insignias stamped on them.
Sometimes there are fake insignias or they're missing.
And I found that sometimes thoserules popped up for like one or
two in game days and then they were still technically a rule
for the rest of my game, but they never showed up again.
But because their rules, I feel like I have to still check them.

(01:31:24):
But in the back of my mind, I'm going, this isn't going to pop
up again because it hasn't popped up in like a week of in
game time. Why would it pop up again and it
wouldn't? And so I get maybe why this is
happening I because the game doesn't want to be so
overwhelming that it's just hitting you from all sides with
all these rules. But it's still a rule that I

(01:31:45):
feel like I should check. And so there are times where I
feel like I'm checking on all these rules that are older that
aren't relevant anymore because the game wants you to focus on
newer rules. Did you feel any of this going
on? To a point, but I also would
occasionally get dinged for forged documents when I feel
like I was pretty sure that was right.
So I even like later in the game, so maybe it does still

(01:32:07):
come up. Maybe it does and it's just a
really low chance. But largely I felt like the
older a rule was, I mean, aside from the big ones like you've
got to have a passport, the the more specific ones like the the
stamps, the older those rules got, the less chance they would
come around. But there's still a rule.

(01:32:28):
And so I'm checking lots of rules that just don't feel like
they're relevant anymore. No, I I agree.
They showed up less and less. I did do something to alleviate
that burden while I was playing through the game, and we can go
through that. Later, yeah, I would like to
hear about that in a moment. And then my ending that I got
when I got through all the days,I feel like wasn't that

(01:32:51):
rewarding. You know, I, I got to the point
in this game where I got really good at all the processing.
I got really good at the rules. I felt like I was kind of
cracked, honestly. But I was also helping a
resistance group and I was doingreally well with them.
But I found at the very end of this game that I didn't quite
hit the full mark with either group.

(01:33:13):
And so I got a pretty uninteresting ending, and I feel
like I deserved a little bit more for all the hard work I put
in. I think I was just a little bit
short of getting a much more specific ending.
So I feel a little unfulfilled with that first full playthrough
that I got. And I think if I had just done
one or two things a little bit differently, I would have gotten

(01:33:35):
a much different ending. So overall, Papers Please is
challenging not just because sorting through documents can be
difficult, but because of the decisions it throws our way.
This game quietly devastated me time and time again, times where
I was just shocked with what it was showing me, and it was doing

(01:33:56):
it so quietly. The activity of checking records
is a different kind of thrill, one that's tedious when you
first look at it, but it's so rewarding when you notice things
and it pays off to pay attention.
For me this game is a nine out of 10.
Hackers, baby, I'm glad you loved it.
Yes, I gosh, Lucas Pope. I just love his games.

(01:34:19):
I want to play Mars after midnight.
That's his game that he releasedon the play date and I don't
know a lot about it, but it it seems like it has a lot to do
with faces and aliens and like randomizing characters.
Oh, I kind of remember that, yeah.
I think that would be the first game I'd play on the play date
when I get one. And between this game and Return

(01:34:42):
of the Oprah Den, I can tell what he's into.
He's into identity. He's into, you know, faces,
recognizing people, reconciling facts with your gut.
Attention to detail. Yes, totally.
And so I really love the ideas and the themes that you find
throughout his games. I think you can also find them
in Mars After Midnight. Let's talk about those processes

(01:35:05):
of checking papers and and how the game evolves over time.
You, you talked about you had like a hack or a a strategy for
that thing a moment ago. Yeah, so you have this big FN
rule book, right? Like tons of stuff.
And each day a rule, a big rule gets added and adds a chapter to
the the rule book. So I knew what I would always

(01:35:29):
need is to be near the front of the book because I will often be
pointing out discrepancies with the actual rules.
And then I also need to be sort of close to the issuing cities
because I struggle to memorize those.
So I always stay near the front of the book.
Anything that was in the back ofthe book, I tried to like draw

(01:35:49):
on a little note card that I just happened to have at my
desk. So I was drawing the symbols on
a little note card that I just happened to have on my keyboard.
If I was trying to keep an eye out for a specific name, I wrote
that name on there. So certain little things that I
knew I wouldn't be able to like hold in my noodle, I would put

(01:36:11):
on this note card so that. This is a game that I think
benefits from taking real notes in some ways.
I came up with tricks to memorize certain things.
Like is it MOA is the acronym for that you need to look out
for on that stamp. I noticed that it has a slash
right? Sometimes that slash would be

(01:36:32):
reversed. What?
I never would have noticed that.Maybe that's why I got some of
those wrong. Maybe it is sometimes the
direction of the little stamp isreversed like the workers one.
The hammer should be facing leftand if it's right that's wrong.
So it's super confusing. But with the slash, I came up
with this thing where I look forif it's a forward slash, let

(01:36:54):
them in. That made sense.
In my mind, forward means you get to go forward.
If it's a back slash in shape, that's a fake 1.
So they get sent back or they get denied.
So I had these little systems inmy mind.
I just quickly look for that forward slash.
OK, they got a forward slash. Keep going.
Wow, OK, I never even picked up on that as like something that
would explain some of the forgeddocuments.

(01:37:16):
So I was like, no, I swear to God, that was right.
But then other times the stamp, it just isn't there at all.
You know, and, and so that's a different thing you need to look
out for. And because it was missing, I
might forget to check that forward slash because it's not
there. It's not reminding me to look at
that. OK.
So just going off of processes, what after a while, what was

(01:37:36):
your like order of operations? Because for me, at a certain
point I always started with reason and duration of stay and
that was the first thing I always started with because I
felt like that had the most variables.
And then from there I would start looking at issuing city
because I would get that wrong alot and then start matching date

(01:37:57):
of birth names and ID numbers. I think I had the same starting
point. The duration of stay and reason
for travel was easy to do first,because when they walk up to the
window, they're immediately talking about that, and if I
don't read it in that moment, I have to pull up the transcripts
of what they're saying. So like in the time that you're

(01:38:17):
taking to move all the documentsover to your table, you can sort
of like rear view mirror the conversation.
Yes. It's on screen just long enough
that I can drag their papers in and look at the text literally
side by side because their speech bubble is still up.
So that just made sense to checkfirst.
But then the second thing, I think by like day 14, you start

(01:38:40):
to get a wanted criminals list and I put that part of the
bulletin and you get like a daily bulletin where it has all
The Wanted criminals. I put that on the right side of
my examination table. You did the same.
Thing. Yep, left it out.
I left it. I always left it out.
It wasn't the next thing I checked.
That was like one of the last. Things I would check.
Interesting. I checked that second OK,

(01:39:01):
because I had this fear that I would forget to check it.
So I just made it a rule make that one of the first things I
check and I check. That's also when I check their
picture on their passport as well.
So I'm checking all three at once and then disco.
I feel like anything after that,it was just kind of a mess.

(01:39:21):
It was just always different. You are in a rush.
I am in a rush. Not always.
I didn't have a system after that point.
I had a mixture of a system and then not a system because I
would just maybe try to go top to bottom.
But you have multiple documents,so you could start with the work
paper or you could start with the passport so and the
documents are changing. I guess I I'm going to recant my

(01:39:43):
statement a little bit and say that I would check vaccination
status Once we get to that pointin the game, that is the second
thing I check. Yeah.
Because that's one where it's like, if you don't have that,
none of the rest of it matters. Yeah, sometimes they do have
vaccinations, but they don't have polio, and that's the main
thing you need to look out for. The other ones don't matter.
Yeah, the other ones don't matter at all.
I thought that Daily Bulletin did an excellent job at

(01:40:05):
summarizing the rules and the changes throughout the day.
So even though I'm always checking the rules in the book,
the pamphlet that you get that changes every day, that was
really good because it almost was answering my questions as I
was asking them. It would say like, oh, and just
so you know, you still have to check for a local ID from our

(01:40:27):
Stoatskin residents. You know, just in case you have
the question, and I did have thequestion.
I I felt like that was a really considerate document with
answering my questions. I agree.
Another thing that affected how I played was in that little map
in the top when someone would gothrough, I memorized exactly

(01:40:47):
where their little Sprite would be if I got a citation.
When you get a citation, a little note card, a little like
printing sound happens. It's the, it's my least favorite
sound effect because it's associated with you messing up
actually, But you get a little printer sound effects and a
little citation printing on the bottom of your screen.
And I memorized exactly where that Sprite was walking if I

(01:41:09):
messed up with them. So I would always look and see
if if they hit that point and nothing happened, I'd be like,
OK, Phew, I did. I made it.
So that's one point where I was always looking up there.
Yeah, I didn't memorize where itwas, but that is that's like one
of the most immersive moments isjust like waiting, like, OK, do
it right. And just like watching that
person walk by while I'm clicking on the speaker button a

(01:41:31):
bunch of times. And I had every combination of,
oh, I know I did that person right, and then I got a citation
or oh, I think I messed up with them and then I didn't get a
citation. You know, all those situations
happened. There's another point where we
have this thing called the entrypermits, which all foreigners
need to have, and they also eventually get an ID supplement.

(01:41:54):
It's two different documents. The ID supplement is sort of a
way to quickly describe what they look like with their height
and their weight and any like distinguishing features.
And then the entry permit has all of their like main
information in addition to the passport.
But then late in the game, I think it's like day 27, you're
almost done with this game. They decide to, like you pointed

(01:42:16):
out earlier, take these two documents, the entry permit and
the ID supplement, and let's combine those into one document
called the access permit. So you've got the entry permit
and the access permit. I'm like, Oh my gosh.
And it's this new layout of the information, all the same
information, but you have to getused to this new document.

(01:42:37):
And as I was thinking like, Oh my gosh, they're always changing
the rules. Someone I was processing said.
I can't believe I have to have an access permit.
They're always changing the rules.
The game knows what I'm thinking.
That's awesome. That's awesome.
It's just this commentary that lined up with what I was
thinking. That's so great.

(01:42:57):
I love when games do that. I have one very specific example
of a game that did that this year and we we'll talk about it
down the road. OK, I can't wait for that, but
at the same time, I love that they're combining these
documents. Yeah, because your table space
is not big enough for everythingthat you need in most cases.
It is not like that when I'm putting The Wanted criminals off
to the side. I am making a decision that I am

(01:43:20):
not going to flip through the rest of the pages of that
document exactly because I a tonof time, a ton of space, putting
it behind the page turn button behind an object because I just
don't have enough space. Did you take a few minutes at
the start of some days to just read the rules, reread them, try
to cement them before you decide?
OK, I'm not touching that anymore.
Exactly. Cuz I'm I'm deciding that I'm

(01:43:41):
comfortable with the rules. I know what they.
Are. Yep, sure did.
Same, I eventually got those shortcuts as well.
The space bar for inspection andI think tab brings up your
stamps. Yeah.
And I tried my darndest to not mix them up, but in the frenzy
and the fury of everything I would press tab when I meant to

(01:44:04):
press spacebar. Did you buy these upgrades?
I did mostly because at a certain point I just like had
the money to do it, so I was just like, all right, whatever.
But if I'm totally honest, apartfrom tab to stamp, I didn't use
any of them. Yeah, because it was maybe just
as fast for you to just go aheadand click.

(01:44:25):
The button, the only one that I felt like speed me up, and it
took me a while to get to the point where it did speed me up
was the tab to stamp. OK, yeah.
And I totally understand how a speedrunner would utilize those,
like in an optimal playthrough. Yeah, you're using those, but I
was mixing them up even on like day 30.
And then what did you forget to check the most often?

(01:44:49):
Date of birth. I think when date of births
wouldn't match, I wouldn't necessarily pay close attention
to that. And that would happen a lot on
our Stotskin citizens with their, you know, ID cards.
They have a local ID card that'sdifferent than foreigners stuff.
And yeah, it I would forget thattoo.
And the thing that messed me up a lot was gender when I'm

(01:45:12):
supposed to like look and see. And this is, again, where we're,
we're asked to do something thatfeels just wrong.
I mean, we're, we're asking to judge someone's appearance and
do they look like a male? Do they look like a female?
And when there was that discrepancy, I knew exactly what
the game was doing and I felt horrible about it.
You know, I, I didn't know what was going to happen next.

(01:45:35):
That first time when the scan happens, it's just so invasive,
so brutal. And in a moment, it just really
shows how brutal this place is. Yeah.
So that's a a part that left me feeling nasty.
But then I don't know if it was a result of it being a nasty
thing or if it's just because there were so many systems going
on. I just for some reason would

(01:45:56):
always forget to check the gender.
I didn't forget, but I would, you know, still sometimes get
dinged on it and I am not 100% sure why, but it, but in
general, like like I mentioned in the the notes, I just, I
wouldn't forget to do it, but I would not consider it a

(01:46:17):
mismatch. I guess in in some cases, yeah.
I got, you know when you have the streamer debuff when you're
streaming on Twitch and you justyour mind isn't working at full
capacity, you're like distracted.
Maybe you don't feel this, but Ifeel it.
You're not. Saying anything I don't stream
enough anymore to remember well.I'm narrating so much in this

(01:46:39):
game. I'm making the decision.
You are attention to chat. You are a phenomenal performer
on Twitch. I will give you mad props all
the time. Well, thank you.
But as a result of everything that I'm trying to do,
especially in this game, I woulddo the complete opposite of what
I meant to do when someone said they were female, but their

(01:47:00):
appearance was traditionally more aligned to a male and I
knew I had to scan them. And then I found out that it
matches the description. I accidentally denied them
because I thought the game was trying to trick me and I got in
my own head about it. So I I had so many of those
moments too, Where my brain is short circuited because of all
this, like checking and rechecking I'm.

(01:47:22):
Doing yeah, I did have instanceswhere I pressed the wrong stamp.
I was like, no wait, I meant theother one and you can't really
undo that. I had a moment where I approved
someone, I gave him the green stamp and then I realized, oh, I
forgot to check issuing city andthen it was wrong.
It was like misspelled so it wasforged and I gave him a red

(01:47:44):
stamp and I think that over Rd. It denied them if you if you do
it if it's the other way around,like I think no matter what, if
you have the red stamp, you're out because I, I denied someone
on accident. I was like, no, wait, you're.
Interesting. It doesn't.
So that the negative always overrides the positive.
I think so. I didn't know that.

(01:48:04):
Yeah, I didn't know that. A bit of a bummer.
Shoot, I guess always put the green stamp on that.
This could be a this. Could be a hack.
It's a hack. Always put the green stamp on
and then like you're innocent until proven guilty.
I guess it is a progressive place.
No, I don't know. OK, Well, now I'm interested in
your decisions and maybe some ofthe endings.

(01:48:25):
And I think now we'll talk a little bit about details that
people who haven't played might not want to hear.
So we'll talk about situations, some surprises that come up.
What were some of the decisions you made or some of the
storylines you were following? So I remember keeping an eye out
for the athlete that was mentioned in the newspaper.

(01:48:45):
I don't remember exactly what the story thread was with them,
but I did follow through. They were wanted.
Yeah. OK, so I did that and that was
the first like example of something really interesting
like that that I saw. But later in the game, and
again, you're in spoiler territory.
So like, leave, man. You find out that there is a

(01:49:08):
child murderer and you are confronted by one of the dead
children's fathers in line. Yeah, a very vengeful person.
Yes, and they even give you likea picture of their daughter,
which was horrible. But you can change the way this
interaction goes with the child murderer a couple different ways

(01:49:28):
depending on what you do. Like you can approve them and
keep their passport, which is what the father wants you to do.
You can deny them because they're a wanted criminal.
And then you can also approve them and give them the picture
of the daughter and they'll freak out and they'll run.
Yeah, I didn't know about a couple of those things because I

(01:49:49):
I did what the father wanted. Yeah, but it was I I should, I
should have prefaced that with with saying that I did some safe
scumming with this game because I was struggling for a while
there at with time. But that one I safe scummed
because I just wanted to see allthe different combinations.
Yeah, I actually predicted that you would be interested in that
one as a father. Yeah, I felt like you would have

(01:50:12):
an emotional attachment to that one in particular.
And then what endings? Is that what we wanted to
mention? Yeah, endings or any other
notable characters? I There are some notable
characters for sure. Georgie or whatever.
Georgie Gustava, Yes. I loved that guy.
Dude, what happens with Georgie?He, he is a mess.

(01:50:35):
He is your your public radio Daily Caller, Yes.
Dude, yes. He'll show up.
He won't have any documents. He'll show up again.
He'll have hand colored documents with a crayon.
What is this crayon ass? Homemade ass.
You'll interrogate him, he's smuggling something and he'll

(01:50:55):
say yeah, it's drugs and you'll detain him like multiple times.
And he'll go, oh, I guess I'll have another talk with the cops.
Anyway, you're doing a good job.Like, he's such a funny
character. He's empathetic towards you, and
he's just so humorous. I love Georgie.
But eventually he did become thelike catalyst for my favorite of

(01:51:17):
the endings that I saw where eventually I escape Aristotska
with unfortunately only one of my family members.
But I did something similar, butI had to go alone.
Oh, that's too bad. Yeah.
So I think mine was a little bitgrimmer than yours.
And that's kind of the one that I was alluding to, that I built
up to. It's just I didn't do it enough

(01:51:38):
Good with my family. I did decently with my family,
but didn't do enough. I did really well with my boss,
but not enough to like be an outstanding member of the
government. And then with the resistance
group, I did a lot of their things, but I didn't do quite
enough to get their ending. So it's just like, I feel like
I'm stuck in the middle of all these places.

(01:51:58):
You know, I'm, they're all standing in like a triangle
formation and I'm right in the middle.
I just don't, you know, that's kind of where I ended.
Up. I would have liked to have done
better with the resistance movement, but I just, I just
messed up a couple of times, youknow, and I, I really was trying
to pursue that. I just failed.
I think you need to do 4 out of five of their activities

(01:52:21):
correctly. And it's when they brought you a
box that had something in it, sort of an envelope with
something in it. And I didn't quite do that
correctly. And if I had done that
correctly, I would have done better.
I did a lot of the early stuff correctly, but after a while I
like missed one of the people they wanted.
Like totally didn't pay attention to the name and then

(01:52:41):
after a while they just stopped showing up and they they gave me
like 1 cipher. I never figured out what to do
with SO. Yeah, I did do what you did.
I reloaded saves when I got certain endings.
I got 4 endings in total. Me too, but two of them were
like you're bad at the game, keep.
Going right, one of them was like run into debt.
One of them is my entire family died.

(01:53:03):
One of them had to do with something my boss wanted me to
do that was like not OK. I didn't let his lover in or
whatever, but then the game, to the game's credit, it has a
great history section where you can choose to pick up where you
left off. You can choose like a starting
point and you have a timeline ofall your past runs.

(01:53:24):
I thought that was so cool, sucha nice touch.
Yeah, it helped me a lot, especially when I was doing a
lot of like stopping and starting.
And I could see the endless modein this game.
You said you were curious about it.
I could see that being my Casey.'S mod.
That's what I was going to say. I think that's going to be your
Casey's mod because you were talking about wanting more
randomization. Yeah.
And I think you do get that. That's what that's got to be,

(01:53:45):
right? I think so.
And I actually did play it for agood 10 minutes.
I played just one day and it wasrandom, you know, a lot of the
people ended up being completelyfine and I approved them.
Like it felt like I got through 10 people and like seven of them
were good. Yeah.
What's the, what's the rule set look like when you start endless
mode? Is it like Max day you know?

(01:54:05):
There are different modes, I forget them all, but you get to
choose what kind of endless modeyou do.
I think 1 is just like, see how long you can go before you get a
citation and then the run dies. Or do just a full day and see
how well you can do. Or just it's maybe truly

(01:54:26):
endless, but every time you correctly process someone, it's
five points. Every time you get a citation,
it's minus some amount of points.
So yeah, it was cool. I didn't try them all out, but
there are options. Cool.
Yeah, that does sound fun. I don't know, just based on time
I don't think I'll be able to pursue it, but I I think it
sounds like a blast. Yeah, I might check it out in

(01:54:49):
the coming weeks a little bit more.
And then just another really powerful moment for me.
And it happens early. I think this is an example of a
choice where the game is showingyou its ethical and moral
potential really early, telling you, like what kind of world
this is. It's when you're not quite that

(01:55:10):
great at the game yet, so you'renot making a lot of money and
you are just poor at the start and you have to choose who gets
food and who gets heat and stuff.
And you have a wife, a son, a mother-in-law and an uncle.
And like, I'm saving my son and my wife first, yeah.

(01:55:31):
You know, yeah, there's a whole,I took a couple of psychology
classes and there's like a scientifically proven like this
is what people will do for this level of relative.
It's like proven mathematically or whatever.
Oh my. God, that's wild.
That like something so emotionaland something that seems so

(01:55:52):
abstract could be made into a science.
Yeah, like that. Here's another interesting story
moment that I chose to partake in is that you can take in
another family member at a certain point in the game, and I
did that. OK, I didn't.
Oh yeah, I didn't. I thought that I wasn't going to
be able to because I didn't think I would have enough money

(01:56:12):
because it costs like it costs money or whatever to do.
Exactly, Yeah. But it paid off.
I don't think I would have beat the game if I hadn't done that.
To be honest, interesting the thing that causes that to be a
choice made me suss about makingthat choice that follows.
So the reason why we can take someone in and it'd be like I

(01:56:35):
want to lay low. I don't want to you know what,
sorry you're on your own and I actually didn't let them in.
If that tells you what kind of person I am.
I just a lot of choices I made. We're cruel on the surface, but
I could always go back to the excuse of I work for an
impressive government which is making me do this job and I have

(01:56:56):
to look after my family. Yeah, no, 100%.
Like be what the FBI calls the little Gray man.
Like, don't stand out. You know, make sure no one
recognizes you. Like mediocrity is going to
probably save your life. Yes, so I we both love the game.
I'm so glad we both loved it. Is there anything else to say

(01:57:18):
about this classic indie game? I don't think so.
I'm I'm so glad I loved it. And that's it.
It's really good. It's I, I had played this years
ago, but only for the first few in game days.
I got my first def. This is probably 2016.
You know, I just had heard aboutthis game and it had been out

(01:57:38):
for several years and I, it justdidn't quite grab me.
And all these years I've thought, I'm not going to be
into this really as much as other games.
And I ended up loving it. I'm so glad I gave it another
shot. So that's our review of papers,
please. You can play it on PC, Mac,
Linux, PlayStation Vita, Androidand iOS.

(01:58:01):
What an eclectic collection of platforms.
You know, I was thinking about like how I probably won't play
endless mode because it's not onconsole, but I also like can't
in my head figure out how this is enjoyable to play on a
console. Like how do you drag documents
in an enjoyable way that doesn'ttake up a lot of time?

(01:58:22):
I feel like on the, you know, ifyou're talking about the Vita,
it has a touch. Screen does it, so I'm guessing
maybe that's why it works. But it's very much unlike many
other Vita games and I'm guessing that's why it hasn't
been ported to. I guess it could be on Switch if
they wanted it to be, but a lot of people don't play games, you
know, handheld on the Switch. But people forget that the

(01:58:43):
Switch has a touch screen. Yeah, yeah.
So maybe like Mars After Midnight might only work on the
play date. This only works on platforms
where you can click and drag things easily.
So yeah, it's on your mobile device, it's on desktop systems
and it's on the Vita. This might.
Be a fun game to play while waiting, yeah?

(01:59:04):
Yes, yeah, a lot of synergy today with the games.
Disco Cola rated papers please a9.5.
I rated it a nine. That's the end of this episode
of Underplayed. You can find more of our
episodes at kzum.org/underplayedand on common podcast platforms
like Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Our music was composed by Jack
Rodenberg. Our art comes from Oni Mochi.

(01:59:26):
Check out our show notes where you can find and follow us
across social media. Underplayed is on Blue Sky,
Instagram and Threads. You can also find my links down
below, and I stream a variety ofindie games on Twitch.
And I am at Disco Cola in most of those places.
Again, my links are down below which include my backlogged
where both of today's games are in my top 100 indie games.

(01:59:47):
Amazing, Love that. Next time we'll have two more
secret games to review and our featured game will be another
Crab's Treasure, an action RPG developed by Aggro Crab.
Until then, everyone keep on playing.

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072 - Lil' Guardsman, While Waiting, & Papers, Please

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}072 - Lil' Guardsman, While Waiting, & Papers, Please