Lucas Pope, the solo creator of video games like Papers, Please and Return of the Obra Dinn, acquired the Pioneer Award from the annual Game Developers Choice Awards this 12 months. It’s a serious achievement that places him in a league with trade giants like Gabe Newell, Yu Suzuki, and Roberta Williams.
“Now that I’m an official pioneer, I’ve some requests,” he mentioned in his temporary acceptance speech. “World peace, clearly. But for this crowd, I’d be completely satisfied for those who saved making the sorts of distinctive off-beat, experimental, inventive, and particularly private video games that I like.”
It was much like one thing Pope had mentioned to me earlier — particularly the private half. I had requested him what recommendation he might need for builders simply beginning out. “Make one thing private, make it small, launch on [Itch.io]. Try to search out the individuals who like the identical belongings you do after which make the belongings you get pleasure from.”
“I would like this sort of sport. I like taking a look at paperwork.”
Games, for him, have at all times been about “making one thing that I need to play,” Pope mentioned. With Papers, Please, the place it’s a must to make robust choices whereas working as an immigration inspector in a fictional nation, “it was, ‘I would like this sort of sport. I like taking a look at paperwork.’ Nobody else actually likes that, was my considering. And then I made it and I came upon, really, a lot of individuals like the identical issues I do.”
That expertise gave him the boldness to observe an analogous path for his subsequent sport. “I’m simply going to attempt that once more. I’m going to make a sport that doesn’t exist, that I want I had and that I might play, and I’ll make that. And simply based mostly on religion, I’m going to hope that different individuals additionally prefer it,” he mentioned. “If there’s one thing that you just’re obsessed with, then make a sport about it.”
That sport turned out to be Return of the Obra Dinn, the place you’re an insurance coverage inspector investigating deaths and mysteries on the namesake ship. Pope’s newest title is Mars After Midnight, a sport for the Playdate about screening aliens at a fictional Martian assist heart.
It’s a lot sillier than Papers, Please and Obra Dinn; one situation in Mars asks you to solely admit aliens that fart. In a weblog put up concerning the sport, Pope described it as “one thing my youngsters may like,” and he advised me that whereas the youngsters learn about Papers, Please and Obra Dinn, they’re too younger to play them as a result of they’re M-rated. “That’s type of why I wished to make Mars. I wished a sport the place they may simply full-on play it and luxuriate in it.”
Pope mentioned they performed Mars “dozens of instances” and provided strategies for a number of the classes within the sport. As youngsters, they don’t have a variety of preconceived notions, he mentioned, so whereas a few of their concepts might need been “somewhat ridiculous,” he might see “the core of a very cool factor that I might munge it somewhat bit and get it in there.” He added, “I take into consideration video games a sure manner, however the youngsters don’t have any framing like that. So having youngsters does assist me see how they play video games.”
As for what Pope needs to discover subsequent? “When I might replicate on Obra Dinn and Papers, Please, I type of realized [that] perhaps I ought to be going again to 2D,” he mentioned, noting that Mars is “roughly” a 2D sport, too. From a manufacturing and creativity standpoint, “it’s good to work in 2D,” he mentioned. “But so far as precise subjects and mechanics and issues like that, I’m engaged on a number of issues. Nothing that’s prepared for announcement, sadly.”
