The Westport Independent by Double Zero One Zero
This game was an interesting one for us. With a theme like "Beneath the surface", we wanted make a game that interpreted the theme from a more figurative perspective, rather than a literal one.
What we ended up with was a game about censoring, where you decide what will be available to the public, and what will stay beneath the surface.
Remember that it is a game jam game, so some of the balancing is a bit off, as there was very little time for testing.
We hope you enjoy our game!
Game made by:
Pontus Lunden
- Designer
- Artist
- Composer/Sound design
Kristian Brodal
- Programmer
What we ended up with was a game about censoring, where you decide what will be available to the public, and what will stay beneath the surface.
Remember that it is a game jam game, so some of the balancing is a bit off, as there was very little time for testing.
We hope you enjoy our game!
Game made by:
Pontus Lunden
- Designer
- Artist
- Composer/Sound design
Kristian Brodal
- Programmer
Ratings
| Coolness | 100% | 1 |
| Overall(Jam) | 4.05 | 26 |
| Audio(Jam) | 4.13 | 24 |
| Fun(Jam) | 3.45 | 133 |
| Graphics(Jam) | 4.21 | 91 |
| Humor(Jam) | 3.00 | 210 |
| Innovation(Jam) | 3.70 | 92 |
| Mood(Jam) | 4.20 | 23 |
| Theme(Jam) | 3.79 | 77 |
Love what you guys have done with the look and feel. Simply fabulous. Both graphics, music and soundfx all work well together.
The only improvements I could think of were to make it a bit easier to drag improved (censored?) documents to the print or deny envelope. As well as getting a little bit more guidance in the beginning. Super well done, my favourite in the Mood category this year and a strong contender overall!
I was initially captured by the graphics, scrolling through the ludum dare front page, and was looking forward to the completed game since. I really like the gameplay and finally (I guess) "won" the game after (actually) some tries. As Jod pointed out, the game really reminds one of Papers Please, especially when you find yourself in a position, in which you are able to decide if you want to support the government or the rebels/diverse people wanting to enter Arstrotska, while focusing on completely different aspects. The music adds a lot to the great atmosphere created by the graphics and texts, but I had some problems reading the really pixelated font and dragging the papers around.
Apart from these minor points, I love the game and would be incredible happy if you keep working on it post ld...
rejooh :)
Superb game, loved the style and the gameplay. Controls were a bit tough on the papers sometimes, but I worked out a system.
Not that this is a bad thing. You've taken the effective parts of the formula, and put them into something different.
The aethethics are lovely, and the game plays nicely, save for awkward controls.
I found it a bit easy to be the oppressive man I wished to be, and it would have felt good to have a bit more of a challenge in that sense, but honestly I don't see any realistic way of addressing that without taking away from the game in other ways, and it works fine as it is.
An excellent game, well done
You should make this a complete game. I'll buy it.
For me it became only after some ingame weeks clear what those numbers and bars on the right side mean.
One thing I'd fix was the way you pick up and close the documents, since it's very unintuitive (you have to grab the border? why not the headline?).
My tendency, having run a newsdesk IRL, was to publish and be damned - except for the obvious government propaganda pieces, which went on the spike! So I ended up getting shut down but also sparking a popular uprising, which I thought was a fairly upbeat ending in the circumstances. I take it there were other endings if I'd chosen differently?
Comparisons with both Papers, Please and The Republia Times are inevitable, but this doesn't change the fact that you've done a wonderful job. Music contributes immensely to the atmosphere, you could almost picture yourself in a black & white film taking place in the late thirties.
Congratulations!
Just to nitpick a bit, I agree on some of the commenters saying dragging could be a bit easier. The first time I played I had some troubles with it -_-U
Nice execution and nice ambiance, but I wasn't always sure how I was gaining points with the rebels or raising the suspicion of the governement.
#### #### ## ### ## ### #### ##### #### # #### ###### #### ##### ####. ## ## # #### ######## ## #### ### ###### ##### bloody ######. ## #### ## ## ## ### ## ###### #### ## ## # ###########, ### #### ####### ### brilliant!
Very solid entry for an excellent take on the theme.
Fantastic game, nice style, interesting concept!
i had a little trouble trying to figure out how to drag papers, but besides that absolutely amazing!
-Flatgub~
Innovation and humour are not that good, but very well overall.
But sometimes I could not read what was written ...
I realy love the graphics and the songs!!
Glory to Arstotzka!!
First try - government side!
- Ingame tutorial actually as ingame text? Very cool. Took me a while to drop it back, though.
- The art and the music are absolutely wonderful, and the sound effects fit well.
- The dragging was kind of hard sometimes. Like: Where can I start to drag this? Oh, I have to click again now?
- Sometimes I didn't understand why one or the other meter went up, but I guess that's to be expected.
- Aw, I was dismantled anyway? I hoped that they'd like me so much that they'd let me stay. Okay, another try!
Second try - publish ALL THE THINGS without looking, just for the sake of it!
- Well, that went well for week one!
- Not as good for week two though...
- Pretty great in week three!
- As in week four! Status: Rebel meter nearly maxed out, suspicion meter a bit over half.
- Uuuh, week five was bad. Rebel maxed out, but suspicion nearly too.
- Week six: Oh, that went surprisingly well. Rebel plus, suspicion minus? I'll take it :D
- Hu. I "won". I didn't expect that to go so well.
Third try - let's see what happens if I lose.
- Hum. I am not sure I *was* terminated in the end or if it was only planned, but I still feel like a hero! Ha! :)
So, uh, apart from "winning" (yeah, I know that I can decide my affiliation myself, but doing good sounds more like winning to me) when just publishing all, this was a fantastic game! Great atmosphere, good writing and it was on a serious topic while still being fun. You guys did a great job there!
Yeah, I wasn't sure how to just gain rebel score without suspicion score either. I mean, the rest are clear:
- Government-articles only: Nothing rises
- Rebel-articles only: Both rise, with the suspicion faster
...but how they are disconnected, I don't have any clue.
"Innovation and humour are not that good"
...haha. Yeah no innovation AT ALL. Just the same as all of those other newspaper censorship games, right? :D
different game.
and a new kind of game.
don't know if I've seen news paper sims before.
you seem swedish too?
I've ran out of superlatives!
I think it would've been good if the head of the paper was draggable, with a lot of text there wasn't a lot of margin for dragging the paper sometimes.
The most original entry I've seen so far, and the one that fits the theme in the best way. Really excellent, and I loved the jazzy mood :)