Heart. Papers. Border.
Heart. Papers. Border. goes to sleep
For a long time, I thought I can find a way to finish this game. But Heart. Papers. Border. is just too difficult for me to continue. Not just because I am alone in developing this, but because this project holds too much of my painful past. I simply cannot look at it in a way that gives me any hope of a good finish line. Whenever I open the work files, I remember all the hopes and dreams I once had for this game, and how they all dissipated into thin air.
Heart. Papers. Border. was supposed to be a simple game. I wanted to make a nice little puzzle that poses some interesting questions while delighting you with some neat retro futuristic art. But for reasons I would rather forget, it ended up close to becoming a grand strategy game, where you must balance complex logistics in order to be able to experience everything the world of Heart has to offer. What was once supposed to be a tiny exercise in creativity for me, ended up with 26 countries, countless objectives, events, discoveries and more.
This project as it is right now, is the dream of someone else. I do not want to continue that dream, as it is not mine. I tried for a good few years, and despite experiencing very painful life events indeed, but I can't. It took me this long to understand that Heart. Papers. Border. cannot be finished.
To those of you that remained with me despite all odds, thank you. And please forgive me - I know this is no good excuse, but I really did try. I think Heart. Papers. Border. will remain in your library, but it will be removed from Steam's ecosystem.
With much love!
Laura
Please don't buy me - a status update
I want to give you all an update about this project, which is, it is not abandoned. Currently, this IP is transferred to my new company. I will eventually be able to fund its development. But until that is possible, I must focus on other projects, specifically Lost Sunday Comics, Treasures, Thoughts & Trinkets and Zestrea.
I am very grateful to everyone who still hangs around and sometimes asks about an update. This is a project very close to my heart and really full of personal history, which is why the development is both extremely difficult and also crucial for me to finish.
While I now have solid plans to continue the development for Heart. Papers. Border., I strongly advise against buying this game now.
Thank you for your understanding!
Laura
Puzzle time! HPB now has them - and also, join our dev updates forum!
Its not exactly pretty right now, but It Works! Help us out - we find making this puzzle quite soothing. Is it just us? Are we suffering from creative blindness? Or is this new puzzle mechanic a little bit soothing for realz? You can try this right now if you access the dev branch - its not password protected:
- right click Heart. Papers. Border. in your library, and then go to Properties
- in Properties, go to the tab called BETAS
- here, you can select in_dev - Development Branch
We also started a shiny new Topic on our Steam Discussion board, where we'll be posting a lot of tiny day to day updates and WIP glimpses. And we'll be spicing up our regular HPB Design Sesh with Broadcasts! If you don't have the time to try the new puzzle by yourself, we will stream on Thursdays in the afternoon.
So come onboard on the HPB Community Hub and talk HBP design & development with us! If you ever wanted to taste how it really feels to make an indie game, we hope this will offer a fairly good idea!
HBP Design Sesh: Public Backlog & Dev Branch
On occasion, it may look like this:
but in reality, it's usually like this:
...and it feels way too often like this:
Now, we can't share memes all the time (or... can we?!...) but we CAN share some of the drama. Worry not, it will make little sense to most of you! :D
The HBP Backlog
Here is what we are working on, what we are going to work on, what we worked on and what we will probably never work on:
We use Pivotal Tracker to keep our backlog, and making a project public is actually part of this tool's free suite - I guess they are hoping we'd convince you to use it, too (it's a really good agile project management tool, actually).
The blue lines are releases and we use them to loosely define our goal for "major-ish" updates. What's above the blue line needs to be done by that time/ for that update. What's below is for the next blue line. We are hoping for about 6 blue lines until the end of spring, when ... nope. I am too afraid to write it down.
You can check out our backlog Right Here.
The HPB Dev Branch
We keep a very up to date build on Steam in our dev branch. You can check out the latest HPB too, but treat with caution - it's on the dev branch, and not release, for a good reason! To access the Heart. Papers. Border. dev branch, you have to:
- right click Heart. Papers. Border. in your library, and then go to Properties
- in Properties, go to the tab called BETAS
- here, you can select in_dev - Development Branch
We did not put any password for it. This branch gets a lot of updates and is unstable, but when you start the game you can now see....
The News! Not the boring world goes insane kind of news that are popular on TV these days, but THESE news about Heart. Papers. Border.! Isn't that neat?
HPB Design Sesh: changing Everything* while learning how to KISS!!!
Learning how to KISS
Now, let's start with the rule: Keep It Simple, Stupid! Aka KISS.
Anyone who has every designed a game in earnest know that this is... Very Freakin' Difficult. Because you always want to make the best game possible, and the best idea always comes tomorrow. Today's ideas are rarely good enough. Nor is today's code, art, sound, you name it. This is what makes game developers artists. And what leads to the horror of all horrors, feature creep.
There are a few ways to stand up to feature creep. The two we chose is to let you hold us accountable and to constantly keep KISS in mind. Which is why the new design will start very simple - childish, even. We want to make sure the base is solid before we build on it.
Everything* changes!
Ground zero is to clean up this mess but once done to a sufficient degree, Heart. Papers. Border. will become a puzzle collector and a logistics brain game. Thankfully this change takes the game away from judgement, too. The faith of the world no longer falls on your shoulder, nor are you in a more or less privileged position to complete your task. Real life does a good enough job at letting us to imagine that - so we will do our best to entertain you in Heart. Papers. Border. We interrupt this program for a short, but insightful College Humor travel clip:
[previewyoutube="WZk1WHJ_fwo;full"]
The main systems we plan to implement are:
- a travel planner that lets you schedule your travels for up to a point in the future and then hit Play to make these plans happen
- a commission system where you'll know if important events are happening in a certain place, so you can setup your travels to catch them (or not) - as a photojournalist would
- a puzzle collector where you collect all the puzzles in a country, and some puzzles require you to be there at certain, specific times
The game loop will be plan your travel so you can hop from country to country and objective to objective, while catching the temporary happenings in the best way you can. We absolutely want to keep some of the existing systems, like visas, deportations, universal basic income and the blog-turned-photoblog, but first things first and only if they truly click with these new systems. But, like, we Really wanna keep deportations....
The puzzle collector will likely be first and we already posted a hint about how it will look:
We hope to be posting a game update sometimes in October. We really count on you to get Heart. Papers. Border. right this time, so if you think we should keep a certain system, or if you have opinions about these new ideas, please let us know!
HPB Design Sesh: A feature creep horror story & a Monster discount
Warning! Here's a bunch of disturbing and really terrifying Unity screenshots:
I am really sorry you had to see this.
I do not know what was in my head.
But back in 2018, a HPB country ended up having a geographical area, streets and vegetation, a bunch of objectives to visit And Also:
- a visa that must be bought, has a processing time and expires;
- a flag and a passport stamp;
- a cost of living - later, depending on the objective you were at, cause it wasn't enough;
- travel costs TO the country and IN the country;
- a deportation, of course, with a country specific fine;
- country specific UBI;
- starting money;
- network connection quality!!! I mean how plausible is to Just Blog in a Retro futuristic imagined planet;
- chance encounters that may happen more or less;
- ideal visit duration Per Objective;
- oh right. Hashtags!!!! Per each objective!!!! and in 5. FIVE! Separate. Categories.
As months passed by, we tried to fix this horror. And it was a very painful task, not only because of external reasons, but because, as you can see, we were dealing with a monster. And my brain was finally accepting the reality that knowing - in theory - how game design should be is no guarantee for not royally phookin up anyhow.
So now, among designing properly simple and humane new mechanics, we must first face this monster and give it a serious feature cut. Almost everything must go. I am placing HPB on a Monster discount until we can give it a proper trim. Beware though - it'll be a bit until we can nurse Heart. Papers. Border. to decency. At least we are doing it Very Publicly so you can PLEASE pull the alarm as soon as you feel its needed.
Bonus!
I give ye an easy and comprehensive guide on how NOT to have fun with naming your files! Please observe the classics:
- "HPB_marketing_final_hashtag_famous_last_words"
- "HPB_marketing_final_hashtag_famous_last_words_except_they_wernt" (they really weren't, nor were they these ones, actually)
- ... and my favourite:
- "HPB_map_its_starting_too_look_cool_and_all_with_all_that_ui_stuff_going_on_but_im_gonna_stop_now_cause_we_dont_like_novells_in_file_names"
* don't even ask
HPB Design Sesh: Complete The Picture
When I started designing Heart. Papers. Border., I wanted to make a cute little game that conveys the idea of travel and discovery. I do believe there is a correlation between the number of countries one takes the time to visit and understand at a more profound level, and that person's tolerance and love towards another. And this is a feeling I capture whenever I read or watch travel logs. No wonder digital nomadism is so popular nowadays.
That's what I tried to capture with the blog feature - but its something very hard to design in fun abstract ways, and - fast forward to now - I thing the blog system is the worst gameplay feature in HPB. It has to change. If the blog is fun, the entire game becomes fun, because the blog is the reason you travel in the world of Heart.
So here's what's on my mind....
Instead of having quests and earning hashtags, you are now a Photojournalist on a Quest to "complete the picture". In practical terms, this means we are creating one puzzle image per country, and your task is to discover all the puzzle pieces, put them together and publish photos.
From this puzzle view, you can Take Pictures, and the Publish them. This essentially becomes the Blog and I will illustrate how it looks in the next Design Sesh.
What do you think?
Lights on! We're back - Heart. Papers. Border. continues
If you are reading this, we owe you a great deal of gratitude. You held on to a tiny promise that we did not yet keep. We said "life happened" and you trusted us that we won't bury Heart. Papers. Border. That we'll eventually turn the lights back on.
The life that happened involved the transformation of a twenty year old relationship. Heart. Papers. Border. is a game made by two people who used to be married when this project started. To a tiny extent, Heart. Papers. Border. played a part in a beautiful, peaceful, painful divorce. It took a while for us to heal. We're back as friends and creators. We think this healing might have led to the healing of Heart. Papers. Border., too. But you will be the judge of that! Here's what you're judging....
Some antidotes to a severe Heart. Papers. Border. feature creep
Why do you travel? It's a general question, indeed, but when applied to Heart. Papers. Border., you don't really have a great reason. The old reason, poorly explained, was this: you travel to gather hashtags to publish blogs to change national opinions to contribute to the opening of borders. It's a conceptually nice idea, I guess but... Take that for a game loop! Heart. Papers. Border. was not fun. As a matter of fact, Heart. Papers. Border. was not - we started with the intention of making a tiny game, and ended up with a grand strategy kind of feature creep that did not really led anywhere.
Here is a brief summary of what we will be changing. We are still in design phase and this is an early access game, so your thoughts on this are really, really, really important!
Congratulations! Instead of being an aimless traveller, you now have an important job in Heart. Papers. Border. You are a photo journalist, and you are tasked to "offer a complete picture" of all 26 countries of planet Heart! You've got 125 years, a super professional camera and your own wits on how to frame and publish your progress and adventures on your photo blog. But beware! Some countries are more welcoming than others, visas expire and certain things happen regardless of your camera being present to immortalise them or not. Can you complete the picture? And what story will you tell as you complete it?
What do you think about this new design? Stay tuned for many a detailed design blogs that we hope you'll scrutinise!
It's been a long time coming - update 0.1.5.20841
FLASHING LIGHTS WARNING!
We added a Day/ Night cycle and it can be upsetting if you have problems with flashing lights. This is by default ON but you can turn it OFF in the Settings. It can be disturbing especially if you play the game on Fast Forward/ high speed.
Hey everyone!
It's been a long time since we updated Heart. Papers. Border.. So this update is pretty big, and I will probably forget to mention some of the stuff we have added. The game is, however, far from done. I look forward for your feedback!
What is new
- All the countries for which we have graphics done are now available and can be visited once you finish the last quest in Sputnik City. They DO NOT have any quests, encounters or hashtags yet, however
- We added a day/night cycle which needs
- A LOT* of tweaking but I think it adds to the game
- You can now see how much time you spend in every objective and in every country, in the SpacePad Location app
- We added the so called Birthday Mechanic which means you get a Space Cake when you grow older :) For now this is just aesthetics but this plays a crucial role for the end game
- We added more portraits you can play with, all of them inspired by fantastic real life people to whom we owe a great deal of thanks <3
- When you start a new game, we randomize the selection of portrait and gender
- We started to work on Influence. This is by far ready, but you can see how influential you are in each country from the SpacePad Location app
- The Blog has been optimized to support double click. So just double click on the hashtags you want to use
- We have done countless minor updates which should make the game play smoother
- We probably added more stuff that we forgot to keep track of. Note to self - keep track of what you add!
There are many KNOWN ISSUES.
Like some of the popups overlap in a non optimal way, many of them can be cut which is super annoying. Notifications pile up and we will refactor that system so you can use the SpacePad to browse through notifications instead of letting them clutter the UI. The Day / Night cycle is something that needs a lot of optimizing and frankly I am super eager to make the night version of our objectives and I also want to work with the roads for this.
Keep in mind - when you unlock all countries, you can see the TRAVEL button active but if you do not have enough uNits, nothing happens when you click on it. We will disable it with a message if you do not have enough uNits, just like it happens when you don't have a visa.
And of course there is a lot of work to do for the influence system, the SpacePad in general and Blog minigame in particular, and I will redesign the entire encounter/ quest system. Just so you know - its a long way to go.
Enjoy! :)
Laura aka Sarienn
/overworking Sebi's coding skills since 2017
Updates are coming (aka, this project is not abandoned)
We are still working on HPB. Slowly, because life happened in pretty extreme ways, but we have no intention to abandon this project.
Those of you who have beta access might have noticed that we unlocked all countries. We do not have quests and encounters yet, but we plan to unlock whatever we do have and go from there. There are some fixes we need to do until we push this update to public.
We appreciate your commitment very very much <3
Please hang on with us!
Best!
L