The creator of Papers, Please wants developers to make weirder, more personal games

Lucas Pope, the solo creator of games like Papers, Please and Return of the Obra Dinn, received the Pioneer Award from the annual Game Developers Choice Awards this year. It’s a major achievement that puts him in a league with industry giants like Gabe Newell, Yu Suzuki, and Roberta Williams.

“Now that I’m an official pioneer, I have some requests,” he said in his brief acceptance speech. “World peace, obviously. But for this crowd, I’d be happy if you kept making the kinds of unique off-beat, experimental, creative, and especially personal games that I love.”

It was similar to something Pope had said to me earlier — especially the personal part. I had asked him what advice he might have for developers just starting out. “Make something personal, make it small, release on [Itch.io]. Try to find the people who like the same things you do and then make the things you enjoy.”

Games, for him, have always been about “making something that I want to play,” Pope said. With Papers, Please, where you have to make tough decisions while working as an immigration inspector in a fictional country, “it was, â …

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