[kergonath]

> The blog post alone makes you want to purchase whatever this person has been working on based on how much passion is oozing off the explanation of how it's made.

Papers Please is nice, but Return of the Obra Dinn is a masterpiece. Honestly. A very cool concept with some impressive attention to detail. Pixel-perfect 1-bit dithered graphics, amazing soundtrack, and a nice story. I don’t have a link here but there was a forum thread somewhere where he discussed his progress as he was making the game. It’s a bit long but we’ll worth a read as well.

[the_af]

I consider both games to be masterpieces, keeping my attention even when I was bored with gaming in general.

I also played Helsing's Fire on the iPad, which while not a masterpiece, is still pretty fun!

[kergonath]

I like the idea of Papers, Please more than actually playing it, I think. But I never played Helsing’s Fire, thanks for the suggestion!

[vanderZwan]

This may be true, but in the same way that paintings don't have to be "beautiful" to be good paintings, games don't always have to be fun experiences to be good games. I think Papers Please is a perfect example of such a game. I didn't enjoy it so much as that it engaged me in its bleak bureaucracy.

[the_af]

Good point!

Though I actually enjoyed "Papers, Please" gameplay. I was overjoyed when I found it has an endless mode. I enjoy stamping those red "denied"!

[jsmith45]

The default mode of Obra Dinn actually is not using true 1 bit graphics. It is downsampled double resolution rendering, with additional softening added. It is very subtle about it, and I only noticed on my second play-though when I noticed the book contents seemed to have very slightly different color than the rest of the game.

One can force true one bit graphics ("digital mode"), but the downside is greater flicker in the dithering dots when moving.