Papers, Please 5: A Good Ending

So I finished! I didn't get the ending I wanted, but I did get a good one, ending 18 instead of 19. Ah well, that's fine.

Actually I could have done this without the FAQ. The comic character really does give you an enormous clue about how to get that ending, or a similar one. And I managed to get myself killed on the first try, but I figured out how to survive the second time.

These characters are mostly randomly generated, so the game stays fresh. No doubt there can be many replays. There also is an "endless" mode, if you can get to ending 20. You get a code for the endless mode.

However, I think this is enough! Really, it is an amazingly good and rather complex game, done from such a simple premise. I can see why it's won all the awards. 

I love the irony at the end. All along we've been saying "Glory to to Arstotka" to Arstotkans if we allow them to enter. But I escaped with my family to Obristan. Here is that final screen:

Ha ha.

Fun game, if challenging. Took me to the last day to finally figure out how to hang things on my wall. Had to figure out what WAS the wall. Not obvious.

My ending stats:

I will now go on to the Carol Reed game. Then back to Baldur's Gate, I guess.

Fun times!

Papers, Please 4: I Vill Continue!

OK, I'll admit it. This is a hard game. Completely doable, but difficult. Deceptively difficult. So I looked ahead in the FAQ, and I see that there are 20 endings, most of them bad. I kinda wanted to have a good experience, so I'm following its advice for the major storyline to get ending 19. I still have to make decisions about all the entrants and shoot random fence jumpers, so I'm playing normally, but I don't want to do all this and then be unhappy with the ending. 

I've had to go back and re-do a few days because I got major citations and that cut down on my money. However, last time I played I managed to get fewer citations. I didn't poison one of the spys, as the FAQ suggested, but I still have one more task for the EZIC organization to complete that ought to get me ending 19. 

Hope so, anyway.

Oh, not upgrading the apartment didn't stop the neighbors from turning me in. However, I let the right spy through, so I wasn't arrested this time. They did take all my savings, however. I still didn't upgrade the apartment because it costs more. I need to make money. So I'm still alternating between paying for food and heat every day. That, plus my bribes and kickbacks, helps.

They do keep complicating things. We have to deny all journalists, we have to give reasons for denials--and that wasn't easy to figure out. You have to link to the rule in the rule book to get the "reason" stamp. Otherwise you get a citation, even if your decision was correct.

The emotional stuff has continued with a few asylum seekers, and more bribes have come my way. I make money for detaining people, so I do that, except for the drug smuggler. He's the comic character in the game, and I want to keep him around just for kicks. When I find his drugs, he bribes me. As long as I don't have too many citations, I still make money by letting him through. 

I'm only about five or six "days" away from the ending. The game goes for 31 "days." 

It's a good game, worth finishing. It is tough!

Next entry.

Baldur's Gate 30: Still Slogging Through

I didn't want to let Baldur's Gate atrophy while I played a couple of other short games, so I went back and vanquished the last wyvern, and finished Durlag's third lower level. (My saves are there and the game is working fine! Whew!) The game allows you to awaken five heroes to help you fight the wyverns, but if you go in the back door, as I did, you don't really have access to them. However, I'd already slaughtered the first two wyverns and the last one seemed to be hiding back in the shadows, so I sent Ajantis through, hugging the south wall, and he was able to awaken the heroes. I judiciously used them to fight the wyvern. The wyvern slaughtered them, but not before they'd done damage to the wyvern. After that it wasn't too difficult to get the wyrm, although I didn't have room in the inventories to grab it's valuable head. Can't remember where to sell the thing anyway. 

After you slay the wyverns, the heroes are supposed to turn on you. However, as they were already dead, I just looted them for what I could carry. I've really got to start using my consumables. I've got the inventories all clogged up. I do this in every RPG I play, and I've got to start breaking myself of my hoarding habit.

Anyhoo, then I had four caves to clean out. Not too much trouble there, but once I did the last one I was immediately transported to the chessboard. The FAQ says to use the animate dead spell I don't have, so I summoned some monsters. That helped get the bad guys to attack. Then I made a mistake. I used stinking cloud, or cloudkill, or something, and although I easily won the game, I also nearly killed off most of my party. They all survived however, so I healed up and went through the door to the next area. There I met the ghost of Durlag himself, maybe, and was able to rest. 

So I left it there. Yes, the levels are getting to be more challenging, but at least I still mostly remember how to fight. Ergo, I'll go ahead and finish Papers, Please and do the latest Carol Reed (another one just came out yesterday). Will return to BG when I'm able.

Next entry

Papers, Please 3: Caught!

So taking the bribes didn't work out so well. The nasty neighbors noticed my advanced lifestyle (yeah, I got a slightly better apartment and had food and heat every night), and turned me in.

I have experienced Ending #4 in the game. Got arrested halfway through the game. 

So I have to do that again! Hmmm. Strategery . . .

UPDATE: So yeah, I started completely over again. Really, this game has a learning curve. Now I know more. I finally figured out how to tell if someone's weight was too high--got several citations previously for not catching that. But actually I'm now zooming along fairly well, just starting Day 3 again. It's nice to know what you're doing. Now if I could just figure out how to tell which are the spys.

Oh, and I'm still going to take the bribes. This time, though, I won't upgrade my apartment, and I'll keep alternating paying for heat and food. That way the neighbors shouldn't object.

Next Entry

Papers, Please 2: Choices

Grabbed a few more moments to play and got all the way to to Dec 1st in the game. Suspicious of every entrant, but I bid them velcome despite the continuing terrorist attacks. 

In order to pay for the search upgrades in my guard booth, the country made ME pay 5 credits.

However, I did much better the last few days, and now have a bit of savings and am doing OK with the credits. In lean times, I alternate between paying for food and for heat. My last "night" was OK. I had enough money and some to spare, so I paid for everything. 

However, a moral choice came into it. A girl entered and gave me a note asking that I deny entry to a man she suspected would force her into prostitution. I spotted him, but let him in. My moral choice: that's up to the police and I have a family to consider. I would have been docked 5 credits for turning him down.

Humor: one old guy keeps coming back without the proper documents. He's determined. Last time my character told him not to come back again.

The Papers, Please working screen

Another moral choice: a husband and wife were fleeing another country. He was OK, but she lacked a document. I let her in anyway. She gave me a gem for it--and perhaps that's where my new "savings" are coming from.

For awhile I had to search all the entrants from one country, but their diplomats objected, so now we're back to normal on it. I've had to fingerprint several entrants, and caught one. I detain people for very little reason: a document seems forged--usually the passport. 

So far I'm comfortable with my moral choices, but that may change. 

Now, it's back to Kirkus books!

UPDATE:  I'm taking the bribes.

Next entry

Papers, Please 1: Trying Something New

Despite the fact that I oh so cleverly rescued my saved games for Baldur's Gate and I haven't finished it yet, my nephew just gave me this game last night. I had put into my Steam wish list because Jeff Vogel had some very nice things to say about it on his blog. It's only about four hours long. Plus, it has won lots of awards and has fantastic reviews.

So I thought I'd try it. This is an indie game--very simple, on the surface. It has only one screen. Nicely economical for the indie developer. However, the script goes far beyond that one screen.

It's 1982, and the style of the game is from that period--the very beginning of graphic games. It looks like a very early PC effort. The excellent music really helps the atmosphere. The player takes the part of a newly hired border official in a dystopian dictatorship called Arstotzka. New jobs are offered in the country, and it's our job to decide who gets in and who doesn't. Sounds simple. On the first day, it is. Only the Arstotzkans can enter. We accept or reject them with stamps on their passports. They go into the country or go away, and we get to go home to our family, living in a Level 8 apartment. 

For every correct decision, we get five credits. I'm playing in the easy mode right now, so I get an extra 20 credits per day whatever I do. If we make a mistake, we're docked 5 credits.

At home, every night, we get the choice of what to spend our money on. We have a family. They need heat, food, and sometimes medicine. We have to pay the rent no matter what. After that, it's our decision to decide what to pay for. Ergo, the decisions we make during the day will decide if the family survives.

I'm just into the third day. Each day the game adds a new element. We have to compare passport photos with the person's face, check the dates on the passports and entry tickets, and especially, check to see if they're coming from an official city--otherwise their passports may be faked. My last decision was what to do when somebody shows up without any documents. The game guides you through new stuff like this.

The people who come into your booth make comments, try to bribe you, etc. There's already been a terrorist attack, which cut the day short and, therefore, my wages. I can see how this thing is going to grow ever more complex. Reviews say that it gets quite emotional.

So I'm looking forward to playing more! (Right now I'm in a Kirkus book rush, however. Therefore, even though it's a short game, I probably won't finish before sometime next week.)

Next Entry

Baldur's Gate 29: Super Oops!

Oh dear.

First, the good news. I was able to download and install the new, FREE Mavericks OS for my Mac. It upgraded just fine from Snow Leopard. I didn't lose anything other than a few very old, very silly games that I can get for cheap on Big Fish should I really want them. (And, crazily, my ancient and rare American McGee's Alice game, Mac version, appears still to be functional, although I won't know for sure until I find the game I have packed away and insert the disc. I guess if it worked all the way up to Snow Leopard, it'll still work on Mavericks. It was the installation procedure that was the problem, and it survived that.)

It saved everything else! 

Except: my Baldur's Gate saved games. They are not there. I open the game as usual, went to single player, went to load, and the saved games screen came up empty.

I will continue to look, but so far it doesn't look good. Although I actually found the saved games in a BG folder, trying to open one with the BG application still results in an empty saved game screen.

But hey. I had a LOT of fun with it, but I also made a boatload of mistakes. I went with a druid but no cleric. I chose Neera as my mage (bad, bad choice. I've experienced her now, and that's enough of that). I didn't get Boo. 

Yet, I very nearly finished the game. Despite Heavaron's rule that you can't win without a cleric, clearly, I would have made it. I only had a few more areas to finish in Durlag's Tower (my fave portion of the game, actually), and I would have been at the endgame.

And, this is a game I will replay many times. So now I've learned how. Yes, the learning curve is steep (at least for me). It would have been nice to have finished, but not the end of the world. I was almost ready to start over anyway.

Anyhoo, I have some ideas about how I want to shape my characters. I want two thieves, one to do traps and one to open locks. It would take one virtually the entire game to get both skills up to 100%. I will find out how to triple class! (there must be a way)

Really, this is a bit weird. I bought the game from the Apple Apps store. If anything should have come through an Apple upgrade, it should have been that. Fortunately, my Angry Birds games--also App store purchases--haven't lost any of my progress.

So, foo. I'll start again when I figure out what I want to do. I think I'll leave up all my posts about the game on this blog. It was an experience!

(Next, however, I'm going to do a new Carol Reed. I managed to buy it--easy enough--but I had to copy the link into my the browser on my virtual XP machine, because I don't have email open in the virtual machine, and they send you the download link in an email. Took a try or two, but it worked!)

End of Baldur's Gate. For now.

UPDATE:  I am clever. I searched for BG packages on the 'puter.  I found all the saved games, as I said. I also found a new autosave in the resources folder alongside it for a new game that I had started just to see if the game would still work (it does). I tried dropping the save folder I wanted into the folder with the autosave. No matter what, the game would only show the new autosave for a brand new game. So I looked into another BG folder--the data folder--and found yet another save folder there, with that same autosave. After that it was pretty clear what to do. I dragged the save folder I wanted into that folder and voila! It's there now when I open the game (along with that autosave). So I can finish! Ha! In fact, I wound up dragging the whole save folder from resources into data, the one with all my saves--and that works! There all there again, and yes, they do open. I figured it out. Knew there had to be a way. Haha!

Next entry