The cozy descendants of Lucas Pope's games
Here's how Papers, Please and Return of the Obra Dinn have inspired the next generation of indie developers.
At a Glance
- Papers, Please and Return of the Obra Dinn have both been beloved by game developers everywhere.
- With both games growing older, developers have had time to adapt their mechanics to other genres.
- The results show how innovative mechanics can translate to different game genres.
Last autumn marked both the five year anniversary of Return of the Obra Dinn and the ten year anniversary of Papers, Please. The two major releases from ex-Naughty Dog designer Lucas Pope have left a legacy as big as their ideas. Today, even titles in the cozy game space, as far afield on the surface from Pope’s work as you can get, are taking direct influence from both of these landmark works.
Pope was the solo designer, artist, writer and composer for Papers, Please, a pixelated one screen game where players take on the role of a border agent for a fictional European fascist state. In less than 10 years, that premise —and strong critical acclaim—sold over 5 million copies. A decade later, games like Not Tonight and Death and Taxes have emulated the fun and challenge that Papers, Please found in reading, stamping, and checking documents.
Lucas Pope’s games don’t require twitch reflexes or outside knowledge beyond what the game itself is teaching players. They are perfectly self-contained pedagogy machines. They are also undeniably games for adults who want to think about serious topics.
The new wave of cozy descendants to his games are asking the question, "what if they weren't?" These brilliant rule sets and systems don’t have to be used to depict fascism or solve violent crimes—they can tell any story you want. Using these mechanics to tell stories that speak to a new, younger generation is exactly what the developers of Lil' Guardsman and Little Problems: Cozy Detective Game are trying to do.
Return of the Obra Dinn shows off great detective design
When it came out in October 2018, Return of the Obra Dinn made even more of a critical splash. Its mechanics were more immediately easy to categorize on the genre front. It was a mystery game and a puzzle game. Even if the sales didn’t reflect this in quite the same way as Pope’s first hit, the immediate impact in the developer community did. 2022’s The Case of the Golden Idol took this fill-in-the-blank approach to mystery solving and applied it to a different flavor of grisly murder mystery. Both of these titles were a direct influence on the Shanghai-based creator of the upcoming Little Problems: A Cozy Detective Game.
“I really liked the idea of ‘completing a book,’ and that was inspired by Obra Dinn,” the Little Problems developer who goes by the pseudonym Poshcat said. Poshcat’s original vision for a detective game was much closer to Pope’s nautical horror. “When I was developing themes for Little Problems, the original idea was to make a Lovecraft-themed detective game. I got that idea from the monsters in Obra Dinn.”
Posh Cat Studios/Playstack
Horror and monsters weren’t sustainable, though, at least not for Poshcat’s mental health. The over-consumption of violent and gory detective media in early stages of development almost put her off from the idea entirely. But the developer realized that if she felt this way, then surely others must too. “I figured that people in general (including me) just like solving mysteries. It just doesn’t have to be a ‘murder’ mystery.”
Little Problems takes the fill-in-the-blank approach to puzzle solving and applies it to a coming-of-age story inspired by slice of life anime. Players are challenged with solving the everyday mysteries in the life of a college freshman. The ones that come from communally living with a bunch of other 18 year olds.