Papers, Please and Return of the Obra Dinn developer Lucas Pope is hesitant to reveal an excessive amount of about the video games he’s engaged on as a result of he’s involved his initiatives may “get slurped up by AI.”
The thoughts behind some of the most critically acclaimed indie titles of the final 20 years talked about his previous, current, and future in sport improvement throughout a dialog No Extra Robots co-founder Mike Rose and Vlambeer co-founder Rami Ismail on the Mike & Rami Are Still Here podcast. When talking about his method to the enterprise aspect of his initiatives, Pope spoke about his need to be open about his course of – and why he could chorus from doing so.
“However I additionally like to discuss the stuff I’m engaged on, and I believe, simply now, the scenario simply feels totally different to me,” Pope mentioned, “You don’t actually discuss stuff if you’re engaged on it, as a result of I don’t know that it’s going to get slurped up by AI or individuals are going to copy it, or one thing else like that. It’s not a tough rule. It’s simply I acquired a sense about that. And I simply didn’t really feel as snug speaking about the stuff I used to be engaged on once more. So I hope that kind of breaks, and I can really feel snug speaking about the stuff I’m engaged on.”
Whereas additionally describing himself as a “production-focused” developer, who desires “to produce one thing at the finish,” Pope provides that he does have some considerations about delivering extra initiatives that reside up to the high quality seen with Papers, Please and Return of the Obra Dinn. The previous launched in 2013, and the latter launched in 2018, and each have gone down as two of the finest video games of the 2010s. Return of the Obra Dinn even managed to land at 74 on IGN’s listing of the prime 100 video games of all time.
Pope went on to launch the Playdate unique Mars After Midnight in 2024. Though this extra bite-sized title went on to earn its personal group of devoted followers, it’s the beforehand talked about two hits that he says has him cautious to “push my luck an excessive amount of.”
“There’s additionally the sense that I used to be fairly proud of Obra Dinn and Papers, Please, and perhaps I can’t do it once more?” Pope defined. “Do I really need to perhaps simply exit on a excessive word? Why drag myself down with the subsequent factor that folks could not like? I really feel fortunate with these two video games. I can do the identical issues once more. I can type of concentrate on narrative, and gameplay, and mechanics, and stuff like that, however who is aware of? It could possibly be a complete miss.”
Pope has remained quiet about what’s he’s engaged on subsequent, and it’s attainable the considerations he shared at the moment are behind his silence. Whereas we wait to see what’s subsequent, you possibly can learn our 8.7/10 overview of Papers, Please, and our 9.2/10 overview of Return of the Obra Dinn.
Michael Cripe is a contract author with IGN. He is finest recognized for his work at websites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Ensure to give him a comply with on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).