Spring is always an intense month for game developers, due to game trade shows. Travelling can be extremely fulfilling, but the downside is, that’s time not spent developing. For those curious to know what we did at Creative Coast and Nordic Games Conference, there’s photo coverage HERE, HERE and my recorded talk HERE.

But we are Back! And we are Still Alive ™. Here is what is on our Heart. Papers. Border. backlog (breathe, Lara, it only SEEMS impossible, but slowly, surely, we will make it!):

HPB BACKLOG – June 2017

Universal Basic Income

In HPB you currently earn money per day, but if you travel or visit any objectives, you are not earning anything. You also have connectivity which influences your earnings. The idea behind this mechanic was that you are a freelance worker and you have a few guaranteed clients. But this complicates the Unit mechanic tremendously and it is also not quite in line with our optimistic take. Which is why we are introducing Universal Basic Income – a guaranteed monthly wage that you get regardless of what you do, and that depends on the country you are born in.

Revamped Time Mechanic

Ain’t no one having fun to watch time passing.
We will instead treat time as currency and so you can choose to spend as much time as you wish when visiting an objective, for example. The more time you spend, the more shiny things you’ll learn. You will also discover valuable hashtags to blog about.

Revamped Unit Earnings

Universal Basic Income is a minimum wage but you will be able to supplement your income by writing certain types of blog posts and by running certain errands. In addition, if you start to accumulate debt, you will be forced to get a temporary job that will temporarily lock you in a location.

Revamped Transportation

It makes no sense to keep on returning to the airport after visiting an objective, as it happens now. So we will allow you to move from objective to objective and we will convert the airport into a special kind of destination, the only one that allows you to travel to another country.

Revamped Visiting Objectives

Currently, each objective has a set duration that you need to spend there no matter what. We will make it so you choose how many days you wish to spend, but each day will have a cost and, of course, benefits. The more time you spend in a location, the more you will get to know it.

Influence System

A core component of HPB is that, as you travel, you influence the countries you visit to become more and more open. This is an essential system but it depends on all the other systems to do right. You’ll have a way to see how you influenced each country and some indication on what you can do.

Revamped Blog

We already redesigned the blog to show all your tags and to drag& drop then in a post. Here is how it will look:

Blog Stats

We need a way to show you the impact of every blog post you make. This is actually a pretty serious feature as we think we’ll let you write blog posts that bring you Units OR Influence, so you’ll have to choose wisely.

Dynamic Country Info App

If you ever browsed our Country Info app inthe Space Pad and liked it, know this: IT IS A LIE. All you see is jpegs for every country, and obviously we need to generate that info dynamically. But at least I am good at making nice dummy pages 😀

Time and Unit Spending Log (in Journal app)

You need a way to know where all that time and units went.

Birthday Mechanic

This is not an essential mechanic but it contributes hugely to the essence of Heart. Papers. Border., which is to make you think about what are you doing with your life. Life passes, and you can never get back time. Sure, you can take it easy, but it is such a fine balance between truly being aware of what you are doing with your life, and not being aware. And whether we like it or not, we all make an impact, every single day. And my biggest wish is for Heart. Papers. Border. to make you gain this perspective.

Help App

Gotta have it! Yup, what we have now is also pretty hardcoded, though not quite a jpeg 😀

Game Analytics

This is just common sense for any game project. Unity has a bunch which come basically for free with the plus version. And I really want to understand you, dear player <3

Other Stuff (TM)

Bug fixing, localisation, Sound design and everything sound related, Visual FX, and small stuffs like that.

And OH. Did we mention CONTENT? Only 24 countries to fully add, each with its own landscapes, government, stories, landmarks, quests and special vibes.