LogInWe asked the team behind What Awaits, Aleksey? about the history of its "utopian communist" setting, how Godot helped develop the game's unique cryptography mechanic, and what players should expect from this Papers, Please-inspired experience.
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"What Awaits, Aleksey?" is a thriller investigation puzzle game set in a crumbling Soviet state where you decipher secret messages and can influence the fate of the great Socialist Republic by choosing to either dutifully do your job or go against your employer.
Inspired by "Papers, Please", the game is being developed by four people at JKBCode: Gracjan, known as SzopDemaskuje on YouTube, who is responsible for PR and marketing; musician Henry Wolfe Carradine, who provides a great soundtrack for the game; Sebastian Bell, the story writer; and Marcel Kantor, the main developer.
Marcel Kantor: I'm a young and ambitious guy from Poland, also a husband and father of two, which is pretty unheard of at my age. I'm a backend developer who has worked at and with many different companies in my fairly rapid 3-year professional career, but I have always been an avid video game enjoyer and have fiddled with game development on the side pretty much as long as I have toyed with programming.
I'm a confident guy, and after some years of more intense game development, I started getting a refined idea for a game, prototyped it, thought it worked, and that's how "What Awaits, Aleksey?" came to be. It started with me, then I involved Gracjan and gradually included the two other members of the team in the project.
It's been in development for around a year, although I've been able to work on it more or less full-time only since January. This is my debut project in the video game industry – I have not contributed to any other public or commercial projects in the sphere. At some point when I contacted Gracjan about working together, it clicked to me that the "desk work simulation" aspect I was designing closely resembled the indie hit "Papers, Please", and much later into development my playing "The Return of the Obra Dinn" influenced my approach to the story progression and puzzle design.
While the setting may seem "political", I see a "utopian communist" setting as rather milquetoast and even fairly cliche in modern media.
Originally, my motivation for the setting was some personal experiences I've had, moral dilemmas, and considerations, and I thought that this type of setting was perfect to evoke the kind of aporia I wanted the player to experience.
But, naturally, as every game developer finds out, you have to adjust the story of your game to serve the gameplay first. A couple of Valve employees had a "Portal" or "Portal 2" post-mortem talk about the "gameplay story" idea at GDC long ago, it's great. I got a separate writer to join the project and I don't really focus on the philosophical part much when I'm working with him at this point, rather I concentrate on the plot from the player/gameplay perspective, putting functionality and atmosphere first.
As for The Return of the Obra Dinn inspiration, it is purely in game design, hence, in part, in how the plot is served to the player. There's not really a resemblance in the plot itself, considering the steep difference in setting.
Gracjan: I see an obvious but indirect inspiration in the history of the country where we come from. Poland is now a capitalistic country that's a member of NATO and the European Union, but not that long ago, the situation was drastically different. Our mothers and fathers, grandmas and grandpas lived under the regime of the Polish People's Republic that we now try to show in the game. Our writer, Sebastian, is from the Czech Republic and I believe he also has similar experiences. My grandfather Zdzislaw participated in the Solidarity movement and other strikes in northern Poland that later led to the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the destruction of the Soviet Union. I see that game as a tribute to our history.
Plot
Marcel Kantor: In "What Awaits, Aleksey?" you enter the shoes of a young employee of an intelligence/cryptology bureau in a Soviet state, roughly inspired by the Polish People's Republic. You will be tasked with investigating different cases of dissent and conspiracy on behalf of the state by deciphering encrypted correspondence between resistance members and gathering some intel on the ground occasionally. Generally speaking, the story is divided into chapters much like the "chapter parts" in "Obra Dinn" or detective cases in a game like "L.A. Noire".
A big part of solving these mysteries will be connecting the dots and identifying characters who at first will be known only by pseudonyms. Later, the player will be able to make decisions that will impact the ultimate fate of the characters he meets during the game; until that climax point in the plot, we don't have any plans to include any very significant decisions.
The game will be released in early access in July, and in that state, the length of a full first-time playthrough will be at least 6 hours. However, we are going to continue working on the remaining cases and expect it to be in a complete state by the end of this year.
Gameplay
Marcel Kantor: Obviously, the most novel part of the gameplay is the inclusion of cryptography, beyond a simple substitution cipher, which can be found in some puzzle games. Cryptology, however, is not the sole focus of the gameplay design, I'm trying to focus the gameplay on making the identification of characters and figuring out their roles in each case fun.
Unfortunately, I had to face the harsh reality that even among software engineers the amount of people who are genuinely interested in cryptology is minuscule because it's not easy. Therefore, I focus on making it approachable and fun most of all, historical accuracy, etc., be damned, for the most part.
We use Godot Engine, I think in today's space that's a no-brainer, especially for 2D. Godot Foundation is too good at what they do and the competition does not compare for indie development. It's hard to decide against it as a new developer not settled heavily on another engine because of extensive experience, due to Godot being open source, excellently documented, well maintained, and hence very modular ultimately (it's very easy to extend built-in node types and interact with their functioning).
In terms of the ciphers, we have a simple substitution cipher and transposition cipher showcased in our marketing materials, these two are not rocket science, but we have a couple of aces up our sleeves that we will either showcase in the launch trailer or they will just stay in the game for a surprise factor. There will be at least 4 different ciphers in the game on launch.
Art Style
Marcel Kantor: Originally, I chose a pixel art style thinking it was a very work/time efficient style, and like everyone who thought so when starting to make games, I found out that that statement is both true and false. Most of the art was outsourced to a small art studio and later a Polish artist (MrPEKINCZYK), but inevitably, I also had to become half-decent at pixel art myself in a team of this size, with a very tight budget. Aseprite and Krita were used both by me and the artist we contracted.
What's Unique, Aleksey?
Marcel Kantor: "What Awaits, Aleksey?" is definitely a unique game trying some new things that have not been tried before (most notably cryptography as a major gameplay mechanic) and introducing some tried concepts that have not been tried together. Also, notably, there actually have not been any "Papers, Please"-esque games, even though it had such vast success. When I figured out that what I was trying to make was similar to that game, I was surprised that no one made anything like that. Perhaps it's too avant-garde.
The atmosphere is enticing, and even though the Soviet theme is pretty cliche today, it works very nicely with the state-agent desk worker theme and results in something new, what I have not seen before. Our composer, Henry Wolfe Carradine, is also amazing, and the music he created for the game is top-notch, it enriches the vibe and sets the tone a lot.
People who enjoy games that are somewhat intellectually challenging, puzzle, deduction games, like "Portal" and "Obra Dinn", will definitely like "What Awaits, Aleksey?" a lot. I wanted to create this game because I feel that innovation in modern game design is lacking in certain areas and is very timid. I am not afraid to design the game for a more demanding audience and seek to satisfy their wants that I, from my own experience, find largely unfulfilled in the current market. I think that "What Awaits, Aleksey?" can definitely be described as an atmospheric story-driven deduction game, and I'm happy to be pushing this genre forward.
Advice for Developers
Marcel Kantor: I won't be repeating the classic and cliche "start small and finish", "don't overcommit", etc. Instead, the biggest advice I have for game developers and all young aspiring professionals in various fields today is that they should form enterprises. And I don't mean an Ltd. or any entity in particular here, the legal form does not matter. I mean something organic. What matters here is, taking gamedev for an example, that people abandon the romantic ideal of the "solo one-man indie gamedev" and instead learn how to bring together, or make, a couple of friends with varying complementary skill sets and make a common endeavor, learn how to work with others, lead, manage, delegate.
It also helps in learning responsibility and accountability, which, in turn, ensures that the project keeps going, You don't just give it up one day without anyone ever finding out. Young people today are afraid to show initiative and expect to be led and shown a way to live, and I also see this flaw in the game development industry. There are so many people interested in it, with strong skills, even experience, but when something goes wrong in the industry, say mass layoffs or a hiring freeze, they act as if there is nothing they can do and fail to independently connect with other professionals, or even professional aspiring amateurs, who have the skills that they lack which are necessary to create a complete product.
I was always, generally speaking, a very private, silent, and reclusive person, introverted, but I managed to develop my skills during my career in software engineering and during this endeavor to create "What Awaits, Aleksey?", and now I'm leading a commercial video game project that is about to release in EA. Therefore, I believe that just about anyone has the ability to do it, it's just a question of perseverance.
Conclusion
Marcel Kantor: "What Awaits, Aleksey?" will be out in early access in July. We are targeting Windows, Linux, and Mac, but, forgive me, Mac might not be supported on launch day (specifications on the Steam page will be updated accordingly), but I will add the support ASAP after launch. For the latest news, please follow our X/Twitter page or my own account where I'm going to start posting soon. Also, we've got some cool marketing materials on TikTok.
Gracjan: It's also worth noting that after the release we'll be working on localization and support of more languages, especially Japanese and Chinese, because we found that the people from these countries really liked the idea of our game. We've even seen a couple of articles there, and we're very thankful for that.