Sunday, May 19, 2024
In the game “Papetura,” you play a piece of paper named Pape. There's not a lot of explanation as to why you're a piece of paper. Perhaps this is what beings look like in this paper world - because everything in this game is made out of paper. A dark adversary follows you and has the power of fire, which threatens to burn your world. Your quest is to save the world, with your companion, Tura.
Among all the slick and computer-animated games that are out right now, it's nice to find something that's unique, hand crafted, and utterly charming.
Polish game designer Tomasz Ostafin made the entire game out of varying thicknesses of paper. No paint was used. Every color in this game is a type of paper – from brown craft paper to a white card stock. Ostafin sketched every scene out, then created the three-dimensional elements in each scene – flowers, caves, rock formations, etc - using Blender. He printed out the patterns, transferred them to paper, and assembled them all by hand, cutting and gluing the pieces together.
Ostafin inserted LED diodes into the pieces so they could be lit from within. He also spent a lot of time experimenting with different textures of paper, embossing hexagons and other patterns. Everything feels very organic and natural. Light plays a big part in how beautiful this game looks. Some of the paper objects have light reflected from their surfaces, while other objects have light behind them and look as if they’re glowing.
Then he photographed everything, edited the shots, erased the backgrounds, and used Unity as the game engine to put the game together.
Ostafin says about his inspiration that "It must have been the influence of ‘The Neverhood,’ a game from 1996 where clay was used, and also I had paper near me laying around so it was a very tempting choice."
The composer Tomáš Dvořák composed original music for the game. Ostafin contacted Dvořák because he wanted to use songs from his album Zorya for the game, but Dvořák decided that the game needed an original soundtrack. (Dvořák is the composer that created the Machinarium soundtrack. Which is incidentally how I heard about Papetura in the first place – I follow Dvořák on Bandcamp.) He also brought in Juraj Mravec for sound effects to give the game more atmosphere.
The interface is a simple point and click. Pape can walk, climb, and has a hornet's nest that shoots dead hornets (also made out of paper) to solve certain puzzles. Each 'room' is large and has several puzzles to solve within it.
This game took so long to make that it’s short out of necessity. Because the game uses stop-motion animation, the settings had to be designed, assembled, and lit, and then each frame of the animation was shot separately. It took six long years between when the demo was released and the game was completed. When you see the work that he put in to finish the game, it's completely understandable. The end result of all his efforts is a beautiful game with stunning visuals.
Papetura has won many awards. Independent Games Festival, Excellence in Visual Art category; Pixel Awards Europe 2021, “Best Art” winner, “Best Audio” winner, “Indie Grand Prix” winner; CEEGA Central & Eastern European Game Awards 2021, “Visual Art” winner, “Hidden Gem” winner; and DevGAMM Awards Fall 2021, “Excellence In Visual Art” winner.
It's a work of art, with a great soundtrack that adds a lot of atmosphere to the game. It’s well worth the $11.99 to purchase. Total gameplay for me was 2.5 hours. Available on SteamOS. If you'd like to check out the game without a purchase, the Papetura demo is available for free.
