Human Resources Press Kit

Description

“Blade Runner meets Papers, Please”

It is a strange time to be an indie game developer. The economy is full of uncertainty from factors beyond our control: currently rife with layoffs, debates about AI and robots taking over, concerns about future careers, and perhaps even the future existence of the human race–Human Resources is a game that reflected these anxieties.

In this game, players take the role of an employee that must review as many applications as possible in a day. Players must screen applicants to ensure they are not AI before hiring them or risk losing their only source of income. During the game, players will be approached by a human-like AI that wishes to overthrow the corporation that employs the player. It’s up to players to make pivotal decisions that will affect the outcome of the revolution.

Through Human Resources, we wanted to express the frustrating process of applying to jobs and the often arbitrary or nonexistent reasons for getting rejected. We want players to feel conflicted about who they hire and uncertain if they should side with the pro-AI revolutionary faction or the mega corporation that employs them. Human Resources also gets you to think of the larger societal issues with the rise of AI and robots. To that end, Human Resources is set in a dystopian, retro-futurism, reminiscent and inspired by the Blade Runner movies.

The “document thriller” is a niche genre first pioneered by Lucas Pope in Papers, Please, which situates the player as an immigration official to tell a deeper story about bureaucracy, politics, and refugee-ism. Expanding the paper checking mechanic central to Papers, Please into the context of employment allows us to make a similar maneuver. The mechanical tedium of checking documents against rules epitomizes the frustrating application process and ambivalent job market we wanted to explore. 

At the same time, we also innovate on the document thriller genre by having more interactive tests that implicate the player in the invasive process of employee screenings. For example, the eye test requires rotating the eyeball of an employee to look for a serial code to determine if they are AI. Additionally, the in-game computer gives players opportunities to break free from the tedious loop to explore the desktop, find out more about the game world, and play minigames. These momentary distractions serve to reaffirm the feeling of the daily grind at their stressful job.