The Westport Independent, being published by Coffee Stain Studios (yes, the Goat Simulator ($6.99) people – humans are complicated, okay?!), seemed remarkably intriguing when it was first announced. Now, if you want to see just how this tale of censorship and newspaper management is for yourself, Coffee Stain and developer Double Zero One Zero have released an Alpha Preview of the game that you can check out. It’s only available on desktop for now, but the game is still bound for mobile. If you don’t use Windows or Mac, you can check out the trailer for a taste of what to expect:
The demo shows off how this game takes some influence from Papers, Please ($4.99) but mixes in elements of managing your business, trying to sell papers, keeping your writers happy, and dealing with the oppressive government. You’ll have to balance out a lot of factors from censoring articles to perhaps forcing some of your writers to write stories they may not like. This alpha is obviously subject to change depending on player feedback and if some things just wind up working better or not. But still, this seems like quite the intriguing game.
