LudumData

Department of Safe Communication by SHAKIROVICH

[raw]
made by SHAKIROVICH for Ludum Dare 59 (JAM)

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Your application was processed.

Report to the Department of Safe Communication, Mirensk District. Housing will be arranged. Your child's medication costs money. This job pays money.

All correspondence entering and leaving Mirensk passes through your desk. Read. Decide. Stamp.

Some letters are innocent. Most are not your concern.

Glory to the State.

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You are a low-level government censor during an authoritarian regime. Every day, a stack of intercepted letters, telegrams, and messages lands on your desk. Your job is simple: Approve, Redact, Reject, or Report each one. Quotas must be met. Deviations are noticed.

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​Made solo for LD-59 Game jam

Assets used: Pixabay free sfx wikiloopsjam327793 ​Special_Elite font In game text was redacted using Claude AI

Itch page with build https://shakirovich.itch.io/department-of-safe-communication
Source Google drive link https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1iVBdAdJiOm-E5XLeWfanFHe2M74NIKFB?usp=sharing
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/59/department-of-safe-communication

Ratings

Overall 345th 3.68⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Fun 460th 3.32⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 534th 3.22⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Theme 633th 3.26⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 384th 3.82⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Humor 430th 2.763⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Mood 333th 3.78⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Given 30🗳️ 26🗨️

Feedback

msipp27
Apr 20th · 19:02 UTC
![Screenshot 2026-04-20 150152.png](///raw/945/93/z/70d2e.png)
fun game.
🎤 SHAKIROVICH
Apr 20th · 23:55 UTC
@msipp27 Hey, thank you for playing, can you send me your pc configuration and windows version, so that I could figure out whats wrong, because it works well on all my devices.
msipp27
Apr 21st · 01:03 UTC
well i'm on windows 10 but i don't really know how to check my pc config
VLAD_LEN
Apr 21st · 15:59 UTC
Control department vibe
JustinMullin
Apr 21st · 16:00 UTC
Very cool. The meat of the game is very polished, and the animations, sounds, and art are all really nice. I loved the theme, and enjoyed the puzzle of trying to memorize what's allowed and what's not. I ended wondering if I should reject everything, which...perhaps that's the point?

I did run across one bug where a day started and the first 4-5 pages were just blank. Didn't ruin anything, I just rejected and moved on. I haven't yet been able to successfully make it past the first day after the trial period, but it makes sense in theme to have the difficulty be quite hard if you're actually trying to let "proper" letters through.

Great entry!
🎤 SHAKIROVICH
Apr 22nd · 02:49 UTC
@justinmullin Hey, thank you for feedback. Thats very weird bug, I havent encountered it yet, Ill try to figure it out. What do you mean by "I haven’t yet been able to successfully make it past the first day after the trial period" did you complete all five days and got bad ending? or something else happened?
🎤 SHAKIROVICH
Apr 22nd · 02:50 UTC
@vlad-len What is that?
JustinMullin
Apr 22nd · 03:00 UTC
@shakirovich Oh, I didn't realize the game always ended on the fifth day. Yes, I played a few times and must have gotten the bad ending each time, and just assumed it was because I was doing poorly enough my run just immediately ended. That's good to know that it's not that. =)
🎤 SHAKIROVICH
Apr 22nd · 03:03 UTC
@justinmullin Yeah there is only five days, I didnt want to make too long game for the jam, and there is multiple endings, Im currently collecting feedback to see if its too hard to get a good one ), did you get the same ending each time?
IDos
Apr 22nd · 12:18 UTC
Bro, I really like your style. This game is not like your previous ones. I can feel the style. Found you on XK Discord
JustinMullin
Apr 22nd · 13:14 UTC
@shakirovich, yes unfortunately I did get the "you were fired" screen each time. I was playing a bit too quickly, probably. One thing that probably hurt my score is I would sometimes "redact" when I meant to "burn," and I don't think there's a way to highlight over a word the other way. There were also some situations where it was slightly ambiguous what I was meant to do; for example, on the first day there are flagged names, but no indication of what to do with them. Later the instructions are to report if there are multiple flagged names. Are letters with only one flagged name meant to just have the name redacted? Little things like that I'm sure stacked up a bit against me if they are treated as mistakes.
LDJam user 388364
Apr 22nd · 16:18 UTC
as a die-hard "papers please" fan the game looks awesome, unfortunately i am on linux (arch btw) and there is no linux build :/
Nabil Shelim
Apr 22nd · 17:47 UTC
Really enjoyed this one, especially since I went on a similar direction with my own entry. It was interesting to see how we both approached the same idea in different ways. As others have mentioned, it gave me strong Papers, Please vibes, and I really liked your take on it. Overall, a great interpretation of the idea and a solid entry
LDJam user 424535
Apr 22nd · 18:54 UTC
it's very enjoyable to play, and the visual style is quite well-chosen!
🎤 SHAKIROVICH
Apr 22nd · 23:32 UTC
@letssnack Let me see what I can do regarding the linux build
🎤 SHAKIROVICH
Apr 22nd · 23:33 UTC
@nabil-shelim Ill definitely check it out
LDJam user 423838
Apr 23rd · 10:40 UTC
Papers Please vibes but with letters - art and sounds are clean, rules get a bit confusing but that's the fun of it
GARYglhf
Apr 23rd · 13:52 UTC
Я будто вернулся на старую работу )))
🎤 SHAKIROVICH
Apr 23rd · 13:54 UTC
@garyglhf боюсь спросить что это была за работа )
VenomousMouse
Apr 24th · 17:31 UTC
Very nice idea and the graphics look very cool. I can almost feel paper under my fingertips.
Aashen
Apr 24th · 19:53 UTC
Highly addictive game, i lost so quick though xd, the atmosphere is done great, very authentic experience
hirqshi
Apr 24th · 20:00 UTC
DAMN. I really felt the mood. The atmospehre is spot on, the graphics are simple yet I can not ask for more. The game kept me immersed for multiple playthroughs and yet im still not abt to beat it. Best game i played on this jam so far. I would really love to play a postjam version because it is such a fun concept. Great theme interpretation is a huge W too. Шикарно короче, держишь планку
LDJam user 372231
Apr 24th · 21:58 UTC
The game looks very intriguing and quietly unsettling. Please tag me when there is a web build available, I am not on Windows and would love to try it!
🎤 SHAKIROVICH
Apr 25th · 05:32 UTC
@nadia-pixel Hi, thx for nice words, no web build in the foreseeable future unfortunately, its ue5 and it doesnt have web builds 😅
🎤 SHAKIROVICH
Apr 25th · 05:39 UTC
@hirqshi Damn bro thanks. Yeah, I actually think the difficulty is a bit on the tough side. I only managed to get a decent ending once myself. Although, maybe that’s the whole point. 😅 Спасибо
Custodi
Apr 25th · 16:21 UTC
Cool game, like the concept of letter censeror.
But letters or conditions need to be more atomised, cuz sometimes it's no clear to understand, these word meets the conditions or not. If you check main reference (Papers, Please) - you see that everything divided by categories (country/passport/person description/date and so on).
🎤 SHAKIROVICH
Apr 26th · 00:11 UTC
@custodi Thank you for feedback, true I realized how big of a problem it is now, Ill work on that for post jam version.
🎤 SHAKIROVICH
Apr 26th · 03:11 UTC
@letssnack , @nadia-pixel , Linux version is available now. I havent tested it yet, so I would appreciate feedback .
LDJam user 278146
Apr 26th · 07:34 UTC
This game definitely has promise! Looks great and very well written.

Since I can't avoid the comparison to Paper's Please, I think one of the things I liked more about that game was that it was more precisely defined what the rules were. I wasn't really sure while playing this whether I was doing the right thing or not - it was somewhat clear what I should be reporting but less clear what I need to highlight/redact/reject.