Papers, Please With Anthropomorphic Animals: VGTimes Interviews The Developer Of Sobakistan: The Land of Dogs

As part of Comic Con Igromir 2025, VGTimes had the opportunity to speak with Vitaly Terletsky — artist, head of Terletski Games, and co-author of the widely discussed An alt girl for skoof. In a conversation with editor-in-chief Rodion Ilin, the developer talked about his next project — the narrative adventure Sobakistan: The Land of Dogs.

VGTimes: Please tell us about the game you’re presenting at the exhibition.

Vitaly Terletsky: See, I have two microphones here? Because two are much better than one. That’s the main slogan of Sobakistan — and of Sobakistan in general. See those two portraits of Comrade Friendo hanging over there? Because two are much better than one.

Sobakistan is a game based on a comic of the same name that was released six years ago. We made it ourselves — Katya and I. Katya is responsible for the visuals, both in the comic and in the game. The comic went through eight reprints, even though we publish it independently. The total print run exceeded 50,000 copies, with three sequel volumes — and now we’re making a game.

The closed republic of Sobakistan opens its borders for the first time ever, because a rehearsal of the funeral of Comrade Friendo, their supreme leader, is about to take place. Journalists are invited, and of course, something will go wrong. In the game, you play as different characters, but you start as a journalist named Chameleon, who arrives in Sobakistan.

Vitaly Terletsky: At its core, it’s a narrative game. To be honest, it’s closer to a visual novel packaged as a retro JRPG, but it has its own “killer features.” In just two chapters of the demo, there are 28 moments where you can get thrown into prison for literally anything. Went the wrong way, said the wrong thing, picked up a coin on the street… You never know what for.

We currently have two chapters ready, with a total of 13 planned, and I hope we’ll finish next year. We’re a small team — just four core people. But we manage on our own, because our previous game, An alt girl for skoof, sold well and gave us a bit of funding.

By the way, just the other day a board game from Hobby World expanding the Sobakistan universe was announced. We’re turning into an empire!

A public playtest is already available, and the demo will be ready soon. So you can already play Sobakistan on Steam right now.

VGTimes: Could you share some additional details about the game? What can you tell us about the gameplay, visuals, and development process?

Vitaly Terletsky: All of that is absolutely inseparable. The game is being developed in Unity, even though it looks like it was made in RPG Maker. This allows us to implement additional features that players don’t expect at all. Someone used to RPG Maker games will suddenly encounter an event or mechanic they completely didn’t anticipate — and that creates a real wow effect. I won’t say what exactly, but even the demo will have one such moment.

In the game, just like in the comic, you’ll play as different characters and see the same events from different perspectives. Compared to the comic, the game expands significantly. A comic is still a linear format, while here we’ll have room for nonlinear choices — not in the demo, but later on — as well as multiple branching endings.

Vitaly Terletsky: What is it similar to? Nothing. But of course, we were inspired by the aesthetics of Papers, Please — not too strongly, though, because that’s just totalitarianism in general. I really love RPG Maker games like The Witch’s House and, oddly enough, Fear and Hunger, even though Sobakistan is definitely not Fear and Hunger.

The same people who worked on the comic are working on the game, plus a few additional developers. We do almost everything ourselves, so it takes a bit longer, but that’s what makes us a real indie studio. For less than half a million dollars in investment, we won’t sell to anyone!

Sobakistan: The Land of Dogs promises to become another unusual indie hit from Terletski Games, much like An alt girl for skoof once did. You can still take part in the beta testing right now — to try the game, simply submit a request on its Steam page, where the release will also take place. The release date has not yet been determined, but hopefully Sobakistan will see the light of day in 2026.

Interview conducted by Rodion Ilin.

VGTimes have attended dozens of exhibitions and festivals, where our journalists have collected numerous exclusive materials. Last year, we visited the Land of the Rising Sun for TGS 2024, where we were amazed by the scale of the Tokyo event. This year, we experienced one of Asia's leading gaming exhibitions, ChinaJoy in Shanghai, with our own eyes. We also made it to the Thai version of gamescom 2025 in Bangkok.