{"id":1212543,"date":"2026-02-21T17:25:51","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T17:25:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iweMaQ8QUWiNgDG32Trc5j"},"modified":"2026-02-21T17:25:51","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T17:25:51","slug":"this-narrative-thriller-takes-place-in-a-fictional-80s-os-and-the-devs-obsessed-over-keeping-just-the-right-amount-of-old-school-jank-we-did-retain-the-dial-up-modem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/this-narrative-thriller-takes-place-in-a-fictional-80s-os-and-the-devs-obsessed-over-keeping-just-the-right-amount-of-old-school-jank-we-did-retain-the-dial-up-modem\/","title":{"rendered":"This narrative thriller takes place in a fictional ’80s OS, and the devs obsessed over keeping just the right amount of old school jank: ‘We did retain the dial-up modem’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Few games commit to building an alternate reality like Vice Undercover. Much of the game is played on the fictitious Amigo OS, an amalgam of Windows 3.1 and early Apple operating systems with a dozen built-in applications, a boxy media player, and even a persistent Clippy pastiche with all sorts of eager advice for you. But this isn’t a starry-eyed trip down memory lane\u2014it’s a “narco-thriller” where you poke around in drug cartel communications, careful not to get caught.<\/p>\n

“Paranoia is one of the core emotions we were going for. That fear of being caught, the moral ambiguity of what you’re doing, and sort of questioning what is right and wrong when you’re combating something like this,” said Cos Lazouras, co-CEO of indie dev Ancient Machine, in an interview with PC Gamer. “That kind of thing is part and parcel with the core of the gameplay.”<\/p>\n

In Vice, which takes place in 1980s Miami, you play as an undercover cop with an hour a day to access a cartel-run computer. It looks to be informed by synthwave and neo-noir as much as it is by actual history, and Lazouras said that’s no mistake; there are plenty of treats for web historians and true crime buffs alike.<\/p>\n

“The idea of, ‘what would have happened if Pablo Escobar and other cartels like that in the ’80s had access to the sort of technology we take for granted?’ What does that world look like,” he said. “We did a lot of research about the drug wars of the ’80s, and Miami was the central focus of cocaine distribution into the country \u2026 we have every criminal organization in this game, sometimes peripherally, but we’ve got everything from the yakuza, triads, Indonesian mob, the Italian mafia, the police as a big part of the corruption, government agencies.”<\/p>\n

As a narrative game, the closest analog to fiddling around in Amigo OS is probably something like Her Story<\/a> or the recently acclaimed Roottrees are Dead<\/a>. It’s a nonlinear web of discoveries lying in wait, scattered about databases full of disparate information. If you’re the sort who’s always wished you could puff a stogie and illustrate a series of connections on a bulletin board using tacks and yarn, that’s how I imagined myself while checking out its demo on Steam<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You might notice that the Amigo isn’t quite as frustrating to navigate as it could be given its inspirations. According to Ancient Machine’s other co-CEO, Albert Ramon Puig, figuring out the right amount of friction was a tightrope walk unto itself.<\/p>\n

“We discovered trying to simulate a desktop is crazy and it’s not fun. We decided to reinvent all the mechanics and incorporate things that are modern, like the alt-tab \u2026 You have chats, a lot of missions, a lot of applications, a big database. [The game is about] how to organize and investigate more than complicated mechanics.”<\/p>\n

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