In Papers, Please you are a citizen of the fictional country of Arstotzka, and you are the "lucky" winner of the job lottery to become the newest immigration border officer. Each day you enter your station, open the window, and begin processing the paperwork of those trying to enter into Arstotzka. For each person you process, you are awarded 5 Arstotzkian credits, which you then use to pay the daily rent on your Grade 8 living quarters, along with food, heat, medicine, and other essential items for your family (wife, son, uncle, mother-in-law). Make any mistakes, and you get a citation (from the presumably better and automated Second Immigration Post just behind YOURS). After 2 citations in a day, you start to rack up penalties to your pay. Doesn't this just SCREAM excitement and adventure?
The gameplay goes something like this: Every day you wake up, read the state news organ paper to see what is going on in the world. Then you get to see your little person walk into "the booth" at the top of the screen. You receive the days instructions (only Arztotzkians can enter, anyone can enter, anyone can enter but they need a ticket, etc), and then you click the button to open the booth. Then you click the speaker to shout "Next". The would be entrant shows up, passes you their papers, and a little dialog about what they are doing commences via text boxes. You then have to determine if their papers are correct: Do they have all the right papers? Is their passport from the right issuing country and city? Is it expired, incorrect, or from a denied entry country? Once you've made a determination, you stamp it red (DENIED) or green (ACCEPTED), hand them back their papers, shoo them out, and call for the next person. Do this until the day ends, and you see how you did that day, and if your family gets to eat food or not.
The tools you are given are kind of annoying to use, as in keeping with the oppressive theme. To check the documents for accuracy (apart from the obvious stuff like marked "M" for gender when they are female), you have to open up the rulebook. To do this, you have to drag it to the document viewer, then open up the page to the right place. If you see a problem, you have to enter "Examination" mode. As the game progresses, you get more tools such as an interrogate option, a full body scanner, and my personal favorite, the DETAIN button, which sends the person off with little 8-bit silhouette guards to the execution grounds holding station. I'm sure they will be fine.
The graphics are muddy, grimy, and extremely low resolution, but it adds to the atmosphere of grinding totalitarianism. I admit I was absolutely shocked with the "full body scanner" option returned back fully nude (8-bit nudity is still nudity...terrible, terrible nudity) pictures, though there is an option to turn that off. Still, it's kind of...depressing and grungy. The soundtrack is a brooding dirge of a theme song, and no music at all during actual gameplay. The sound effects are what you would expect, with my personal favorite being the pseudo-gibberish that plays when you click the "NEXT" speaker.
Essentially, this is a puzzle/detective game where you examine evidence and interview people to figure out who they are and if they belong there. Sometimes you find out they are concealing weapons (and then off they go with the DETAIN button). Sometimes they've spelled their name wrong, but otherwise check out. Sometimes they just don't have the right paperwork. Many of them have sob stories (I'm escaping an even MORE oppressive country, my wife and I are going to retire together, etc) and you play a small but important part in a thousand tiny stories. For example, at one point a man presents his papers and babbles on happily about how he and his wife are escaping a terrible place to start a glorious new life. He has the right papers. His wife however, who is right behind him, does NOT. Do you let her through anyway, and receive a citation? Or do you do what I did, and send her away without entry because she didn't have a ticket and you couldn't afford to get any more citations so that Little Billy could get his medicine? Do you merely deny someone entrance for trying to use a fake name, or do you have them hauled away?
Sometimes the booth is closed early due to a terrorist attack, which you can view through a little window at the top of the screen. The newspapers will occasionally inform you of weird stuff going on. For example, a notorious murderer escapes "some other country", and he shows up at the booth, using his real name. His papers checked out, so I let him in. Turns out, he murdered 3 more people in the new country. Oops. The first couple of days I was getting used to the controls, so I didn't manage to process the 9 people/day I needed to keep the heat on and food on the table, so after burning through our meager savings my son, uncle, and mother-in-law are all dead. On the plus side, I'm much better at processing people faster so my sick wife might actually live. The world of this game feels very much alive, but filtered through the perspective of this single cog in the glorious Arztotzkian machine, who is just trying to get through the day. It helps that the puzzle solving is also fun for me, though I don't know if it will be everyone's cup of tea.
Overall, this is Sim Paper Pushing, but it is very heavy on the atmosphere and world building and has lots of quirky, depressing charm. If you had told me I would enjoy a paperwork simulator this much, I'd have laughed at you, but there you go. On a scale of 5 frowny faces to 5 smiley faces, Papers, Please gets a solid 2 smileys. And hey, it's $10. You should totally try out this game.
The graphics are muddy, grimy, and extremely low resolution, but it adds to the atmosphere of grinding totalitarianism. I admit I was absolutely shocked with the "full body scanner" option returned back fully nude (8-bit nudity is still nudity...terrible, terrible nudity) pictures, though there is an option to turn that off. Still, it's kind of...depressing and grungy. The soundtrack is a brooding dirge of a theme song, and no music at all during actual gameplay. The sound effects are what you would expect, with my personal favorite being the pseudo-gibberish that plays when you click the "NEXT" speaker.
Essentially, this is a puzzle/detective game where you examine evidence and interview people to figure out who they are and if they belong there. Sometimes you find out they are concealing weapons (and then off they go with the DETAIN button). Sometimes they've spelled their name wrong, but otherwise check out. Sometimes they just don't have the right paperwork. Many of them have sob stories (I'm escaping an even MORE oppressive country, my wife and I are going to retire together, etc) and you play a small but important part in a thousand tiny stories. For example, at one point a man presents his papers and babbles on happily about how he and his wife are escaping a terrible place to start a glorious new life. He has the right papers. His wife however, who is right behind him, does NOT. Do you let her through anyway, and receive a citation? Or do you do what I did, and send her away without entry because she didn't have a ticket and you couldn't afford to get any more citations so that Little Billy could get his medicine? Do you merely deny someone entrance for trying to use a fake name, or do you have them hauled away?
Sometimes the booth is closed early due to a terrorist attack, which you can view through a little window at the top of the screen. The newspapers will occasionally inform you of weird stuff going on. For example, a notorious murderer escapes "some other country", and he shows up at the booth, using his real name. His papers checked out, so I let him in. Turns out, he murdered 3 more people in the new country. Oops. The first couple of days I was getting used to the controls, so I didn't manage to process the 9 people/day I needed to keep the heat on and food on the table, so after burning through our meager savings my son, uncle, and mother-in-law are all dead. On the plus side, I'm much better at processing people faster so my sick wife might actually live. The world of this game feels very much alive, but filtered through the perspective of this single cog in the glorious Arztotzkian machine, who is just trying to get through the day. It helps that the puzzle solving is also fun for me, though I don't know if it will be everyone's cup of tea.
Overall, this is Sim Paper Pushing, but it is very heavy on the atmosphere and world building and has lots of quirky, depressing charm. If you had told me I would enjoy a paperwork simulator this much, I'd have laughed at you, but there you go. On a scale of 5 frowny faces to 5 smiley faces, Papers, Please gets a solid 2 smileys. And hey, it's $10. You should totally try out this game.
