For example, do you choose to separate a husband and wife because one of them doesn't have the correct paperwork? Better yet, what if they offer you a substantial bribe? These are the questions you'll be forced to answer, especially as you start to feel the effects of the dystopian Arstotzkan lifestyle and the warring countries around you. However, each person you meet at the checkpoint often has a small story of their own, and it's hard not to get attached. As a lowly member of the working class, you have every incentive to follow the rules exactly, otherwise you face the consequence of a docked pay. With a family to feed and an apartment to keep heated and cooled, you must choose where you want to spend your money when times get tough.Īpart from remembering the increasingly long list of rules at the start of each day, the challenge in Papers, Please often arises from moral dilemmas. At the end of your work day, you're granted a measly salary.
If not, you simply stamp their passport with a denial and send them on their way. As long as the documents align with the day's rules, you may grant them access to Arstotzka. At its core, you simply need to review the documents provided to you by each new person. Stages are split up into days, and each day starts with you reviewing the rules of the checkpoint and opening your shutter to waiting patrons. Gameplay in Papers, Please is very straightforward. With each day becoming more gloomy and border restrictions becoming tighter, your job as gatekeeper to the country grows more difficult. Although it sounds easy enough, the borders of Arstotzka are constantly under attack due to the political pressure from neighboring countries. Regardless of whether it's a returning citizen, an immigrant with a work visa, or a family with shuffled papers, it's your job to both refuse and grant access to Arstotzka. As an checkpoint worker, it's your duty to check the credentials of each person attempting to gain access to the country. Set in the oppressive and depressing fictional country of Arstotzka, you assume the role of an immigration worker at the Grestin Border Checkpoint. It's a mixture of atmospheric storytelling, light puzzle solving, and player choice. Papers, Please is an interesting indie game, created by creative mind Lucas Pope. And it places us in the place of the most normal of beings during a war, which is not something you see every day in gaming. But what it is is a very interesting experiment about the bureaucracy and corruption of these systems.
Papers, Please is not a game for everybody, nor is it easy to recommend. This while making sure you're making enough money to pay for your expenses. A game where your main job is to serve drinks and get to know your customers. This game could very well be an inspiration for other indie developers such as Sukeban Games, developers of VA-11 HALL-A: A Cyberpunk Bartender Action. Don't worry, there are some events to lighten things up from time to time, but never fully relax and keep an eye out. But it also serves as some sort of fake documentary about a communist country and their lifestyle. This is, by all means, a game not just for fun. Your pay is minimal, so you'll have to be efficient in your job to guarantee an income for your household, but be careful of becoming corrupt, for there are serious consequences for thin behavior against the motherland. Keep in mind that this will be getting tougher and tougher by the day and that you only get paid by the number of papers you stamp. Working 12 Hours a day, you'll have to ask some questions and verify that everything to judge who can get through and enter the country. Yes, we are a simple government agent, our job is to place a stamp on the documents of these people, allowing them to get in, or getting them out of our country. In Papers, Please we play as an employee in the Ministry of Immigration, and we are the ones in charge of deciding who gets in and who doesn't. You won't be fighting to defend your country, nor saving the world from an alien invasion. We live in 1982, in the imaginary communist Republic of Arstotzka, but we won't be taking into exciting missions, nor are we soldiers going to war with the equally imaginary Kolechia.