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Indie Game Spotlight: ‘Papers, Please’

Brendan Jacques
Connector Staff

I’ve always held the opinion that you can make something good out of anything. Maybe it won’t appeal to most people and maybe it won’t be successful, but if someone has the drive and skill to carry out their vision, they could create something beautiful out of whatever they desire. It’s part of the reason why I wanted to review indie games to begin with. Even with that belief taken into account, it’s rare to find a game that is as completely unique as “Papers, Please” is. Even after finishing it, it’s still amazing to me just how much intense gameplay and powerful story moments this game is able to achieve while also being about something as hopelessly mundane as stamping passports.

“Papers, Please” was created by indie developer Lucas Pope; it puts you in the role of a lowly customs officer living in the fictional communist nation of Arstotska. As the lone customs official on the border of Arstotska’s greatest enemy, Kolechia, it is up to you to check the passports and documents of everyone seeking to pass into the country, checking for discrepancies to determine whether or not they should be accepted, rejected or arrested for terrorism. While this is a simple enough job at first, as security tightens and the state requires more and more documents from health reports to criminal records, the game becomes an exercise in concentration and repetition, with every mistake coming back to hurt you at the end of the day.

While the act of sorting through documents on its own could have ended up being mind-numbingly tedious, it never felt like busywork. Each day becomes an exercise in perfection, with every new immigrant posing a new problem to solve. Maybe their story for entering the country doesn’t match up with their papers, or maybe the name on their passport is incorrect, or maybe their passport was made with paper and crayons. The continuous addition of more and more papers to check keeps monotony at bay while also slowly training your perception skills to the point where immigrants are walking out as quickly as they’re walking in. Concentration is important, however, as any mistakes come out of your daily pay, which can barely pay for rent and food for your family as it is.

On top of the primary gameplay comes a wide variety of moral choices. Do you help a poor husband and wife escape their tyrannical country despite their lack of paperwork, or do you leave them to die rather than betray your superiors? Do you dare accept bribes from the local resistance movement to make up for your meager salary, or do you turn them in out of fear of being caught?

Every person who passes through your checkpoint has their own story, and many of them have the potential of ending based on your approval. None of the choices are clear, black-and-white decisions and many don’t really have a clear reward, but each choice immerses you further and further into the oppressive world of the game, where being a hero doesn’t come free and your role in the world comes down to the choice between a green stamp and a red stamp.

“Papers, Please” is an excellent example of a game that creates something amazing out of something so inherently uninteresting. Its gameplay was intense in a way that adrenaline-fueled shooters wish they could reach, and the atmosphere is bar none, even with somewhat-basic visuals and music. I highly recommend this game to anyone who wants to see a game that defies what it means to be fun simply by existing. Glory to Arstotska!

“Papers, Please” is available on PC and Mac for $10.


Final Grade: A

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