David MacDonald
Connector Staff

Papers Please is a game that sounds like something that was designed by mad people, a paper pushing simulator. Many people will automatically associate it with that string of games that let you simulate the life of a truck driver or a lumberjack, but Papers Please takes a much different approach than one would expect. You do indeed spend the majority of time examining papers, but there is a layer of depth to the game impossible to see at just a passing glance.

Papers Please takes place in the fictional country of Arstotzka, which is communist Russia in all but name. You have been drafted as a government employee and assigned to a border checkpoint. Your job is to examine the paperwork of everyone crossing the border into Arstozka and to make sure that it is all up to date and authentic. All in all, the life of the main character is typical for people in his occupation, repetitious work, keeping an eye out for smugglers, being contacted by a revolutionary cell to help overthrow the government and the occasional terrorist attack.

If the above didn’t give it away, Papers Please reveals itself to be much more than reading legal documents. You are in charge of a family of five and are the only one with a job, meaning it’s your responsibility to keep everyone warm and fed. The problem is that your job pays abysmally, meaning you may have to resort to questionable actions like taking bribes, or working with the guard who gets a bonus whenever someone is arrested for “forged” documents. Even if the document was only a simple misspelling, you needed the money.

You will also find yourself forced to make important decisions on the fly. You will find the local revolutionaries asking you to let their agents through the border, while your superiors are constantly breathing down the back of your neck, forcing you to choose who to side with. What is more, there are situations where you will have to choose between helping others and being selfish.
Denying a woman who is fleeing a country to avoid death may be morally wrong, but you receive a citation for every error you make, which impacts your pay.
The punishment for denying her? There isn’t one.

Papers Please is about a man trying to keep himself and his family alive under a horribly corrupt and oppressive government. He is in reality, part of the regime keeping the people down, and can make life even more miserable for them just for minor conveniences. It asks the question: do you have strong enough moral character to suffer through the hard times? To risk your family dying from disease? Or will you simply look out for yourself and let pleas for help fall on deaf ears? Make your choice. The game won’t judge you. You just have to be able to live with your actions