sammorris12

Papers, Please

Recommended Posts

 

Has anyone played Papers, Please? Just finished the short beta and I'm really into it. You play as an Arstotzkan Border Patrol Inspector, who has to deal with the queue of documents and constantly changing bureaucracy. It reminds me of CartLife in the best way possible, but the gameplay loop feels more defined.

 

The beta is free and it took me about 30 minutes or so to get through. Definitely worth a Sunday afternoon playthrough.

 

http://dukope.com/

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Love this country. Rent went up, son died, uncle very sick, wife sick, mother in law sick. Everybody hungry. I did make a profit though.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this game. After seeing that it was set in a fictional Eastern Europe with bastardized versions of Slavic names, I was worried that the game's tone would largely be, 'let's laugh at those wacky Communists,' but thankfully, the game takes its subject matter pretty seriously. It's on Greenlight now too, really worth playing.

 

Also, on the Papers, Please site you can submit your name and there's a chance it will be used in the game. Not sure if the names will be modified to fit the Slavic aesthetic, but if they are, that will add another layer enjoyment to this game for me. (When my grandfather came to the US from Greece, he had to change our last name to something more recognizably 'American,' so the possibility that my last name might now be retooled to sound more Slavic so it can be used in a game about immigration is absurd/hilarious.)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Finished a second playthrough, did much better. Everybody survived and I even had savings. You really have to work fast otherwise you can't process enough to make rent, heat and food.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Jeez, well done ignoring the existing thread.  Mods, can we merge?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Okay, I finished the beta after a false start where a misunderstanding about fingerprints sent me into a death spiral. It reminds me a lot of a game called The Republia Times from a year or so ago, but turns out that was by Lucas Pope too.

 

I'm really interested to see how this becomes a full-length game. I was intrigued by some of the story hooks but didn't have enough money to break the rules following them up.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Jeez, well done ignoring the existing thread.  Mods, can we merge?

 

Whoops, must have missed the original. I remember searching for it and not finding anything though...

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

This is super fascinating. As the game lulls you into the sweaty drudgery of being a bureaucrat it slips in startling bits of color and narrative, exemplified by frightened couples and mysterious conspiracies. The mechanics work wonderfully to force the player to balance on the razor's edge between being wrong and fast or being right and poor. And no matter how strictly the border is enforced, the suicide bomber, the murderer, the subversive, still gets through. Your state's policies are reactionary, brutal and effect you (mechanically!!!) as thoroughly as it effects those you damn to death. Really, really impressed so far.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I had one of the most uncomfortable experiences playing this game, and it was purely because of how well the mechanics are integrated into the story. The specific moment was:

 

A person with a female face comes through border control, but her passport says male. I question her on the discrepancy, her response is that she's actually a male. Then the option to use the full body scan came up, and the game's mechanics allowed me to humiliate this person by looking at their naked body to verify their gender. It was one of the more disturbing moments I've ever had playing a game, and I'm so grateful that it was included. It really cements the inhuman nature of the entire border control process.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

In particular, I liked how, once you get the option to detain someone, there's never a good reason not to detain them. There's no penalty for wrongful detainment, but a severe one for failing to detain, so anyone with an incorrect detail on their passport gets taken away by the secret police. It's effective.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Is there a reason to detain rather than turn away? I never got a penalty for merely denying their passport.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Is there a reason to detain rather than turn away? I never got a penalty for merely denying their passport.

 

There's just one guy who's a criminal that you have to detain, I think. But after him, I didn't want take a risk missing somebody. I had already had to go without food one night because of a different slip-up.

 

I really hope the full game continues to reinforce such dehumanizing behavior from the player.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Absolutely. Though I do also like that there are situations where you are given the opportunity to aid people illegally and must weigh that with the consequences of what docked pay would mean for your family. Creating interesting situations like, "I'd help ya buddy, but I've already got two citations and my son needs medicine so I can't afford a third!"

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Me too, although the few opportunities I had, it wasn't really an option. I was too deep in the hole from my handful of honest mistakes to risk going against the system. Maybe that's the point?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It was easy to be nice once my family was dead. Awesome game, I was surprised that is was so fun. I'm hoping the final version allows more clarity on the fingerprint system. I had a situation where the finger prints didn't match and i couldn't figure out how to highlight the discrepency. Also, I broke a rule and the next day's paper didn't reflect it well. That could have been an intentional demonstration of my futility, but I'm not sure. I think the fact that it is a beta leans me towards thinking it's an unfinished thread rather than an intentional statement. Man alive this game is a gem. I just want to play more. Such a great example of what games can do.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Is there a penalty for turning away people (with exception of that guy you are asked to turn away)?

Because rejecting is the fastest action possible, therefor highest throughput, and thus the most money.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yes, you get a citation for wrongly turning someone away. Giantbomb's Friday stream last week had the section that Argobot spoilered above, and they wrongly turned the person away.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I had one of the most uncomfortable experiences playing this game, and it was purely because of how well the mechanics are integrated into the story. The specific moment was:

 

A person with a female face comes through border control, but her passport says male. I question her on the discrepancy, her response is that she's actually a male. Then the option to use the full body scan came up, and the game's mechanics allowed me to humiliate this person by looking at their naked body to verify their gender. It was one of the more disturbing moments I've ever had playing a game, and I'm so grateful that it was included. It really cements the inhuman nature of the entire border control process.

That is awesome. This did not happen to me, I'm not as observant as you, I just got a citation. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I played through this the other day and enjoyed it quite a bit. I hope the final release is a bit more robust and mixes things up a bit--I felt like, for the most part, the types of document discrepancies that happened came in fairly predictable orders, and certain types of errors almost never happened more than once or twice. I'd like it if the game made me think harder about what I was doing, although perhaps that pressure is supposed to come from the ticking clock--I had a hard time sensing how slowly/quickly I was moving through the queue relative to expectations.

 

Finishing the experience left me wondering whether Arstotzka was supposed to be an evil totalitarian state, or if so, to what degree. There's all the iconography of an oppressive eastern bloc regime that caused me to instinctually assume that I was working for the bad guys, but in retrospect, I'm not sure what evidence existed to support that feeling. Certainly they have strict border rules, but given the attacks on their border, that's not entirely unreasonable. And despite that, they appear to permit plenty of travelers, visitors, and immigrants into their country. The two legitimately troubling aspects of the Arstotzkan society are 1)that your pay is so poor and presumably employment options are so limited that it's very hard to keep your family alive, and 2)detaining would-be entrants to your country comes across as a somewhat sinister (although I don't recall anything obviously evil occurring--no executions on the spot or anything like that). Am I missing any more glaring examples of Arstotzkan tyranny?  

 

Are we meant to have some sympathy for Arstotzka and its rules? We get much more vivid demonstrations of the consequences of poor border control (explosions actively animated on screen) than we're ever given of the harms to our family or to hapless immigrants (little tokens showing "VERY SICK" "HUNGRY" etc.). I'm curious whether the ambiguity I'm perceiving is intentional on the creator's part, or if I'm just being sympathetic to this evil state despite the creator's intentions. Regardless, I think it's a pretty cool experience and I look forward to playing the final version in the near future.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think it's certainly meant to deal in grays rather than blacks and whites. No state is judged objectively and your own is only praised with hollow propaganda. That's what makes the mechanics so very interesting to me.

 

There are increases in security to address suicide bombings, but the suicide bombings continue anyway. You can attempt to act morally, to help people that might be negatively effected by the blundering and often unnecessarily harsh bureaucracy erected around you. But helping them puts a strain on your workload and has the potential to harm your own family. And you don't know if some of these people are simply lying.

 

It's the seed of doubt that one human inevitably plants in the other that supports and bolsters most cases of authoritarian rule. You may be following orders you don't like, but there are mechanics at play (your own starvation, your own fears of external violence) that make these orders easier to follow than you'd expect.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Can anyone enlighten me on what to do if a person has no documents at all? The game said something about inspection mode and checking the second page of my bulletin, but the second page had no relevant information and I couldn't figure out what inspection mode actually was. Is that the mode where you check for discrepancies?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now