Papers, Please

Introduction

            In this tenth game review of this blog, we shall be looking at a game praised for its utter simplicity and superb gameplay, for its price. This game is called: Papers, Please.

 

            Papers, Please is an indie adventure game that tells the story of a immigration officer who has recently been appointed to his post by a state-sponsored lottery of a fictional country known as Artstotzka. The player is then put into his shoes, approving or denying access of foreigners and natives alike from going into the country of Arstotzka during his working shift from 6am to 6pm of in-game time (of course), this is done in the game by checking their passports and relevant documents, and if these documents are in check, allow him/her access, if not, deny him/her access. Although this task may seem like a boring and droll task, this is just the base gameplay of Papers, Please.

 

A normal day in Artstotzka

            What Papers, Please does fantastically well is how it constantly challenges the player’s moral conscience by making the player struggle to think whether what they’re doing is right or wrong, and oftentimes these decisions differ from all players, meaning each outcome is different for every individual, resulting in a part of the story being the work of the player and their morals, which definitely helps makes this game stand out from the other indie games. Although the story is pretty short, it does have certain branched out sections that allow for a unique (although slightly lacking) story experience. There are also 20 different endings for this game, and experiencing each would mean racking up many hours of gameplay whilst struggling to wonder if the guy in front of you should be allowed or denied access.

 

To approve, or to deny.

What’s good

            Speaking of hours of gameplay, this game is surprisingly very engrossing to play once the player understands the game. Once you’re into the fifth or sixth day of the game, you’d probably have been sitting there for an hour or two already.

 

Imagine doing this for 12 hours of in-game time, and imagine how much time in real-life is wasted

            The difficulty curve of this game is also something worth mentioning. This curve is extremely well-set and defined throughout the game. At the start, the player is asked to do one thing, for example: give access to this race of people (all of which are fictional btw!) only. But, as the player progresses, the difficulty starts to ramp up accordingly, whether it be allowing more races into the country, having more documents to check, wanted criminals to pull out, or even some documents to confiscate. If there’s one thing this game does not lack, it is its difficulty level. In a sense, a player with good micromanagement and understanding of the game rules will definitely do well in a game like this. 

 

Rules at the start

 

Rules at the end..

            When you feel that there’s something wrong about the foreigner/native, the game requires you to enter “Investigative Mode”, which is basically a mode that requires you to highlight two things you wish to check for, as the game calls it, “discrepancies”. For example, if a passport is out-of-date from the current date, you highlight both areas and then there would be text to pop out, saying that a discrepancy has been detected if you are spot-on, allowing you to interrogate the foreigner/native and tell them about their out-of-date passport and you’d probably deny him/her access afterward. 

 

An example of the investigate mode at work, pointing out discrepancies.

Other than this, Investigative Mode can help you if you’re unsure about certain things, for example, when height is introduced, sometimes you might not be sure if he/she is the height listed in the document, you can cross-check with Investigative Mode the document’s height, and the foreigner/native’s height and if it says “Matching Data”, it would immediately help to quell your thoughts. 

So, what’s so good about Papers, Please? Other than its moral-conscience-challenging gameplay, the game is also very simple. Seriously, with the graphics it has, you would think it’s some trash-bin budget game, but once this graphics is mixed with the gameplay, the simplicity of the graphics is then pretty much overlooked by many. This just goes to show you, graphics of a game isn’t everything; it is the gameplay that matters.

The game is also very replayable, as none of the missions actually have the exact same people every time you play it, only those characters who are involved in certain objectives will appear, even then, these characters differ in appearance every time as well, but their documents will always be valid or invalid. There are only a small handful of characters whose appearances AND documents are always the same. Thus, this makes the game extremely replayable as the gameplay is varied even though it is the same level.

The two downsides

If there were any downside I had to list about the game, it is that it lacks any sort of depth. Throughout the whole game, there are only four upgrades in total and all of which are related to greater efficiency of using the stamps and faster access to the “Investigate Mode”. So in simpler terms, this game is not made for the RPG fan, if you like having skill trees and upgrades to be “the next top border inspector”, this game is not for you.

See those 4 keyboard shortcuts below that book on the left? Those are the four upgrades.

The story in this game is also very simple and lack any sort of background story, and is a plain story as-is, and the story elements only happen on certain days, while nothing happens on the other days. It definitely is not a stand-out point about this game.

 

TRIBAL COUNCIL

Gameplay: 10/10, the gameplay is nothing to be scoffed at. Extremely simplistic game rules which escalate in difficulty as the player progresses. It scores extremely well because it manages to tie daily mundane tasks with moral choices that differ with each player, making gameplay unique to everyone.

Story: 6/10, the story in this game does exist, however it is a story told between several days of working the border checkpoint. On the other hand, there are also several days where nothing related to the story happens. The story consists of doing tasks, and the amount of tasks you do result in a different ending for the game. However, the story is extremely simple and does not have any background or depth to it.

Graphics and Sound: 8/10, yes, the graphics are bad, but as I said, it is the gameplay that matters, and because of the gameplay and how the game managed to have such good gameplay to the point that the graphics (despite being a turn-off at the start), actually start to complement the gameplay and would be something you soon ignore, since you’ll be busy stamping passports for approval trying to earn your daily wages. The sound of the game is also decent and fits the theme of the game.

Depth: 5/10, like I said before: 4 total upgrades. Not a lot of depth at all.

Learnability: 10/10, this game is extremely easy to learn thanks to the first few levels that are easy. It allows players to grasp the basic concepts and learn the game rules fairly easily.

Replayability: 9/10, definitely replayable, with its varying characters and documents. Just these two varying elements alone make this game worth replaying.

Overall: 8/10, the score for this game is highly sporadic but my thoughts of the game are that it is an extremely solid game, with very well-thought game rules and how the game enforces it strictly through the gameplay since your job is important, being a border checkpoint inspector. There is no room for mistake for a job like this.

Summary

            Papers, Please is definitely a worthy pick-up for anyone, it is really an engrossing game at the end of the day, and the price tag is definitely acceptable for a very well-made game like this. So, will you take up the role of a border checkpoint inspector and bring Glory to Arstotzka? Well, for 9.99 USD on Steam you will.

Glory to Arstotzka

            If there’s one thing I forgot to mention in the previous posts is that if you, the readers, have anything to comment about my styles of these blog posts, please do below! I’ll definitely try to change up the style a bit if you feel like there’s any area of my review is lacking and can be improved! Thank you all for the support!