Rating of
2.5/5
No More Papers, Please
Matt - wrote on 05/30/21
Story
The story of Papers, Please takes place in the fictional Arstotzka, a country similar to an Eastern Bloc communist state during the Cold War. Your character is a border crossing guard who evaluates the paperwork of those wishing to enter from neighboring states. You start the game with a family (wife, child, mother-in-law, uncle) all living under the same roof. The new position as a border agent has allowed the family to afford an apartment on the 8th level of a nearby complex. While checking documents you encounter various characters attempting to cross the boarder without proper credentials. Depending upon your sympathies, you may help those whose emotional appeals resonate—the woman trying to see her son after being separated, or assist those trying to subvert the oppressive government. The story plays upon many themes associated in Western imaginations with Eastern totalitarian governments. Terrorism is a force used to try and bring down such regimes. Bribing and under-the-table agreements with guards are a few ways one can get ahead, and provide for their family. Interactions with state officials, radicals, smugglers are interspersed with the common folk wishing to enter Arstotzka. The story draws the player into this mundane world, a world that has intrigue to a Western audience.
Gameplay
The gameplay of Papers, Please is based on mouse and keyboard interactions (I did not try to play the game with my Steam controller). The player checks passports, work permits, ID cards, etc. for errors. If there are no discrepancies, the player gives the stamp of approval. If an error is found, the player enables an investigation mode to check the discrepancy with a rule book and question the character at the window. For every person evaluated (approved or denied) you earn $5 of currency. You are given warnings and eventually fines for individuals let through the boarder with errors. The mechanic used for the initial interactions is primarily the mouse. However, as the game progresses, the player is given the opportunity to spend money on booth upgrades that grant access to keyboard shortcuts in order to more quickly investigate the paperwork. The game incentivizes quick assessment of the documents, however it is quite easy to miss information. For example, I frequently forgot to check the gender stated on passports and would be fined for letting someone through who didn’t match.
Each day in the booth becomes progressively more challenging as more information needs to be verified. This progression opens up more ways to check identities, adding complexity (e.g. fingerprinting a person to settle discrepancies of name). The entire gameplay can be simplified to approving, rejecting, investigating (cross-checking the ever-changing-rule-book), and detaining (specifically those caught with contraband). At the end of each day the player needs to decide how to spend that hard earned money for rent, food, medicine, and heat. If you are unable to afford such luxuries as food and heat, your family members get cold and sick. If you are unable to pay for medicine, they die. If you go into debt, the game is over and you are sent to debtors prison. This repeats ad nauseam.
Presentation
The presentation of the game (its music and art-style) are meant to draw you into the bleak world of a totalitarian state, and for the most part it succeeds at this. The bland 8-bit style of an early NES game is effective at depicting such a bleak world. The muted colors and palate of grays, browns, blues and greens lack the vibrancy and depth that bring a game to life. The best comparison is to think of the earliest NES games versus SNES titles. The 8-bit games look flat, hollow, and bleak, whereas the 16-bit games represent the opposite. Papers, Please is on the dreary side of the former. The title music is domineering and invokes associations with imperial marches. Sound effects and the voice tracks—a garbled nonsensical language—enhance the world, making one feel hopeless. There are three basic settings to the game: the guard booth, the end of the day overview where you decide how to spend your money, and the walking to work graphic where you see the headlines of the daily newspaper. It is all simplistic but effective, given the subject matter.
Overall
The appeal of this game is the engagement with an 1984-esque world where totalitarian forces collide with democratic and radical attempts to bring change. In the early parts of the game, I watched my son, mother-in-law, and uncle all die because of lack of food, medicine and heat. Later on I used some money received in a bribe to upgrade the apartment, only to have the neighbors complain that I used illegal funds for the purchase. Sure enough, after investigation, the government confirmed my activities and confiscated my bribes, kicking me out of the upgraded apartment. Having some familiarity with life under such circumstances, the game does well at engaging in such a world.
Personally, however, I wasn’t captivated by it all. My actual job involves the evaluation of papers so the thought of a game which has the sole purpose of quickly evaluating documents does not excite me. One purpose of games is to engage with an imaginative world that provides and encourages alternatives to our own world. Another purpose of games it shed light upon the social problems of the current day, and maybe Papers, Please is just that, a philosophical commentary on modern work. Games ought to be fun, enjoyed for the sake of the game itself. I just didn’t enjoy Papers, Please in that way. The imaginative world was interesting, especially considering I do enjoy some dystopian fiction. It was the gameplay that got me. The constant checking and stamping paperwork wasn’t fun, but maybe it’s not supposed to be.
Story - 3 out of 5
Gameplay - 1 out of 5
Presentation - 3 out of 5
Overall (not an average) - 2.5 ouf 5
