Papers, Please

Lucas Pope - 2013 - PC

This may have been the most unique game I played this year. In Papers, Please, you play a immigration clerk screening immigrants for potential entry into the fictitious country of Arstotzka. Immigrants give you their paperwork and it’s up to you to process and find any discrepancies in their papers.

At the end of the day you’ll have to choose how to spend your very small paycheck - on feeding your family, paying the heat bill, or providing your children their medicine. And you probably won’t have enough money for all of it. You’ll want to process as many immigrants as you can as quickly as possible, because you’re paid by how many you process per day. But you don’t want to go too fast or you may miss a discrepancy in their paperwork and have to pay a fine. It’s kind of a nerve wracking and depressing game to play. But I don’t mean that as a negative criticism of the game, it was clearly designed to invoke those kinds of emotions. You really get the feeling of what it’s like to be a desk clerk doing a menial but stressful job and getting paid next to nothing for it.

Summary:
It’s an interesting and unique indie game. It’s not my favorite, but it’s certainly different, which is always good.