Papers, Please (2013)

When I first played Papers, Please back in 2013 or so, I appreciated the game conceptually more than I actually enjoyed playing it. I felt a little too discouraged when making mistakes, and a little too saddened by the subject matter to engage with it.

Revisiting the game in 2025, I absolutely adore it.

Part of that could just be maturity. I'm certainly more kind to myself when I make mistakes today than I was more than a decade ago. I also think playing Mars After Midnight really helped: Same dev, similar mechanics, more approachable subject matter and tone.

Whatever the reason, I wasn't discouraged at all this playthrough. I lost myself in the rhythm of the gameplay loop. I grew to really appreciate the interface and presentation. I took genuine interest in the story as I retried days to correct mistakes or discover new endings. I found myself looking for, and finding, glimmers of humor and lightness in the gloom.

Starting my new job as an Advisor at the European Master of Migration and International Relations (EMMIR), this game accidentally found its way to my Steam inbox. I liked on almost every level.

First off, the music and graphics are great. Quite retro, and the Soviet-style and music are really fitting for the theme of the game. The game mechanics are good, and the game is not too long.

The game follows a border control guard in a made-up state, and you need to do his work and make decisions for him. Even if everything is old-fashioned and exaggerated, the game also shows how there are people behind all decisions in migration; the ones at the counter have families too, and everyone just tries to get by and do their best to cope with life. And last but not least: for many, papers and stamps are the difference between life and death. Sometimes easy to remember for someone like me, with my Norwegian passport that can get me almost anywhere.

Papers Please isn't necessarily a fun game but its definitely worth playing. The game mechanics are unique and well though out, (it was interesting seeing how the game designer was able to implement new challenges as the story progresses) but that doesn't change the fact that the game mostly consists of doing a job for free.

However, in this instance, that's not a criticism, as the gameplay is not what makes Papers Please a worthwhile experience.

Papers Please's strengths are its ability to make meaningful moments and characters from minimal content, and its exploration of morality. Despite having no voice actors, the game's stylised pixellated characters are genuinely likeable(mainly Sergiu and Jorji), and in a game that doesn't rely on big spectacle or action, something as simple as a framed photo on the character's desk can be quite affecting.

While most games' morality systems are simple choices between right and wrong, Papers Please's more complicated approach is equally refreshing and uncomfortable. In this game, doing the morally right thing doesn't just mean pressing the hero dialogue option, it means choosing to prioritise your compassion over the safety of your own family. Granted, your family are little more than names, and you can replay individual days to get a better result, but it still poses the moral question to the player, what would you do in reality?

In short, it's not fun in a traditional sense, but it's immersive and interesting.

I played this game a while ago and kind of half quit/thought I had won? but after playing it again recently I think I got what I am going to assume is a canon ending, at least more canon than your entire family dying on the 4th day because you are a terrible terrible inspector.

For whatever reason I was way more in the groove this time and I really enjoyed the slowly increasing complexity of the game, but still backed up by the save game system which allow me to take a small tangent and talk about that for a second.

The save system in this game is awesome, and I do not remember it being there the first time I played this game, it must have been but I just do not remember it being there. The way that you can quickly slip back to previous days and see the outcome of various choices is so clever. If this game had come out in 2020(1!) I am fairly certain you would have to start from the beginning everytime you lose. Because roguelikes have huge subreddits years after their release, and I'm only 1/2 - 3/4 joking here ಠ_ಠ

The fact that you can not only start from the last day, but any day in your timeline and then have multiple branching timelines from each choice you make is incredible! It makes every day of the game less stressful (I can always just try this day again or if I make the wrong choice I can always come back and choose differently). I actually can't think of any other game where I have ever been as interested in finding other endings as this one and that is almost entirely thanks to the save system. I am curious why the number of branching timelines is capped at 4 though. It doesn't seem like having 4+ branches would make the game easier/less fun.

I also like the story a bunch. I love how this game can be so sad and funny at the same time but just before the game gets too depressing there's some appropriately dark joke in just the right place and in just the right tone.

Funnily enough I remember this moment from Superbunnyhop's review of Metal Gear Solid 1 where he pointed out that the hardest part of MGS1 is the first and second level and that as the game progresses your health bar becomes larger and larger and the number of different weapons you have becomes larger and larger, which makes the difficulty curve kind of the wrong way around. And I'm pretty sure the same thing applies to this game, I can't tell you how many times I've died early on because I can't keep my family healthy. But once you get a couple of shortcuts, and some revenue from detaining people halfway or so through the game, it becomes so much easier to not have to worry about dying from being bad at the game.

I also like how meta the upgrades are, the fact that you can purchase shortcut keys with ingame credits is 10/10 hilarious.

Glory to Arstotzka.