Papers Please - Beta Impressions

Immigration agent is probably the last thing I would have expected to be cast as in a video game. Compared to storming castles, blowing up space stations, and the other epic feats we usually see in games, what fun could possibly be had sitting in a booth stamping passports? Well consider my previous expectations completely destroyed, as Papers Please is something all too amazing, both in the genius of its execution, and the fact that it works so well at all.

Recently getting its own seal of approval via Steam’s Greenlight service, the beta is currently available completely free from the developers website. As curiosity would have it, I decided to give it a look, and played around an hour of its current build.

The date is Tuesday, November 23, 1982. After six long years the war between the communist state of Arstotzka and its neighbor Kolechia has finally ended. Your name has just been drawn in the monthly labor lottery, placing you as an immigration agent stationed between the two now friendly countries. Your job is to check passports for errors, and approve or deny entrance. Nothing more, nothing less. But as conditions worsen, your priorities change form. What happens when your family gets sick, bills start piling up, and the winter cold sets in? Do you risk quickly giving applicants a pass, raising your quota and with it your salary, or do you take it slow and watch your family suffer? Where do you draw the line, deciding the fate of not only your family but potentially the entire country?

These are the kind of questions you continually ask yourself as you slowly make your way through the day, each bringing with it a new event. These constantly change the rules, forcing you to double check yourself for mistakes, and adding new requirements for approval. Things start off simply enough, but before long you start dealing with counterfeit documents, smugglers, mistaken identities, and even more as the borders become tighter.

This would all be only passively interesting on its own, but it’s the way it brings your morals into question that makes it special. People will slip you notes, try to bribe you, and as your family’s health and well-being worsen, you have to seriously weigh the odds on each and every applicant you receive.

Being able to pay for your son’s medicine and realizing you get to keep your job, brings with it a sigh of relief and a spark of hope. But on the opposite side of the coin, letting someone slip by can have dire consequences. Terrorist attacks can come out of nowhere, and the knowledge you might have been able to stop it and perhaps are even even the one to blame become yet another source of stress and despair, not to mention cutting your day short and taking with it any pay you could have had in the left over hours.

If it is not already abundantly clear, Papers Please is in no way lighthearted or easy to get through. I struggle to think of many games where I have been more stressed, yet at the same time too absorbed into the experience to pull myself away. Days feel like an eternity, and there came a point where simply not getting a penalty for letting someone in that I shouldn’t have felt like a reward in itself. This is heavy stuff, and the developer didn’t shy away from the darker parts, instead pointing you straight at the grimy underworld and asking you to wade through if you hope to get by another day.

The simple art somehow makes it all more impactful than it otherwise could have been, and lends itself remarkably well to the traumatic events that occur. The music is rarely present, with the monotonous sounds of pressed stamps, ticking clocks, and the continuous call of “Next” completely engrossing you into the game. Though this is still a beta build, created by a one man team, the amount of detail and polish in every aspect is outstanding. Aside from a somewhat confusing tutorial, which almost feels intended as you are forced to learn from your mistakes instead, there is little fault to be found. This makes me incredibly eager to see what is planned for the full release, though sadly, there is of yet no published release date.

If you have a few hours to spare, I can’t recommend enough checking out Papers Please. More than just a simulation, it had a bigger emotional affect on me in my brief time with it than most full length games I’ve played all year. I will most certainly be immigrating back to Arstozta when the full game arrives, and I suggest you have your passports at the ready to do the same!