Papers, Please

papers, pleasePp-main-screenDeveloper(s)Lucas PopeDesigner(s)Lucas PopeGenrePuzzlePlatformMacOS (OS X)LinuxWindowsiOSAndroidPS VitaLanguage(s)English (original release),French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, SpanishEngineNMEOpenFL (≥ 1.0.38)Release DateAugust 8, 2013 (full version)Available onSteamgog.compapersplea.sedukope.com (Beta version)App Store (iOS)Google Play (Android)

Papers, Please is an award-winning indie puzzle video game created by Lucas Pope. Set in the fictional, communist[1][2] country of Arstotzka, the player is a border inspector who regulates the border checkpoint in East Grestin. They must determine who to admit and who to keep out or arrest.

DevelopmentMain article: Game developmentPapers, Please thematically follows the dystopian setting already seen in Pope's earlier games. The game features mid-res pixel art and many items and backgrounds use a limited palette of roughly 3 shades.[3] The game was developed in 2012–2013 and originally used the OpenFL engine (previously HaxeNME). Since 1.4.9, the underlying engine has been Haxe/Unity.[4]

StoryOfficial game description"The communist state of Arstotzka has ended a 6-year war with neighboring Kolechia and reclaimed its rightful half of the border town, Grestin. Your job as immigration inspector is to control the flow of people entering the Arstotzkan side of Grestin from Kolechia. Among the throngs of immigrants and visitors looking for work are hidden smugglers, spies, and terrorists. Using only the documents provided by travelers and the Ministry of Admission's primitive inspect, search, and fingerprint systems you must decide who can enter Arstotzka and who will be turned away or arrested."[5]

SynopsisThe protagonist of the game is an unnamed male immigration inspector, who has been chosen for the job via a lottery. With a mother-in-law, a wife, a son, and an uncle to take care of, the family manages to just get by each day; in addition to rent, heat and food must be accounted for at the end of the day, lest the inspector's family members will start falling ill and possibly perish.

GameplayMain article: Game modesThe main interface of the desktop version.The main interface of the desktop version.

The gameplay of Papers, Please mainly centers around checking and verifying documents of NPCs who wish to enter Arstotzka.

Story modeThere are 31 playable days in story mode, with 20 different endings. Endings are determined by daily decisions and interactions made by the player. Initial gameplay is simple, but almost every new day brings new rules, regulations and features to pay attention to; failure to comply can result in penalties.

Endless modeEndless mode is unlocked by entering a five-digit code (62131) given after reaching a specific ending. The code can be entered in the game menu to unlock this mode.

ReceptionMain article: Awards and recognitionThe game received positive reviews, with a score of 85/100 from Metacritic for the desktop version[6] and 92/100 for the iPad version.[7] Publications such as Eurogamer,[8] Polygon[9] and PC Gamer[10] gave Papers, Please scores between 80–90%. In 2014, Papers, Please won the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Games Award for strategy and simulation.[11]

Papers, Please is a 2013 puzzle simulation video game by Lucas Pope, developed and published independently through his production company 3909 LLC. The game was released on August 8, 2013, for Microsoft Windows and OS X, for Linux on February 12, 2014, and for iOS on December 12, 2014. A port for the PlayStation Vita was announced in August 2014 and was then released on December 12, 2017.[2] A port for Android, alongside an updated port for iOS, was released in August 2022.

In Papers, Please, the player takes the role of a border-crossing immigration officer in the fictional dystopian country of Arstotzka, which maintains a longstanding state of mutual political hostility with its neighboring countries. The player must review travelers' passports and other supporting paperwork against an ever-growing list of rules using a number of tools and guides. Tasks include allowing in those with the proper paperwork while rejecting those without all proper documents, detaining those with falsified information, and balancing personal finances.

Papers, Please was positively received on its release, and it has come to be seen as an example of an empathy game and a demonstration of video games as an art form. The game earned various awards and nominations from the Independent Games Festival, Game Developers Choice Awards, and BAFTA Video Games Awards, and was named by Wired and The New Yorker as one of the top games of 2013. By its tenth anniversary, Papers, Please had sold more than five million copies.

GameplayPapers, Please depicts the life of an immigration inspector at a border checkpoint for the fictional country of Arstotzka in the year 1982.[4] Arstotzka has recently ended a six-year-long war with the neighboring country of Kolechia, yet political tensions between them and other nearby countries remain high.

As a checkpoint inspector, the player must review the documents of arrivals – allowing legitimate travelers through the border, denying entry to those with insufficient or expired documents, and arresting suspected criminals, terrorists, and entrants with forged or stolen documents. For each in-game day, the player is given specific rules on what documentation is required and conditions to allow entry, which become progressively more difficult over time. One by one, immigrants arrive at the checkpoint and provide their paperwork, which must be reviewed against the scheduled rules. If discrepancies are discovered, the player may interrogate the applicant, demand missing documents, compare the applicant's fingerprints against identity records, and order full body scans. If incriminating evidence is discovered, the player may order the entrant arrested. The player ultimately must stamp the entrant's passport to accept or deny entry, or order an arrest. If the player has violated protocol, a citation will be issued via in-game fax to the player's booth shortly after the entrant leaves. The player has a limited amount of real time, representing a full day shift at the checkpoint, to process as many arrivals as possible.

The player's immigration checkpoint workstation shows the current arrival (left center), the various paperwork the player is currently processing (bottom right), and the current state of the checkpoint (top third). A body scan of the arrival reveals a concealed firearm.At the end of each in-game day, the player earns money per entrant that is properly processed as well as from any bribes collected, lowered by citation penalties for protocol violations. The player then must decide on a simple budget for rent, food, heat and other necessities for their family; if the player goes into debt, the game ends with a game over. Accepting bribes risks being discovered and imprisoned by the government. As relations between Arstotzka and nearby countries deteriorate, new rules are added such as denying entry to citizens of specific countries or demanding new types of documentation. The player may be challenged with moral dilemmas as the game progresses, such as allowing the supposed spouse of an immigrant through despite lacking complete papers at the risk of accepting a terrorist into the country. The game uses a mix of scripted encounters interspersed between randomly generated entrants.

Over the course of the game, the player encounters members of an organization called EZIC which plots a coup d'état against the Arstotzkan government. Decisions made to grant or deny entry to EZIC agents have consequences on the ending of the game. The player can also choose to escape to a neighbouring country, Obristan, to start a new life, with or without their family. The game has a scripted story mode with twenty possible endings depending on the player's actions, as well as some unlockable randomized endless-play modes.[5][6]