Papers, Please

About

Papers, Please (subtitled as Papers, Please: A Dystopian Document Thriller) is an independent point-and-click puzzle game developed by Lucas Pope and published through his company 3909 LLC. Since its release in August of 2013, the game, which follows a recently designated immigration inspector, has earned a number of accolades, and garnered a fandom along with the release of a short film released on February 24, 2018.

Premise

Taking place in the fictional communist country of Arstotska in 1982, the player takes the role of a recently-chosen immigration inspector who has to operate the newly established border checkpoint between Arstotska and their political rival Kolechia, with whom they have recently ended a six-year war with, in the border town of Grestin. Over the course of a month, the player will need to deal with a number of obstacles, ranging from identifying discrepancies in the documents of entrants to making difficult moral choices, all the while trying to care for their family. (trailer shown below)

Gameplay

Papers, Please is a point-and-click puzzle game where the player must determine whether or not an entrant into Arstotzka is allowed into the country or denied entry. This is done by looking at the entrant's offered documentation and the given rules, and this must be done before the day is over. As the month progresses, rules can be added, changed, or removed, increasing or decreasing the difficulty. Breaking any of these rules too many times can eventually result in fines for that day. At the end of the day, the player receives their salary, depending on how many entrants they've processed and on how many fines they've received.

Throughout the game, the player can make various choices, some of which that can affect their received ending, with 20 endings available to earn, such as making an alliance with a secret organization to topple the government, allowing in the wife of an entrant who lacks the correct documentation, or sacrificing amenities such as food and heat to save money, to the detriment of the player's family members. After achieving a certain ending, the player can unlock an endless game mode where they can process an infinite amount of entrants.

History

Papers, Please was developed by former Naughty Dog employee Lucas Pope^[1], who left the company after working on Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Since leaving Naughty Dog, he developed short Flash games for the Ludum Dare competition, along with his first Flash game The Republia Times (shown below) which Papers, Please slightly references. Lucas got his inspiration for the game by the work of immigration inspectors through trips within Asia and from the US, realizing how the experience could be turned into a game.^[25]

Pope released the beta of Papers, Please in early 2013, with the full game released on August 8, 2013 on Steam for Windows and Mac OS X.^[2] This was followed by a Linux port on February 12, 2014, a port on the iPad through the App Store on December 12,^[26] and a Playstation Vita port released 3 years later on December 12, 2017.^[4]

Short Film

In May of 2017, Pope announced that a short film based on the game was being made.^[5] Created by Russian filmmakers Liliya Tkach and Nikita Ordynskiy through their company Kinodom Productions, and with the involvement of Pope himself, the film's trailer was unveiled on October 27, 2017. (shown below, left) The film first premiered on January 27, 2018 in Moscow's Trekhgorka House of Culture^[8] and eventually saw another closed screening on February 17, at the Filmkino Independent Film Festival,^[9] before its online premiere on Youtube and Steam on February 24.^[10][11] (shown below, right)

Reception

The game was released to general acclaim upon release. The PC version game holds a critic score of 85 and a user score of 8.5 on Metacritic.^[6] The iPad port also has been received positively on Metacritic, with a critic score of 92 and a user score of 8.6.^[13] On Steam, the game has a 96% positive user rating from over 19,000 Steam users.^[2] On the Apple App Store, the game has a rating of 4.7 stars out of 5 from 47 users.^[3] The Vita port has been received less than positive, with only a 3 star rating out of 5 from 15 users on the Playstation Store.^[12]

Critics praised the story and emotional interactions between the characters, though some criticized the gameplay as being tedious, likening it to actual work. Writing for IGN, Richard Cobbett gave the game an 8.7 out of 10, writing "Please serves up a grim but compelling puzzler in the most unlikely of places.", though criticized it for being "Inherently repetitive."^[14] Dan Whitehead of Eurogamer rated the game a 9 out of 10, concluding "Papers, Please feels a lot like an interactive anxiety attack. It's hard to call such a nerve-shredding experience "fun", but it is absorbing, brilliantly written and causes you to question your every instinct and reaction – both in the game and in real life."^[15] Zero Punctuation's Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw was very positive regarding the game, and named it his second best game of 2013 in his year-end list. (videos shown below)

Since its release, the game has received numerous awards and accolades^[27] from various game award shows, festivals, and organizations, such as the Independent Games Festival,^[16] the Game Developers Choice Awards,^[17] and the BAFTA Video Game Awards.^[18] The game has also made it onto year-end lists of best games of 2013 from publications such as Wired,^[19] Ars Technica,^[20] and The New Yorker.^[21] The game has also been cited as an example of games as an art form,^[22][23] with Patrick Begley of the Sydney Morning Herald describing the game as a sort of "empathy game."^[24]

In terms of sales, Pope revealed that as of 2016, the game had sold 1.8 million copies across all platforms.^[7]

Online Relevance

The game has a dedicated subreddit^[28] created by /u/DharmaTurtleSC on February 26, 2013 that has garnered over 2,000 subscribers since its inception. A dedicated wiki also exists with over 182 articles as of February 2018.^[29] The game has been the subject of a number of let's-plays since the release of the beta brought it recognition among the community, with one of the most popular let's-plays of the game coming from Youtuber JackSepticEye, with the first episode of his series garnering over 10 million views since first being uploaded. (examples shown below)

Various skits surrounding the game have also been made by people such as LoadingReadyRun and Mega64, with some netting close to or over a million views since being uploaded. (examples shown below)

Fandom

Fanart for the game exists on places such as Tumblr^[30][31] and Deviantart, with Deviantart bringing up over 100,000 results,^[32] though this number is inflated due to the broadness of the search term used. Search terms related to the game can also be used, though this results in less results given.^[33] (examples shown below, left) Cosplay for the game also exists along with fan-made replicas of items and official merchandise based on items from the game, such as passports. (examples shown below, right)

Related Memes

Glory to Arstotzka

Glory to Arstotzka is a catchphrase commonly associated with the game. The phrase is usually said as a form of ironic support for the country and usually in response to the propaganda seen throughout the game, not too dissimilar to the phrase Best Korea. The phrase is also usually accompanied with a negative remark towards the in-game political rival Kolechia.

Jorji Costava

Jorji Costava is a character that can be encountered throughout the month in the game. An entrant coming in for supposed "business," Jorji is considered to be a standout character in the game due to his cheery demeanor in contrast to the drab and depressing tone of the game, along with his many attempts to get into the country, such as making a fake "pre-approved" passport designating him a citizen of "Cobrastan," a made-up country which is also associated with the character.

Search Relevance

External References