Papers, please

A couple of years ago I saw a Let’s Play video on youtube of a game called “Papers, please”. At first I thought the concept was interesting but it would probably get boring quickly. In the game, you play as a man who works for the boarder control of a made up country that is trying to protect itself from illegal immigrants and terrorists. The whole setting resembles a soviet union style country - I don’t remember if it is ever mentioned explicitly that the country you work for is communist but the game gives you a feeling of strong solidarity with your fellow countrymen. At first, the game is quite basic and your job is to check people’s ID and Passport and look for any discrepancies that would indicate forged documents - boring bureaucracy. That is, until the game starts making it harder to check for forged documents, your supervisor puts you under more pressure and the danger of terrorists becomes bigger. Everything starts to get closer to reality until - all of a sudden - you get confronted with ethical dilemmas. People without or with obviously forged documents come to you and beg you to let them pass for urgent reasons - but how do you know if they’re being honest? The entire game is incredibly complex and basically puts your conscience and your decision making to test. Are you gonna follow orders and properly do your job or are you gonna make exceptions - and how many? The game has a bunch of different endings and I won’t spoil them for you but I loved this game - I should play it again some time. At some point I couldn’t really take it anymore because my teenage self honestly almost got depressed playing it because the entire scenery is so dystopian.

A deeper meaning

The thing that is so great about this game is that - if you play it properly and that means actually making the decisions that you would probably make in a real life scenario - you find out about yourself and maybe also about how your judgement is sometimes flawed. These ethical dilemmas that you get put in are so interesting because they actually also simulate an outcome. Whereas traditionally in hypothetical ethical dilemmas, your hypothetical decision doesn’t carry any weight, in the game you get to see the outcome of your decision - that is obviously created by the makers of the game - but still it gives you this feeling that your decision actually carries weight. The main factors that makes “Papers, please” so intense revolve around the nature of the design, the setting and the decisions that you have to make:

  • Design
    • Simple: It is very clear what you are supposed to do and what you can do
    • Graphics: Unnerving graphics that create a special atmosphere
    • Dialogues: Most of the game revolves around dialogues
  • Setting
    • Limited information: Most of the information you get is either vague or not 100% trustworthy
    • Sense of duty: You are supposed to serve the greater good
    • Strangers: It’s impossible to predict them, you have to go by your gut feeling
  • Decisions
    • High stakes: Your decisions have big to massive impact on your and other people’s lives
    • No pussing out: You have to make a decision

No, I’m not a human

The most recent game that I’ve seen of this category and what gave me the idea for this blog post. This one in specific plays a lot with the limited information you have, which I personally love.

Mind games

These games are largely not played on the screen but in your mind.