![papers please game over papers please game over](https://64.media.tumblr.com/10862d77aab8a40a9bb040bda73cc951/tumblr_inline_pdw98fS7861r4k36w_500.png)
Indeed, more pages will be added to the rulebook as the Story Mode progresses, reflecting the maturing (or convolution, depending on one’s point of view) of the bureaucratic processes at the checkpoint. Being the property of Arstotzka, it also has sections on the identity cards that are carried by its citizens. The rulebook also has pages that are dedicated to the geography of Arstotzka and its neighbours, detailing the provinces in their territory. The rulebook contains text on the rules that the player must follow these will be elaborated later. It even has its own convenient storage compartment in the booth (but the player is more than likely to keep the book out of it than inside it). The most important document in the booth is the rulebook. (However, clicking on the loudspeaker is also associated with an issue of user-friendliness, as will be elaborated later.) The clock that indicates the operating time will not start until the player clicks on the loudspeaker above the booth. This is also the time to check news on the development of the backstory. More importantly, this is the only time before the start of the working day when the player has the opportunity to leisurely check the rules that he/she has to follow. Once the player character is in the booth, the player can check the stuff in the booth, most of which are important. The player can do nothing meanwhile, but he is just a few steps away so this is a minor annoyance at worst. The game starts itself off by having what appears to be the player character walking into his booth. That any decision comes with undesirable consequences doesn’t make things easier. Needless to say, trouble looms ahead for the inspections officer, who would have to decide which comes first: duty, conscience or naïveté. Unfortunately for him, this checkpoint occurs at a flashpoint region in between Arstotzka and its resentful neighbour, Kolechia. This would not be much of an issue to the player character in fact, it is a job that would feed and house his family. He has been chosen via lottery to be the inspections officer at a new border checkpoint. However, compared to these earlier titles, which he made for one-off events, the backstory of Papers, Please is much more fleshed out in comparison.įurthermore, the fictitious country that the game’s story takes place in is Arstotzka, a country that happens to be in the same (fictitiously) geographical region which Republia is in.Īnyway, the player character is an apparently adult male citizen of Arstotzka. Interestingly, Lukas Pope has set the game in the fictitious world that he had created for his earlier games, namely Republia Times and 6 Degrees of Sabotage. (Note: Most of the review will be written with Story Mode in mind Endless Mode gets its own section.)īeing a professedly ardent fan of dystopian settings where freedom rights are afterthoughts, Lukas Pope has, unsurprisingly, set Papers, Please in a world where authoritarian governments rule and trust is scarce. Yet, Papers, Please, with the narrative of its Story Mode, would deliver its promise, in addition to (mostly) effectively implemented gameplay which are rarely seen in other games. Yet, if there are indeed such people, it would be very hard for them to consider that Papers, Please (designed by Lukas Pope) can be lumped together with the “been there, done that”.Īfter all, there are not many games that claim to be a “document-checking thriller”, a phrase which in itself would already be an oxymoron.
![papers please game over papers please game over](http://www.doublezeroonezero.com/files/westport/screenshots/screen_4.png)
It would not be a far stretch to claim that there are game consumers who are jaded enough to consider most of the offerings from today’s game-makers to be old hat. By Gelugon_baat | Review Date: March 10, 2014