A Video Game Based Around Passports

Papers, Please is a top down puzzle game with simulation aspects created in 2013 by Lucas Pope, a developer that left his job at Naughty Dog studios shortly after Uncharted 2 came out. 

Pope created games in his free time before leaving Naughty Dog Studios. One of these games, The Republia Times, gave Pope the inspiration for Papers, Please. The Republia Times is a game in which the player is the editor-in-chief for a newspaper sorting through headlines and approving ones that the government would like. Papers, Please was also inspired by the Berlin Wall crisis which lasted from 1961 to 1989 

 Pope was a man who never really liked putting years of work into a game. He mainly preferred for games to take a month or two, and with Pope spending nine months on Papers,Please he had spent more time than he ever wanted to on Papers, Please and was heard to say in an interview that he was “kind of sick to death” of working on Papers, Please. He wanted to pursue other projects, so Papers, Please never got a sequel or any other content.

The game itself is a true masterpiece that gets harder and harder every day, which does not allow you to have much room for error. The mistakes you will inevitably make will be made at your job at the Grestin border checkpoint. Many things can happen here, from meeting a man named Jorji trying to cross with a fake passport, to a terrorist attack by men on motorcycles. Most early events don’t do much, like changing the number of guards or adding a quarantine area, but with increasing security in your country of Arstotzka some decisions can be life or death. 

One group trying to get past your border is EZIC. These are reform extremists who are going to try and get their way no matter the cost over the month that the game takes place. With multiple endings, there’s no linear path to the finale. You could help EZIC get through and take the bribe that they give you, or you could go through the game and leave Arstotzka, your job, and family behind. No matter what you decide to do there will be consequences. If you decide to refuse an order from EZIC you could die in the end. If you decide to not pay for food or heat your family will die, leading to your imprisonment.

This initiative gameplay makes every passport, person, and decision feel like snowboarding during an avalanche. 

Papers, Please won 9 awards out of the 19 it was nominated for. The success of this game sparked a short film under the name of Papers, Please as well, directed by Nikita Ordynskiy. With such large success, it’s readily available on most platforms. The only exception is consoles but, with a PC you can pick this game up for around 10 USD here. You can also pick a copy of the game for the PlayStation Vita for 100-130 USD on eBay.