An older woman approaches the counter and hands you documents. It is your job as an immigration inspector to make sure she has the proper credentials to enter your home country of Arstotzka. Your name has been drawn out of the labor lottery to be an immigration inspector, and the country has graciously given you an apartment to live in with your wife, son, uncle, and mother-in-law. It is cold in this eastern European influenced country, and your meager wages must supply your family with shelter, food, heat, and medicine.
You have to push that all to the back of your head. After six years of war with Kolechia, the Arstotzka half of the border town Grestin has been reclaimed. Because of the war, the border is incredibly tense. It is silent and only one person is allowed through at a time. The threat of a terrorist attack from Kolechia is something on your mind as you work through the immigration line.
The old woman hands you her documents. Everything seems to be in order, until you ask for an entry permit. She says that she does not have one, but she begs you to let her enter Arstotzka. She says if she returns to Kolechia, she will be murdered by the secret police. While she may be telling you the truth, the rules are rules. You deny her entry to the country, and she sulks off into the distance. But you can not worry about what will happen to her. Before you know it, another immigrant is looking at you, hoping you grant him entrance to the country.
This set up sounds like something you would read out of a book about the Cold War, but it is the basis for the game Papers, Please. It is an indie game developed by Lucas Pope, and the beta of the game is available for free download from his website. When asked where he got the idea for the game, Pope said, “I’ve done a fair bit of international travel in the last few years. Even though everything’s always in order, the whole immigration process is loaded with tension. In most places you can watch the inspector fiddling around with your documents and their computer. I enjoy finding games in unusual places and it just sorta entered my head that there could be a game here. Something that captures the power of the inspector, the rigmarole of the actual inspection, and the tension for the immigrants.”
Papers, Please starts out as a very basic concept. The beta of the game available now allows you to play the first eight days as the immigration inspector. On the first day, the Ministry of Admission says that only Arstotzka citizens are allowed into the country. This has you turning away many hopeful entrants, with the occasional swear directed at you. Day after day, the Ministry of Admission opens up the border a little more, but only if those trying to enter the country have the proper documents.
As the days go by and the requirements to enter Arstotzka increase, you have the ability to search for discrepancies between documents immigrants present to you. These range from a passport being expired, to different names between documents, to questioning the sex of the person trying to enter the country. In addition to the documents the immigrants present to enter the country, the Ministry of Admission has given you a code book to follow. The code book tells you what cities real documents were issued in, and what official stamps for Arstotzka look like. Even after finding discrepancies and questioning the people trying to enter the country, it is up to you to allow or deny entry.
After a certain event in the game, the issue of invasive searches is brought into the game. It is really dehumanizing, but Pope says there was a reason he included this in the game. “Foremost, it’s a game mechanic that builds on the “search for discrepancies” gameplay. Looking at text is all good fun but I wanted to introduce some variety. Strip-search photos seemed like a good way to do that. Including them in the game also highlights the issue of security over privacy. If you compare what the game shows to what a typical backscatter x-ray shows, you’ll find they’re not that different.”
At the end of the day, the game presents you with your finances. The more correct people you allow entry or deny has an affect on your salary. You have to pay the rent every day, but after that you choose what to spend the rest of your money on. On the right hand side of the screen you see the current status of your family members. It will say that they are cold, sick, or hungry. The salary you receive from being the immigration inspector does not cover all expenses, so you have to choose what to buy one day. It could be heat to warm your apartment, or food to feed your family. “It’s basically a way to apply pressure on the player in order to make their decisions less clear-cut,” Pope said of taking care of your family. “I intentionally keep the interface basic so the player can project their own family onto it.”
It sounds like the game would be incredibly dull and boring, but Pope believes otherwise. “I often hear about players’ surprise that the game is actually somewhat fun to play. People play and enjoy a lot of weird stuff though so I guess I wasn’t too worried (about the game not appealing to the public).”
As someone who has been through multiple border crossings, including one in eastern Europe, the game speaks volumes to that feeling when you are being inspected. While you know everything is correct, there is that slight doubt in the back of your mind that you messed something up. It does not help that the inspector is staring you down, in complete silence, as he looks over your credentials. After experiencing the tension that comes from crossing a border, it is neat to view it from the other side.
As the game continues, there are certain scripted events that allow for increased security at the border. It even gets to a point where certain citizens from a specific country must be searched every time. The search produces a nude photo of the entrant, bringing up the idea of invasive searches based on a persons ethnicity. You feel kind of wrong performing the search, but you have been instructed by the Ministry look for weapons. It is your job from keeping bad people out of Arstotzka. There are other events that come up, including entrants telling you have suspected bad people in line.
Pope says that Papers, Please will be a finished game someday. The final game will have around 30 days of gameplay. The timetable for the finished game is not as finalized though. “I’m planning to wrap it up in a month or so. Time estimates are not my forte though, so maybe double that.” Let’s hope that the wait for the game is not as tense as waiting to enter Arstotzka.
The beta version of Papers, Please can be downloaded from Pope’s website here.
