Do you separate a husband and wife when one has legitimate paperwork and one doesn’t? Do you reunite a guard and friend of yours with a girl he met during the war, even if she has no papers? Remember your family, and that doing these things will get you penalized. Where Papers, Please really starts to stand out is in its attempts to get you to willingly make a mistake. But Papers, Please is much more than a simple puzzle game, even one as well done as this. The increasingly complicated puzzles coupled with the fine balance between speed and accuracy makes for quite a compelling game all by itself. Your pay per person doesn’t increase, but your rent might. You may be ordered to refuse all entrants from a certain nation, or confiscate all passports issued from a certain district.
Entrants must look like their picture and be of matching height and weight, with fingerprint records available to check discrepancies. Diplomats, asylum seekers, workers, and Arstotzkan residents have different papers. All these forms must be legally issued, match each other, have valid information, and not be expired. By the third week, all foreign visitors must have a passport, an entry ticket, an ID supplement, and a certificate of vaccination. The key is to go fast enough to pay all your bills, but slow enough to make sure you get everything right, and the game strikes this balance very well. Make mistakes, however, and you start to receive docked pay. You get paid by the person, and must process enough to keep your family warm and fed. The basic gameplay hook is easy to spot, too.
Your job is to check the papers of people trying to enter the country, and grant or deny access based on whether those papers are all in order. You are an immigration officer working for the fictional Eastern Bloc nation of Arstotzka. On the surface, Papers, Please is not a complicated game. Papers, Please is a triumph of indie game development, and one of the best games I’ve had the pleasure of playing this year.
#PAPERS PLEASE GAME BETA FULL#
Not a mere 45 minutes, but a full three hours since I had started working the Grestin Border between Arstotzka and Kolechia, and I wasn’t even close to calling it a night yet. “Isn’t it a bit early for bedtime?” I asked her, looking at the clock on the wall to my left. My wife then poked her head in the door to tell me she was going to bed. Around 45 minutes into my session, I distinctly remember thinking to myself that I couldn’t see how the game, while fun, could keep being compelling for much longer. The last couple of years have been fantastic for indie games, and it can only get better.I started playing Papers, Please around 7:00 on a Thursday night. I kickstarted and beta tested their game ages before they got any traction, and it makes me so happy that they’ve been able to be so successful.Ĭongratulations to all the winners in general. I personally would like to congratulate the Risk of Rain dev team on their win in the ‘best student game’ category. The Stanley Parable won the audiences vote, and was awarded the ‘Audience Award’, deservedly so. It makes me happy that Papers, Please swept the awards after getting left out in the DICE awards, although The Last of Us was the definite favourite and I’m not complaining about that! Papers, Please won awards for excellence in design and narrative, and of course the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, beating out other big names like Jazzpunk, The Stanley Parable, and Don’t Starve.Ĭall it hipster indie twaddle – maybe you just prefer AAA games – but without a doubt, there are some amazing games listed here, and all are worth your time in one way or another.
#PAPERS PLEASE GAME BETA FOR MAC#
The first game of its kind to make paperwork engaging has decidedly won top spot at the IGF, among other awards.ĭeveloped for Mac and PC by Lucas Pope, the game has you play a border inspector in the fictional Eastern European region of communist Arstotzka. Fan favourite, Papers, Please, has won the grand prize at the 16th annual Independent games Festival Awards!