Papers, Please (2013)

Papers, Please is aptly summed up by its marketing tagline: "A dystopian document thriller". Everything that can go wrong will go wrong in this 'simulation' of being a border crossing agent in the clearly-Soviet-in-all-but-name Arstotzka.

Morality and shades of gray are front in center in this puzzle game, but transparency of choice is not; what you do may make be ethical but its outcomes vary wildly in the face of a political system so obfuscated as to be completely labyrinthine. Papers, Please does more to simulate the atmosphere of Soviet politik than even a good read of Solzhenitsyn, but that isn't just why it's popular: it's also a darn strong puzzle game.

Relevant links!

• Document types in the game
• Caustic Soda, a podcast about gruesome or weird stuff by lovable Canadians

Relevant games!

• The Westport Incident by Double Zero One Zero (the newspaper version of Papers, Please
• The Tomorrow Children by Q-Games
• Calm Down, Stalin by Cartboard Games (no, not Cardboard Computer)
• This War of Mine by 11 bit studios
• Ekranoplans, by Russia Itself, GiantBomb'd here
• The entire Metro series by 4A

The theme this week is "Duck Wings Going Down in Smoke and Flames" by Duck Boy, a free album download from chipmusic.org off of his new album Unknown Command. Also from chipmusic, the WILL'S GAMING MINUTE(tm) theme is, fittingly, "Wienerhype" by jaar.