November 1982.
You are a newly recruited inspection officer at the Arstotzkan boarder. Your wife and children are counting on you to accept or reject the right people who mean to live, work, or travel to the country. Failure to do so will result in their sickness and death.
These are the stakes in the interesting Papers, Please, now available on Steam Greenlight.
As of right now, there only exists a beta version of the game which contains 8 days of your toil in this clearly Soviet-inspired, crucial decision making game.
Visually the game has an amazing sense of style capturing the bleak and drab colors and setting of the era and location. Graphically is looks like a really great looking Commodore 64 game. There is a sharpness to the sprites that just stands out in a really striking way.
There is only one piece of music in the game. A tuba plays a few notes as citizens trudge up to the desk and hand you their papers. It fits the mood of the setting perfectly in a way that reminds one of the Communistic time period.
The game-play consists of evaluating the potential immigrants’, workers or vacationers’ documents as they pass through your check point. Each day the rules will become stricter and the player will need to adapt accordingly, such as checking for a work visa or citizen card.
It’s hard to explain how interesting this game is on face value. This setting shouldn’t be fun. Checking people papers shouldn’t be fun. Communist Arstotzka shouldn’t be a place you enjoy. But you know what?
I do.