After having had “Clover Pit” to review and worship him, I went to look for similar games on Steam, who advised me “No, I’m not a human”. I also loved this madness, but after finishing it (a lot of times, without ever unlocking the end “good”), I was still in the spasmodic quest for the next masterpiece. This digital peregrinare So he brought me in front of “Papers, Please” (from now on also abbreviated as “PP”), of which – even if not having it free to recense – DEVELOPMENT Talk to you.
There are games that allow you to manage cities, those in which you excel in a sport, those in which you explore worlds, maybe you save them from the catastrophe... and then there is Papers, Please, who instead asks you to check if the passport number on the work visa actually corresponds to the one indicated on the identification document of a mother who wants to pass the border to review her children... And if so it wasn't, it will turn to you the decision to finish. Or maybe you'd rather throw it in a gattabuy, all for a handful of coins that will allow you to land the lunar one more day to your family.
That's it.the fascination rotten and magnificently built of Lucas Pope's masterpiece: a mini-management border that tears your soul a stamp at a time.
The difficult routine and weight of a stamp
At first it is all simple: a desk, a book of rules. Check a passport, check the dates, seals... Stamp: “seen granted”. And then Kolechia comes. The home of those bloody terrorists because of which Arstotzka complicates bureaucracy. The desk becomes a bureaucratic minefield: controls to be crossed on different sheets, suspicious passports, orders of the Ministry and new rules that arrive every morning accompanied by the classic, icy "glory to Arstotzka."
The hypnotic curse with which the game will keep you sitting in front of the screen while you think “both, I play only another day, so it’s only 5 minutes”, is the way the PP transforms repetitiveness into narrative tension. You're not a hero, you're a gear: And yet every visa granted, every visa denied, every business card, every interaction with individuals make you in fact the needle of a moral balance. Suddenly you will feel responsible for those four green pixels that differ from others, only because that is a person with a story. This is where Papers, Please shows his strength. Mechanical forces you to decide in seconds between obedience and conscience While you are struggling to order cards, photos, passports and pencils... and every decision has concrete consequences: the more you will let pass who is without the necessary documents, the less money you will have at the end of the day to pay rent, food, heating for you and your family.
Pixel art minimalist, suffocating atmosphere
Under its austere graphics, back (or Retreat? How do you write? ) and with a colour bit palette (for a total of less than 100 Mb game) beats a powerful narrative heart that moves every day to the sound of a fanfare worthy of a Soviet, printer noise with needles and synthesized words as once felt on Commodore 64. Every detail is best treated to make you feel oppressed, controlled, observed. PP does not need an army of special effects, but just a gray door and a red stamp to generate anxiety.
Papers, Please is not for everyone. It is deliberately hard, slow, repetitive... and It's a fucking masterpiece.
At the end of the game you get up, go look in the mirror and feel uncomfortable for all the privileges you have, because of people who at this moment want to cross a border with the inspector who has the stamp in hand there is really so much.
At the moment it is about 10 € on Steam, I bought it by chance because it was on offer a little less than 3 €. The ten are worth them all in my opinion: This is a game that should be put in a digital art museum (and in fact we have also made a short film) and is placed in my top 10 favorite games ever.
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Glory to Arstotzka!
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