
Papers, Please - A Dystopian Document Thriller - flyt
http://papersplea.se/
======
generj
I am enjoying the rise of video games as political commentary.

It is important to note that "Papers please" was considered the worst case
scenario for America. We now must produce driver's licenses for anything, even
sporting events.

~~~
smacktoward
The guy who wrote _Papers, Please_ , Lucas Pope, has been doing some very
creative games-as-political-statements stuff for some time now. He may be the
most creative person working along those lines today.

For another example, check out his earlier game, _The Republia Times_ :

[http://dukope.com/play.php?g=trt](http://dukope.com/play.php?g=trt)

(It's free and plays in the browser, no download required)

The storyline there: you're the editor of a newspaper in a totalitarian state.
Each day you see the unfiltered newswire, and you have to pick and choose
which stories to feature and where to feature them on the paper's front page
in order to maximize public support for the regime. It's a delicate dance;
completely ignore events that make the regime look bad and you'll lose
credibility and readers, but give them too much prominence and you'll drive
public support down rather than up.

Oh, and just to make sure your incentives are aligned properly, the regime is
holding your family hostage. Fail to get people in line quickly enough and
they will all be shot.

Like _Papers, Please_ , it's really a brilliant way to take some pretty simple
game mechanics and use them to make a point that sticks in the player's
memory.

~~~
agrona
I appreciated that Republia shows up in Papers, Please. Didn't realize they
were the same author.

OT a bit: I remember reading the code and turning my nose up at some of the
implementation specifics. But then I remembered that he's the one shipping and
getting things done.

------
nazgulnarsil
The best part of this game is that it doesn't take the easy way out WRT being
a morality tale. The mechanic of having your character also trying to fix his
own shitty life while meeting the requirements of the job is what takes it to
the next level.

~~~
Deestan
[Slight spoiler alert]

After spending 30 game days stamping hundreds of passports and ignoring a
million pleas, I found myself and my family fleeing the country. We had spent
all our savings buying fake Obristan passports and had illegally left our
designated region to get to the Obristanian border.

Then the game shows you the _front_ of a checkpoint booth, with you handing
crudely forged passports through the crack to the checkpoint official who is
now in the same role as I've been playing for the entire game.

The sudden realization that "That's who I've been playing. If that was me on a
bad day, I would have them turned away or even detained if money was tight"
was amazing. I immediately recalled every sob-story I had forgiven, denied, or
worse.

And that was all they needed to do to show you the morality of your actions.
No hamfisted "you are being bad!", just silently hinting at you to think about
it from another perspective.

------
danso
I just got playing a round of this game. Easily the best political game ever
made, even if it's not every gamer's cup of tea (although when you get down to
it, is the entity-recognition-under-time-pressure and click-to-do-something
mechanic any different in a document comparison game than in an FPS?)

What makes it such a great political game is that the author came at it
without much of a political message or agenda. He thought the document-
matching mechanic was compelling enough for the game. As it stands, the game
has a compelling political message for both border-guard and those waiting in
line. Top notch work for a one-man side project.

~~~
kevinmchugh
I'd recommend the ReDistricting Game, which is about gerrymandering:
[http://www.redistrictinggame.org/](http://www.redistrictinggame.org/). It's
got a great core mechanic that makes you despise your own actions.

------
asperous
Those afraid of jumping into $10 might want to try the beta/demo on the game
creator's website: [http://dukope.com/](http://dukope.com/)

------
nwhitehead
My wife is addicted to this game already. Just hearing about the decisions
she's making makes my skin crawl. She's a total graphical adventure game snob,
so if you're one too it's worth checking out this game. The multiple endings
are well done, which is often a tricky part to get right.

~~~
vanderZwan
My girlfriend is:

\- Lithuanian

\- Studying "International Migration and Ethnic Relations"

I thought this would be a fun game to give as a joke - international student
from a former Soviet country with that specialisation and all that - but she's
actually really into it.

~~~
foxpc
Being Eastern European (Lithuanian with a Ukranian last name), I actually
found a woman with my last name which was awesome! And actually, it kind of
reflects on how living sort of was in that era. Shit.

------
bentcorner
Playthrough of some of the game:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brTJzrXQVLU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brTJzrXQVLU)

Gives you a great sense of what it's all about.

------
cbhl
I discovered this game on Saturday after a recommendation from a friend, and
I'm loving it.

I ended up buying a copy and running it under wine, even though there's no
Linux version. (The purist in me is raging, but the game is, IMO, good enough
to set aside my values in the short term.)

Previous Discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5589041](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5589041)
(steamcommunity.com) (158 points, 111 days ago, 51 comments)

~~~
Egregore
As far as I know the game is made in Haxe with openfl, so let's hope that
author will make a Linux version, as far as I know it's not difficult.

------
jeltz
I hope it will get a Linux version since the idea sounds awesome. Recently I
have decided to prefer Linux games over non-Linux to let my money encourage
those who port their games.

~~~
flyt
Good news from the game's FAQ: "I'm hopeful to get a Linux version out but
there's no timeline for it."

~~~
jeltz
Indeed, but since I do not know anything about the developer it is still a
quite weak statement.

~~~
jaegerpicker
I really REALLY wish people would cut indie devs some slack. It's really hard
to be a profitable indie gamedev. Windows and Mac make way more money. I love
linux but it's way down on the list of dev platforms for my development focus.
Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android, X-Box one, PS4, PSVita are all better bets then
Linux write now and I'm a long time linux user/developer. The money/value just
isn't there for most game devs sadly.

*I have a game in development that's going to indie published if I can successfully juggle work, a young family, and some bit of a social life. So in reality I have a snowball's chance in hell but I'm fighting the good fight :)

~~~
jeltz
You read way too much into my comment. I never said that there is anything
wrong with issuing a weak statement. I prefer that to lies and promises which
you cannot hold.

------
pvdm
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4Ku17CqdZg](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4Ku17CqdZg)

------
cousin_it
I have just one question, why is the game centered around people trying to
_enter_ a totalitarian regime? Anyone who grew up in the Eastern bloc, or even
just visited Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin, should know that the real tragedy
was people trying to _exit_. Have we forgotten so quickly that Communist
countries restrict their own citizens from leaving?

~~~
Kequc
Yes but that was a very specific set of circumstances, such a specific set of
circumstances that they built a wall around half a city. How often does that
happen? It's why it's an iconic site that people travel to look at still
today.

It isn't a hallmark of totalitarianism people not be allowed to leave it,
although North Koreans aren't.

~~~
cousin_it
The game is about a similar checkpoint in a city split in half, I thought it
was a deliberate reference...

------
mncolinlee
I was playing this over the weekend. Without revealing any spoilers, there are
many different endings based upon what ethos you use to approach your job and
on-the-job decisions.

Like all time management games, you must make critical decisions under
pressure. I find that the ambiguity and real consequences of the game's
decisions make it a ton of fun. An instant classic.

------
jafaku
How come it's not available for Linux? Oh well, back to chess.

~~~
cbhl
The Windows version of the full game works flawlessly (sound and all) for me
under wine 1.6-0ubuntu1~ppa1 on Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS, although if you use Steam
like I do then you'll need to launch Steam itself with the -no-dwrite option
to get around a bug in wine 1.6's implementation of dwrite.

~~~
coldpie
You can also set the dwrite library to Disabled in winecfg.

------
aroman
I played this game in the free beta when I saw the Yogscast playing it...
fantastic and unique game. Highly recommend giving it a go!

~~~
millstone
I played it too. It's weirdly addictive, atmospheric and compelling, and I
can't wait to play it again. Congrats on the 1.0 release, and thanks for the
Mac version!

------
asnyder
Bought this last night, I must say it's really fun. Though, I was forced to
switch to an actual mouse to play. A touchpad isn't quick enough to move all
those documents around. I also wish there was a hotkey (perhaps it'll be an
upgrade) to get to the regional maps pages.

------
eric970
I love this game. It starts out simple, but as your country's relations with
other countries change, the rules for letting people in and the amount of
security in place changes.

------
duggieawesome
This game is chilling.

------
Tomis02
You should buy this game on GOG.com, DRM-free.

~~~
homosaur
Do you know for a fact that the Steam version is DRM'ed?

~~~
mesozoic
Steam IS DRM

~~~
CrazedGeek
Steam is a DRM system, but there are plenty of games on Steam that don't have
DRM: if you copy a game directory out of the SteamApps directory and remove
any Steam support files (usually the Steam Community DLLs), quite a few games
run perfectly.

------
thekiwi99
The other games by the same creator are just as awesome!

