Time to Beat: 4 Hours
I acquired Beholder, designed by
Warm Lamp Games, in the May 2017 Humble Indie Bundle 18, as a side
effect of purchasing Kentucky Route Zero (which I will not play until
the fifth and final act releases). Though I'd never heard of it
before, something about was intriguing. It seemed reminiscent of
This War of Mine, Gods Will be Watching, Limbo, but
especially Papers, Please. After 116 minutes, I
realized it was nothing like any of these. The player controls an
unnamed up and comer in a dystopian police-state. He's just been
assigned to manage an apartment complex, where the main task is to
survive and protect one's family. His job is to spy on the renters,
assembling files, documenting all infractions, and at suitable times,
reporting the inhabitants to his superiors. Failure to do so may
result in imprisonment, while poverty, starvation, and death are
constantly threatening from the shadows. It all sounds fun, but the
mechanics are both limited and shallow. And while the game seems to
be an open ended story it is heavily scripted, a street paved with
events, where there are always two choices, and they don't matter
much one way or the other.
The failure of Beholder to
deliver an advertised substance, led to disappointment, a desire
unsatisfied, and a search for another game to fulfill the void. That
was when I remembered Papers, Please. Though I'd purchased it
long enough ago that the date of the event is lost in database of
Steam, I'd never finished it. Reflecting, it seems I abandoned
Papers, Please over a mistaken assumption. It seemed at the
time, that receiving any of the twenty endings was permanent. But in
actuality, one is allowed to restart from any already completed day
and continue on, even if having received one of the unfavorable
conclusions. There is space for experimentation, and the lack of
perma-death reduces the sting of failure. But forgoing further of
revelations of past confusions, let's examine the details of Papers,
Please.
In Papers, Please the player
watches through the eye and ears of a border agent of Arstotzka,
controlling the entrance of immigrants into the Soviet style nation.
Arstotzka, a communist police state, wields pervasive surveillance
over its citizen, while threatening its neighboring nations.
Every day, the protagonist stands in a
small booth in the town of Grestin, bordering the nation of Kolechia.
Arstotzka has just concluded a six year war with Kolechia,
successfully “reclaiming” territory, including Grestin.
Potential entrants come forward one by one and display their
paperwork. The player must review the data and confirm it
corresponds 1) with the person presenting it, and 2) to the rules in
the Arstotzkan Ministry of Admission Rules and Regulations for
Inspections book. After a rushed examination, the player
displays their determination by applying either an “entrance
granted” or “entrance denied” stamp to the applicant's
passport. Papers, Please begins
suspensefully enough, yet it continually develops further tools to
test the player's blood pressure. In the very beginning, entrants
carry only a passport, but as different developments occur they are
required to produce the following documents: entry tickets, ID cards,
work passes, diplomatic passports, and identity supplements each of
which has different combinations of data, and the player must sift
the information for infractions. Additional tools (such as the body
scanner), instead of easing the difficulties of the job, only
compound them, while pointless tasks (such as passport confiscation)
add a further excruciating twist. For these reasons, the struggle of
managing the paperwork never subsides, and the player is always
forced to learn new techniques to cope. One technique I employed:
writing the details of the rulebook on a piece of paper to have it
refer to (this is easier than use the in-game rule book which is
smaller and by extension only contains a limited amount of
information per page).
But
the duties of the job alone are not responsible for the tension.
Economic necessity and political conflict menace the protagonist and
his family on another scale. After each workday, there
is an accounting. The protagonist returns home, rendered in a
minimalist style, white text on black background. On this screen the
revenues and fees of the day are recorded, and the condition of the
family members are displayed. If the player has accumulated enough
credits they can be expended on extravagances such as heat, food, or
medicine. The father's pay is determined by the previous day's
performance. Each immigrant granted entrance to Arstotzka is worth
five credit, while each denial earns nothing, though in some
situations the player is allowed to order arrests, and every two
arrests can be redeemed for five credits. In addition, offering
entrance to applicant's with errors on their paperwork is worth
nothing, and mistakes are penalized with a five credit fee, though
the first two mistakes each day pass unpenalized.
Papers, Please is a simple game.
It is a game of bookkeeping and paperwork, with only two screens,
one of which (the nightly accounting) is so simple it almost doesn't
even deserve any recognition. Even the border scene is sparse. On
this drab screen, the player observes the endless line of emigres,
the border booth with its blaring speaker, the wall separating
Arstotzka and Kolechia, the soldiers guarding the country, and the
road beyond. Beneath this banner is the view inside the custom
booth, featuring the upper torso of the interviewee, a clock, the
equipment necessary for the job, and a enlarged desk for examining
any necessary documents. The drab greys, browns, greens, and yellows
are a perfect backdrop for the Arstotzkan situation, and the plight
of the refugees. It is slightly offset by the passports, six
different colors (one for each of the six neighboring countries) and
the two large stamps, green for “granted” and red for “denied”.
The colors also function as a mechanic, their monotonousness leads
the player into to error, a lack of highlighting, a dullness which
the eye can't grasp, like a climber failing to find a hold in a
smooth rock wall. And while this description of Papers, Please
appears tedious, it it is designed for a purpose, emphasizing
everyone's predicament. The audio serves a similar function.
Every action the player takes (along
with other inputs) is accompanied by a clear, distinct, engrossing
sound. The shuffle of the paper, the thump of the stamp, the
clank of the protective grating, the snap of the camera bulb
flashing, the electronic grating of the printer, the slide of the
file cabinet door, and the clink of a grenade on pavement. Each of
these are memorable, contributing heft to each activity. The ambient
noise of the crowd milling about as they wait hopefully for entrance,
and the shrill terror of their voices raised in flight at the
detonation of a bomb, define the tension of the moment. Even the
cheerful voice of a friend and the chilling voice of a bomber are
exquisite. While the link is provided above to listen to these
noises, without immersion in the activity of Papers, Please
they hold admittedly less significance.
And while Beholder's
story
failed to produce anything worth observing, Papers,
Please
offers a international conflict, a personal struggle for survival,
and political intrigue, while creating memorable characters to convey
it. In the unforgiving situation which is Arstotzka,
two factions vie for the protagonist's loyalty. Both care nothing
for his well-being, only what what he can provide to their cause. A
secret society, EZIC, desires the player's assistance in infiltrating
the country and overthrowing the ruling class. They appear
mysterious, ominous, and threatening, but preferable, because all
anyone has to do is ask themselves, “Why should I trust EZIC even
though I know nothing about them?” and the answer should be,
“Because the rulers of Arstotzka are paranoid, brutal, and
irrational masters.” Over the course of the 31 playable days, an
EZIC courier approaches the protagonist with five missions. Is
trusting EZIC or Arstotzka more likely to earn the player a
successful ending? Of the twenty possible endings there are three
which could be categorized as successful. Recommendation, don't
vacillate. No one appreciates a fickle friend, the betrayed slander
them as betrayers.
The three piece conflict (political,
economical, and work) are not abstract. They are made real by the
characters the protagonist interacts with. First, there are the
suicide bombers from Kolechia. Every blast, perpetrated with inhuman
brutality, shattered the thin curtain of calm. I came to hate those
bastards as much as anyone playing a video game can hate anything.
Then there all the immigrants who appear only once but offer threats
or beg for mercy. One man demanded entrance so as to seek revenge by
torturing his daughter's killer. Finally, there are the regulars,
Dimitri the demanding Ministry of Admission Supervisor, Calenski the
guard who offers credits if the player will arrest immigrants instead
of denying them entrance (and then refuses to hand over the cash), M.
Vonel the deadly Ministry of Information investigator, Sergiu the
soldier who begs for his love to pass safely through the checkpoint
even though she doesn't have the proper papers (he died in a suicide
bombing the day after she made it through), and Jorgi, the
cheerfullest drug dealer who offers to provide passports of a foreign
nationality to the protagonist so he can flee Arstotzka.
In the end, all choices are the players
and Papers, Please understands how to shape a story where the player
takes them seriously and carefully prepares his reactions. Though
the protagonist of the Papers Please would prefer not to live in the
country of Arstotzka, I heartily recommend a visit.
Glory
to the New Arstotzka!
(the best ending, with actual joyful music)
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