For all my griping about games, here's one I actually liked.
Papers, Please puts you in the role of a border clerk in a fictional Soviet era communist country.
Glory to Arstotzka!
Boiled down, it's basically checking for anomalies between two or three sets of documents. Spot the difference. But the styling and atmosphere are quite gripping. For person you process during the day you get paid, and the end of each day you need to pay for food, heating and medicine, for your wife, son, mother-in-law and freeloading uncle.
It's obviously important to process as many as possible. What makes it tricky is that some people need entry visas, work permits, some nationalities require mandatory searches, and so on. It's all done rather cleverly. You need to check photos, weight, place of issue (passports are only issued in certain cities), expiry dates, etc.
There's also little stories. Like this annoying beggar who keeps trying to sneak past with the wrong documents, or a woman who wants you to hold back her pimp. His passport seemed valid, and I needed money for my son, and it was nearly the end of the day, so I let him through just to bulk out my numbers.
If you make mistakes, like let the wrong person through, or deny someone is allowed, you get little warnings and then fines.
I've only played the 9 day demo, but I really liked it. My only gripe is that the game always detects when you made a mistake. It wasn't possible to sneak anyone through undetected, and send them away packing without penalty.
There's definitely a trick to doing well. For example, requesting someone be detained wastes valuable time, whereas simply stamping their passport with Rejected is much quicker.
Was surprised there's no First Play topic on here. Definitely try the beta, because it's ace.
BUY IT:
BETA DEMO:
Papers, Please puts you in the role of a border clerk in a fictional Soviet era communist country.
Glory to Arstotzka!
Boiled down, it's basically checking for anomalies between two or three sets of documents. Spot the difference. But the styling and atmosphere are quite gripping. For person you process during the day you get paid, and the end of each day you need to pay for food, heating and medicine, for your wife, son, mother-in-law and freeloading uncle.
It's obviously important to process as many as possible. What makes it tricky is that some people need entry visas, work permits, some nationalities require mandatory searches, and so on. It's all done rather cleverly. You need to check photos, weight, place of issue (passports are only issued in certain cities), expiry dates, etc.
There's also little stories. Like this annoying beggar who keeps trying to sneak past with the wrong documents, or a woman who wants you to hold back her pimp. His passport seemed valid, and I needed money for my son, and it was nearly the end of the day, so I let him through just to bulk out my numbers.
If you make mistakes, like let the wrong person through, or deny someone is allowed, you get little warnings and then fines.
I've only played the 9 day demo, but I really liked it. My only gripe is that the game always detects when you made a mistake. It wasn't possible to sneak anyone through undetected, and send them away packing without penalty.
There's definitely a trick to doing well. For example, requesting someone be detained wastes valuable time, whereas simply stamping their passport with Rejected is much quicker.
Was surprised there's no First Play topic on here. Definitely try the beta, because it's ace.
BUY IT:
BETA DEMO:
Comment