Note: I'm breaking my old style habits from 148apps here because... well, I don't know if I really write over there anymore. I'll probably settle into a format of some kind but for now it'll be somewhat freeform thoughts on what I'm playing. Papers, Please is a good one to start with, too, since who wants a review of that in 2022?
I had never played Papers, Please until a couple weeks ago when it came out with an updated interface for phones. I had certainly heard of it, though. It is spoken and written about reverently in almost every game-oriented space I can think of. I have always wanted to play it, too, but my life only really accommodates playing games if they are available on mobile platforms, specifically iOS. So, like with Gone Home, FTL, Journey, and many other widely celebrated non-mobile games that get on the App Store eventually, I arrive late to the party.
It's strange to engage with a game critically after waves of commentary have already largely shaped What We Think Of It. Doubly so when I've also already played a bunch of games taking inspiration from the original article. It's tempting in this space to dunk or devalue. I know all of the pro arguments already and can find some angle for counter. I've also already experienced another generation or two of games that reach far beyond the sensibilities and capabilities of something like Papers, Please when it initially released.
But whereas some cultural touchstones are easy to find cracks in to do this kind of thing, I'm not sure that's the case with Papers, Please, at least not yet. It's certainly not a "perfect" game (whatever that means), but it has a vision as stark and rigid as the duties you perform as a border officer in the game, and the themes it examines through that lens have only come more and more into focus since its release. The list of games that can make similar claims is minuscule.
It's also pretty fun(?)! As a former newspaper editor, it's satisfying to cross every t and dot every i using a specific set of rules. Papers, Please doesn't exactly make you feel good about doing this--in fact the work in context is draining and stressful--but it is core to the game's identity to make you feel the violence and hurt from performing even the most mundane of tasks within an oppressive system. So, maybe "fun" isn't the right word, but what I'm getting at is the mechanics have a sound logic that both creates agency and a sense of satisfaction for how you perform your duties, no matter how you choose to carry them out.
On phones, Papers, Please does feel slightly cramped, but definitely more than playable. I had a few instances where I got citations because pictures didn't match up with people's faces even though they looked right to me, but that didn't stop me from reaching the logical conclusion of my playthrough. I also didn't feel quite as efficient in processing folks as I might on a bigger screen, but I can't tell for sure because I haven't tried the game elsewhere. I would play it on my iPad but that locks to vertical orientation and I'm not a fan of playing games on a tablet that way.
So yea, unsurprisingly, a game people have lauded for years is actually pretty good. Turns out, playing it on a phone is good, too. If you haven't played it, Papers, Please holds up extremely well. I had a hard time sitting down and playing it for more than one shift day at a time, but that's just a testament to how well it still delivers its message.
