Papers, Please

Genre: Adventure, Indie

Developer: 3909

Publisher: 3909

System: Windows, Mac

Written by Matt Sears

 

Glory to Arstotzka. Welcome to the checkpoint, comrade. Glory to Arstotzka.

Your duties will include reviewing all the materials required for legal entry into Arstotzka, glory to her, and approving or denying each applicant who wishes to cross the border. Criteria will change daily as the political climate shifts, as foreign threats make themselves known, or as our esteemed leader thinks would be entertaining. Glory to Arstotzka.

Nice try, Miss Gratsuna, but don’t you ‘hey, buddy’ me. We’re comrades around here. Glory to Arstotzka.

That’s our country on the map, there, the clearly glorious one in the corner. And the snake-faced bastards from elsewhere are ready to lie to you about anything and everything to get into our sweet land. Some even forge documents, like fake Arstotzkan IDs. These are easy to weed out though, as we have an ultraviolet light on hand to check IDs for fake glory.

You wonder why you are here.

Information is on a need-to-glory basis around here.

Winning the lottery never felt so good. Glory to Arstotzka.

I’ll warn you right now that this job isn’t all sunshine, lollipops, and lying snake-faced bastards, though. On my second day here, this very checkpoint was the target of a terrorist attack. Vladimil, a good guard and comrade, shot the bomber. But that wasn’t before the capitalist dog hurled his bomb and seconds later Vladimil was dead too. We used to talk about darts. Glory to Arstotzka.

They’re saying it! They’re saying the name of the game! Glory, glory, Arstotzkallujah!

 
Don’t worry. Since then, we’ve been given much stricter guidelines and several new tests to vet the glory of possible snake-faces. A single interview can take up to three hours, now! Glory to Arstotzka! Oh, and you’re paid per applicant.

Treat your wife’s mother like she was your own. Unless things get tough, then you gotta do what you gotta do. I get it.

The government housing is just as glorious as you hoped. On a lean day, yeah, you might not be able to afford food. But at least you have your health, right?

I’m sorry, I didn’t know your son was sick. Well, medicine is worth going hungry for a day, isn’t it? And with that hour usually spent on family dinner cleared up, I bet you can play charades. Three words. First wo— Yes. Glory to Arstotzka. You’re right.

Happy Thoughts: Glory to Arstotzka.

Sad Thoughts: Sad thoughts are the capitalists’ tricks to make us work slower and bring less glory to our sweet mother country.

What I Bet Comes Next: The collapse of all inferior cultures and governments, i.e. all of the other ones.