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[Moff]

Yes. Absolutely. Several storylines, new documents to worry about, 30 or so endings.

Unrelated: But is there any actual point of buying the booth upgrade? It is absolutely useless but maybe it unlocks better stuff in the future?

the one with the shortcuts for the manual is ok, I didnt use any of ther others

this game keeps surprising me with new ideas that make passport control exciting, I also love the whole style, look and feel of the game.
for me its definitely one of the best games of the year, yet

 

[ascully]

Spoiler

Having trouble stamping the poison onto the passport, is there some kind of trick to it?

 

[TyrantGuardian]

She talked about how it was the best phone game ever (that would be kind of awesome).

Damn, didn't even think of that. This game would be completely perfect on phones and tablets especially. Just the thought of moving the documents around via touch input sounds pretty amazing. Though I guess the booth upgrades wouldn't really work?

 

[CornBurrito]

Time = Money. Upgrades makes it faster to process people.

Space bar to inspect hardly saves me any time. Even if it saves me a second per person (and it probably saves less) it doesn't make enough actual time to process a single additional person during a game day.

 

[Shahadan]

I accepted the cult's money without knowing I could burn it, now I'm on day 14 and Order Guy tells me the next agent will fix things and will come up today. Problem is, he never does. I even restarted the day and allowed everyone to see when he was popping up, and 25 people later still no agent.
The next day I'm getting arrested.

 

[show me your skeleton]

bought this yesterday & i'm really, really enjoying it. i love how the interface (intentionally, i assume) gets in the way of quick & stress-free progress. the fact that the upgrades are

Spoiler

keybinds

is fantastic, making you have to juggle whether something any other game would give you is worth endangering your family over.

 

[dramatis]

bought this yesterday & i'm really, really enjoying it. i love how the interface (intentionally, i assume) gets in the way of quick & stress-free progress. the fact that the upgrades are

Spoiler

keybinds

is fantastic, making you have to juggle whether something any other game would give you is worth endangering your family over.

I think the weird part is you end up caring for

Spoiler

the idiots that frequent your checkpoint more than your family...

 

[NewGame]

None of the upgrades were much use to me, I am very fast with the mouse and the

Spoiler

double click investigate upgrade

ruins my speed of input especially with turning pages in the rule book.

A better upgrade would of been a quick passport city issue chart or a feature where giving the person their passport gives them all their paper work at once.

 

[Horse Armour]

How many people are you guys typically able to process in a day? I'm doing 7 a day and it isn't leaving enough money for medicine/food etc so I lost by like the 8th day.

 

[loganclaws]

How many people are you guys typically able to process in a day? I'm doing 7 a day and it isn't leaving enough money for medicine/food etc so I lost by like the 8th day.

I think the trick is to process a lot in the first couple of days where it is much easier so that you have some savings. By the way how many endings are there? Spoiler regarding number of endings:

Spoiler

20 or 30?

 

[duckroll]

How many people are you guys typically able to process in a day? I'm doing 7 a day and it isn't leaving enough money for medicine/food etc so I lost by like the 8th day.

I usually process about 11-15 per day.

I think the trick is to process a lot in the first couple of days where it is much easier so that you have some savings. By the way how many endings are there? Spoiler regarding number of endings:

Spoiler

20 or 30?

There are 20 endings, but most of them are more like variants of "Game Over" rather than a real ending.

 

[border]

How many people are you guys typically able to process in a day? I'm doing 7 a day and it isn't leaving enough money for medicine/food etc so I lost by like the 8th day.

The days with terrorist attacks will probably wipe out any early-on savings you put together.

I think the trick to making money is probably skipping food/heat on every other day or maybe every third day. I haven't tried it yet really.

 

[CornBurrito]

I accepted the cult's money without knowing I could burn it, now I'm on day 14 and Order Guy tells me the next agent will fix things and will come up today. Problem is, he never does. I even restarted the day and allowed everyone to see when he was popping up, and 25 people later still no agent.
The next day I'm getting arrested.

I am sure the agent comes. Doesn't he hand you a slip of paper with 4 holes in it? You need to align it with a passport and it will spell Ezic. Hint: The passport will be

Spoiler

Aristoken

The days with terrorist attacks will probably wipe out any early-on savings you put together.

I think the trick to making money is probably skipping food/heat on every other day or maybe every third day. I haven't tried it yet really.

I never once had to skip food/heat except for day 22, but that is only because the game was going to end for me on the 23rd. I had an excess of 60 dollars in savings.

If you can process 11-15 people per day you'll never really need to go without food and heat. Take bribes when you can for extra money.

 

[Howard Alan Treesong]

No joke, just had a dream where someone had written an article about Papers, Please. I think it was by Leigh Alexander, but not on Gamasutra because there were pretty pictures on either side. She talked about how it was the best phone game ever (that would be kind of awesome). How it was the most fun "art" game. How the depth came from not how many mechanics there were, but just in the core gameplay loop.

I only got to read a few paragraphs before I became lucid about it and woke myself up from the sheer excitement!

Hope the game makes for actual articles

Here's one from the Gaming Intelligence Agency!

 

[Wok]

How many people are you guys typically able to process in a day? I'm doing 7 a day and it isn't leaving enough money for medicine/food etc so I lost by like the 8th day.

I usually process about 11-15 per day.

7 if it is a bad day, 11-15 if it is a good day.

 

[Kard8p3]

Man, this game looks so amazing, feels bad being broke to the point of not being able to afford a 10 dollar game, lol.

 

[ElFly]

Dunno how much time the booth upgrades save.

The most useful one is double clicking to inspect, and that fucked me over during a terrorist attack.

You need all the money you can get so...

 

[duckroll]

I don't use the double-click at all personally. But I find the rulebook bookmarks and the spacebar toggle to be very useful.

 

[ElFly]

I play mouse only but yeah, bookmarks rule.

also, about the endgame

Spoiler

Jiorji turns out to be p awesome by the end

 

[MattDoza]

Did anyone else write down the cities for each country? I just left the basic rules open and had my little notepad here to cross check their cities.

Just finish day 31 and got ending 20. Is that the "good" ending?

 

[microtubule]

It's nice that the game has cloud sync and works on PC/Mac but my saves aren't syncing on the Mac side. Anyone else having this issue??

Anyways, got as far as day 8. Thanks to my neighbors I lost my job though.

 

[duckroll]

Did anyone else write down the cities for each country? I just left the basic rules open and had my little notepad here to cross check their cities.

Just finish day 31 and got ending 20. Is that the "good" ending?

Endings 18-20 are all good endings on different paths. Ending 20 is the only one which unlocks Endless mode though.

 

[ElFly]

Did anyone else write down the cities for each country? I just left the basic rules open and had my little notepad here to cross check their cities.

Just finish day 31 and got ending 20. Is that the "good" ending?

Dunno what's the best ending. Just got 16 and also got 10.

Nah, I didn't write down anything like that. I can point out wrong cities for passports >95% of the time, and I can recognize mistakes in arstotzkan ID cards, uh, most of the time. You still need to get out the book to point out discrepancies so the remaining 5% of my errors are almost covered by that.

e: I do write down the orders of EZIC or stuff like that because sometimes it's a random name and I forget them

Things that really fuck me.

-Not checking the faces of people.
-Expiration dates.
-I swear to god I had the right ID number in my last day and yet I got a citation.

 

[zhorkat]

This game is awesome and

Spoiler

Jorji is the best.

 

[ElFly]

What's the worst thing you did in the game?

In the final days I needed

Spoiler

an Obristan passport and

Confiscated one from an asylum seeker.

Then had him detained.

That poor guy is so, so fucked.

 

[MattDoza]

Wow, my time played was much longer. I think I did leave it running before I started a day, though. Might be why.

 

[MercuryLS]

Is this a M&KB game or can I play it with a gamepad?

 

[zhorkat]

Is this a M&KB game or can I play it with a gamepad?

M&KB all the way. Gamepad would be terrible for this game.

What's the worst thing you did in the game?

In the final days I needed

Spoiler

an Obristan passport and

Confiscated one from an asylum seeker.

Then had him detained.

That poor guy is so, so fucked.

Spoiler

Befriended drug dealers and terrorists just so I could make money and escape with my family to the glorious nation of Obristan.

 

[MercuryLS]

M&KB all the way. Gamepad would be terrible for this game.

Cool. I'll download it now. It's games like this I hope appear on PS4, they should work well with the touchpad.

 

[CornBurrito]

Endings 18-20 are all good endings on different paths. Ending 20 is the only one which unlocks Endless mode though.

I've gotten 18. I forget if I got 19. Is there a way to check which endings you got?

 

[CornBurrito]

Spoiler

Befriended drug dealers and terrorists just so I could make money and escape with my family to the glorious nation of Obristan.

Shut your mouth.

Spoiler

I assume "befriended drug dealers" is a reference to Jiorji. He's cool though. Befriending him is hardly bad! Plus it is his main/only job. He needs to feed his family.

edit.. fuck double post

 

[AxelLund]

Might buy it XD.

 

[Grief.exe]

I don't use the double-click at all personally. But I find the rulebook bookmarks and the spacebar toggle to be very useful.

Those are my favorite upgrades as well. Will probably beat the game tonight, I am somewhere around day 20.

M&KB all the way. Gamepad would be terrible for this game.

Yes, you have to be super quick and accurate in this game to attain any kind of success.

 

[n8]

Leaderboards are finally visible on Steam.
http://steamcommunity.com/stats/PapersPlease/leaderboards/

Consider yourself beaten, because that's an easy feat. I may have made 2 mistakes that round.

Spoiler

I play rulebook closed while in endless. Just need to memorize some districts issuing cities more and the only reason I'll need to pull out is for difficulty levels 3 and 4, when I need to give reason of denial... or if they don't show their passport...-_-

 

[CornBurrito]

Those are my favorite upgrades as well. Will probably beat the game tonight, I am somewhere around day 20.

Sadly you can't choose which upgrades to get, you have to buy them in succession. And I'm not sure they actually pay off in the long run.

 

[Grief.exe]

You can't be tired and play this game, you end up making too many mistakes.

I got 4 citations in the last day and I have been averaging about one a day for the entire game.

Just got the day 23 ending for Order by

Spoiler

shooting the guy in red

. I replayed the day and [/spoiler]did not shoot him to continue the play through[/spoiler].

 

[Haunted]

Why do I have to pay for the booth upgrades out of my own pocket!?

Curse those fat cats at the ministry!

Endings 18-20 are all good endings on different paths. Ending 20 is the only one which unlocks Endless mode though.

The higher the ending number the "better" the ending? Or just coincidence?

 

[dramatis]

Just curious, did anyone manage to get all the tokens in one go yet?

 

[Haunted]

The guard sharing his detain bonus with you is a genius game design move to prevent you from just flat-out denying people whenever a discrepancy pops up to maximise profits. It's the added push I needed to give in to my curiosity on these cases and follow through the whole process instead of immediately denying them.

So good.

 

[CornBurrito]

The guard sharing his detain bonus with you is a genius game design move to prevent you from just flat-out denying people whenever a discrepancy pops up to maximise profits. It's the added push I needed to give in to my curiosity on these cases and follow through the whole process instead of immediately denying them.

So good.

I am always worried about detaining people. It can't be good.

 

[Jamie OD]

Halfway through and I'm really enjoying the game so far. Some really unexpected moments involving terrorist attacks pop up and I have to admit feeling a nice sense of schadenfreude when I correctly deny entry to some of the citizens. But I often miss incorrect dates on the passport. I'm probably going to really enjoy the Endless Mode if I get to take my time searching through everything.

 

[LProtag]

Man, this is the first time I'm playing this since the beta version.

All this new stuff is throwing me off. No idea if I'm giving the right things to the right people or letting the right people in or out, heh.

Will be interesting to see what happens.

 

[Wok]

I am always worried about detaining people. It can't be good.

I feel like people won't try to make fake passports if they know I will notice the fake papers and detain them.

 

[Haunted]

Gettin' all Trauma Center up in this bitch with

Spoiler

the bomb disposal

!

Also, fuck that

Spoiler

reporter, I thought he was going to expose corruption in the government, not write a slanderous article on my lax work ethic.

Great job expanding possible scenarios for the full game, dukope.

 

[phoenixyz]

Also, fuck that

Spoiler

reporter, I thought he was going to expose corruption in the government, not write a slanderous article on my lax work ethic.

It was really great when it defies videogame logic. That also happens later (in the last third I think)

Spoiler

when you meet the guy with the clock. I refused all offers to sell it to other people expecting the honest way to pay off in the end. Just so the guy can go enrage on me when he finally arrives. It was really sweet when I could just coldly detain him and keep the money.

 

[CornBurrito]

I feel like people won't try to make fake passports if they know I will notice the fake papers and detain them.

I always assumed that those detained were tortured and kept prisoner forever. Not a fate I'd condemn someone to just for forging a passport to secure a better life. Smugglers I detained though.

It was really great when it defies videogame logic. That also happens later (in the last third I think)

Spoiler

when you meet the guy with the clock. I refused all offers to sell it to other people expecting the honest way to pay off in the end. Just so the guy can go enrage on me when he finally arrives. It was really sweet when I could just coldly detain him and keep the money.

About that guy...

Spoiler

If you give him the money back he goes "wow you're really nice..." then admits that the watch always had that scratch and gives you the money back and apologizes for attempting to take advantage of your kindness.

 

[Messofanego]

Anthony Burch (HAWP, Borderlands 2 writer, former Destructoid reviews editor) wrote about Papers, Please

Why I Like Papers, Please

You know when you play a first-person shooter that claims to be about “how far you’re willing to go to protect the ones you love,” or “the true cost of a life,” or “moral ambiguity,” but the gameplay actually consists of shooting hundreds of dudes in the face? And you know how in the back of your mind, you wonder, “I wonder what it’d be like if a game actually designed its gameplay around those concepts rather than just duct-taping them on through noninteractive story?”

Papers, Please is that game. It manages to ask (and importantly, not answer) questions of duty, safety, privacy, family, self-interest, and morality through an incredibly simple, focused set of mechanics based around checking transit papers and stamping passports.

And it’s spectacular.

With your family’s lives on the line and the job getting tougher and tougher, the game asks you — like actually asks you, through gameplay — what are you willing to do to get the money you need? Will you take a bribe from a shady character? Will you start throwing more people in jail so you can get a cut of the prison guard’s bonus? Will you do knowingly dishonest or immoral things just so you can get that extra ten bucks that might allow your family to eat tonight? There are no right or wrong answers. The game comes with twenty different endings, so you never really get the sense that the game is judging you — there are simply a bunch of different ways to complete your 31 days of service, no “right” or “wrong” ones. For a game purely about stamping one of two answers on little pieces of paper, you’re actually given a spectacular amount of freedom in how you choose to express yourself. Are you a patriot at all costs, slavishly devoted to the system that got you this job? Or do you prioritize your family’s safety over all else?

Not to mention that despite your lack of verbs and the fact that the entire game takes place in pretty much the same exact screen, Papers, Please is spectacularly immersive. Not just in terms of the graphics and music (though those are very good), but in that all of the game’s “story” elements are conveyed purely through the process of playing it. There are no cut scenes where you meet an Important Character who tells you an Important Thing. There is only your booth, and the people who approach it. You’ll see some characters over and over, like Jorji, the ever-optimistic old man who just can’t seem to get his papers together. Or the frightened prostitute who begs you – begs you – not to approve the man behind her (even though he’s cleared to enter) because she is certain he will sell her into slavery. Depending on how you treat these people, the story and your resources change. Your narrative and gameplay choices are the same choices – not like in, say, BioShock, where you have The Gameplay (shooting things, collecting resources) and The Moral Choices (the little sisters). The simple act of stamping passports, denied/approved, functions as both.

 

[npa189]

day 20 is killing me, so much info to check, so many people, so many chances to fuck up...

 

[Dremark]

Gettin' all Trauma Center up in this bitch with

Spoiler

the bomb disposal

!

Also, fuck that

Spoiler

reporter, I thought he was going to expose corruption in the government, not write a slanderous article on my lax work ethic.

Lol. So glad I rejected him.

 

[Arkanius]

This game is amazing.
I want to be an Immigration officer now