As simple as this game may look, this has gotta be one of the best video games I've played. Not only are your precision of identifying paperwork be tested, your moral and ethical conscience is also put to play. Being an immigration officer in the Grestin border of Arstotzka, you must follow protocols of inspecting the documents of entrants, or you will have to accept the penalties for violating them. In some cases, the entrants don't have the correct documents because their activities back home, lack of information, financial barriers and/or urgency have prevented them from having a proper set of documents.
For example you encounter a woman who wants to immigrate to your country to live with her spouse however the paperwork do not match, do you let her in so they can happily live together or do you deny her for you need to follow protocols and ensure that she will cause no trouble to your country? That is one of the many moral and ethical ambiguities you would encounter in this game. Despite the people inspected are merely programmed AI, the stories they tell about the struggles of getting to Arstotzka, why and how they visit there can be emotionally touching, compelling sympathetic decisions to grant them entry

Graphics: Despite its 8bit style, it shows well of the setting of the region it is located in. The colours tell that the situation is grim, fitting the lore of Papers, Please being set after a war between the bordering nations, however the differing colours of the entrants and characters seem too monotonal, but maybe it tries to invoke the colourless feeling of doing repetitive tasks of border guard. The cutscenes tell ample information of what happens, but I wish there's more. The main (Arstotzkan) character designs can explain what type of country Arstotzka is. I rank it 8.5/10
Gameplay: Requires a lot of attention to details and challenging decisions between national loyalty or empathy to those who have paid too much costs to cross the border, and I like how there are several endings for different actions done upon inspection of documents, making the game replayable. 10/10 for gameplay

As simple as this game may look, this has gotta be one of the best video games I've played. Not only are your precision of identifying paperwork be tested, your moral and ethical conscience is also put to play. Being an immigration officer in the Grestin border of Arstotzka, you must follow protocols of inspecting the documents of entrants, or you will have to accept the penalties for violating them. In some cases, the entrants don't have the correct documents because their activities back home, lack of information, financial barriers and/or urgency have prevented them from having a proper set of documents. For example you encounter a woman who wants to immigrate to your country to live with her spouse however the paperwork do not match, do you let her in so they can happily live together or do you deny her for you need to follow protocols and ensure that she will cause no trouble to your country? That is one of the many moral and ethical ambiguities you would encounter in this game. Despite the people inspected are merely programmed AI, the stories they tell about the struggles of getting to Arstotzka, why and how they visit there can be emotionally touching, compelling sympathetic decisions to grant them entry Graphics: Despite its 8bit style, it shows well of the setting of the region it is located in. The colours tell that the situation is grim, fitting the lore of Papers, Please being set after a war between the bordering nations, however the differing colours of the entrants and characters seem too monotonal, but maybe it tries to invoke the colourless feeling of doing repetitive tasks of border guard. The cutscenes tell ample information of what happens, but I wish there's more. The main (Arstotzkan) character designs can explain what type of country Arstotzka is. I rank it 8.5/10 Gameplay: Requires a lot of attention to details and challenging decisions between national loyalty or empathy to those who have paid too much costs to cross the border, and I like how there are several endings for different actions done upon inspection of documents, making the game replayable. 10/10 for gameplay