Papers, Please

Papers, Please puts the player behind the counter of a border official in the fictional communist state of Arstotzka, where the job is to check the passports, visas, and permits of arriving people and decide who to let through and who to turn away — with every mistake resulting in a fine that threatens the player's own family waiting at home for food and heat. On mobile, stamping and comparing documents is controlled by touch, which turns out to be surprisingly natural, even though the pace is necessarily slower than on the keyboard and mouse it was originally designed for.

Lucas Pope created a game that turned bureaucratic tedium into a tool for moral dilemmas: rules, forged documents, smugglers, and personal stories of the people at the counter gradually pile up, and the player must choose between following regulations and human compassion, often under the pressure of time ticking down to the end of the shift. Visually, the game relies on stark pixel art and a gray palette that underscores the atmosphere of a totalitarian state better than realistic visuals would, and it stays in memory longer than the far more elaborate graphics of many other games.

The mobile port retains the entire content of the original game, including multiple endings depending on the player's decisions, at the same difficulty; it's a paid title with no ads and no simplifications compared to the computer version. Papers, Please remains one of the most-cited examples of how a game mechanic can be used to tell a story about systemic injustice, not just to entertain.

Why play it: For players looking for a game with moral weight who aren't put off by the slower pace of stamping on a touchscreen instead of a keyboard.