Notes
Animal Crossing and Economic Simulation
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Animal Crossing is an “animal village simulator” where players engage in everyday life—working, trading, and customizing homes.
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Central gameplay involves debt and material acquisition.
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Tom Nook represents capitalist accumulation: the player’s debt funds his growing business.
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The game models and critiques capitalism and materialism
Video Games as Cultural Practices
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Games are not just entertainment, they form communities of practice (e.g., Animal Crossing Community forum).
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Players develop shared norms, strategies, and values.
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However, the values represented in a game differ from those of its player community.
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Video games can represent cultural values and critiques
Play and Learning
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Society often separates play from learning (play = leisure, learning = serious work).
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Redefines play as “free movement within a more rigid structure.” (Bogost)
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Rules enable play—they create a possibility space to explore within constraints.
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In video games, players explore the rules (systems) to create meaning.
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Learning through play involves understanding systems and consequences, not just having fun.
Procedurality
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Procedurality = creation of meaning through rules and processes.
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Computers are uniquely procedural. They model behavior through algorithms.
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Video games emphasize this property, representing systems (economic, social, etc.) via procedural models.
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Example:
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Animal Crossing models consumer capitalism.
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SimCity models urban planning.
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Rhetoric and Procedural Rhetoric
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Rhetoric = art of persuasion; traditionally verbal or visual.
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Bogost extends rhetoric to procedural rhetoric, the art of persuasion through processes and rules.
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Video games make arguments about how systems work by simulating them.
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Procedural rhetoric allows games to:
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Make claims about real-world systems.
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Critique ideologies or policies.
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Teach players how systems function
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Learning Through Procedural Rhetoric
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Playing games critically helps players understand systems, ideologies, and social dynamics.
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Games teach a kind of “procedural literacy,” understanding and creating system-based arguments.
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Educators and parents can use games to:
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Encourage critical thinking and discussion.
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Teach students to read and write systems (through gameplay or programming).
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Papers, Please
Game Overview and Audience
I chose to play Papers, Please by Lucas Pope, a simulation and puzzle game available on PC, macOS, iOS, and consoles. I played for about three hours, reaching around Day 10. The game targets older teens and adults who enjoy thought-provoking experiences rather than pure entertainment. In the game, you play as a border inspector in the fictional country of Arstotzka, checking travelers’ papers and deciding who to let in or reject. The job starts simple but grows more complex as new rules and moral dilemmas appear like wanted criminals or more complex characters. Through this repetitive system, the game makes you feel what it’s like to become complicit in a cold, bureaucratic system. You can read more on the official website is https://papersplea.se/, but it’s also available on Steam.
Genre and Impact on Message
Papers, Please is mainly a simulation with puzzle and narrative elements. Its slow, repetitive structure reflects the emotional drain of bureaucracy and the pressure of authoritarian control. The “gameplay loop” of inspecting documents, stamping approvals, and keeping your family alive mirrors how systems prioritize procedure over humanity. That design choice transforms what could be a dull office simulator into a statement about dehumanization. The lack of flashy action or freedom is intentional as the constraints are what make the game’s message hit harder.
fig 1. an example of having to approve or deny someone entry
Connections to Reading
Ian Bogost’s idea of procedural rhetoric (games that persuade through their systems and rules) is at the heart of Papers, Please. Instead of telling players that bureaucracy is harmful, it forces them to experience that harm. Players get to learn that following rules means survival, but also moral compromise. For example, your income is used to support your family and not following rules means you might jeopardize your own wellbeing. This ties directly to Bogost’s idea of “possibility spaces”: the range of actions allowed inside a system. Papers, Please builds its argument through these constraints, making players realize how easily obedience replaces empathy. Like Bogost’s examples of America’s Army or The McDonald’s Videogame, it uses gameplay itself to expose the logic of power.
fig 2. you get paid and get to see how your personal family is doing by the day
Message and Rhetorical Effectiveness
This game’s message was pretty clear and relevant. Systems of power make ordinary people choose between conscience and compliance. The game delivers this message not through dialogue but through emotion. For instance, every decision feels heavy—helping a refugee means losing money, following rules means hurting someone, etc. As an immigrant myself, with various friends whose family’s are refugees from the Vietnam War, I found myself able to empathize with the situations in the game. The game also felt realistic given that my mom and aunt weren’t able to come to the U.S. at the same time as the rest of her family due to missing paperwork. Overall, the tension and guilt become part of the experience. The minimal visuals and harsh sound effects emphasize the bleakness of the job. I found myself torn between wanting to help and wanting to survive, and that internal conflict is the point.
fig 3. there’s a rulebook and you can find discrepancies
Ludonarrative Dissonance
In terms of the narrative, there’s almost no dissonance between story and gameplay here since they support each other perfectly. The same repetitive actions that build the narrative also express the theme of moral erosion. The only minor tension comes from players who try to “game” the system for high scores, but even that reinforces the critique of efficiency over ethics.
Personal Takeaways and Design Inspiration
As a designer, I love how Papers, Please proves that mechanics themselves can tell a story. The game uses limitation and consequence to make you feel something real. For my own work, I wonder how I can make the theme more implicit, rather than having to say it out loud.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Papers, Please is a masterclass in procedural rhetoric. It turns mundane labor into a reflection on morality, survival, and complicity. Through its systems, it persuades players to think critically about how power operates and how easily we adapt to it. By the end, I left thinking more about the current state of immigration, showing that games can make powerful arguments without ever saying a word.
