In Papers Please, there’s a moment in the narrative where the player realizes that they, despite any personal goals external to the game, an— despite any developed anti-biases and progressive values—to be successful in the definition of normal playability, they are forced to lean into their snap judgement towards people, the very worst parts of themselves, to progress towards the most successful endings. What starts as a classic guess-and-check quick-analysis game for spot-the-difference – check that the city matches the country, etc, check the logo – quickly spirals into a complex prioritization simulator. In this way, Papers Please functions, to the player, as an embodied demonstration of different rungs in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs – where, through the game’s structure with multiple endings, specific character dialogue, and demonstrated presence of an all-seeing authoritarian force the player critically engages with their own belief system.
Papers Please follow a moderately branching structure, where the 20 endings depend on how much money you’ve collected, how many particular individuals you may have illegally let enter the country, and if/how you have shot or killed any people around the immigration booth. Largely these endings end up with your character in jail for making some mistake or another. As the game begins, an early dilemma comes with the introduction of a Detain button – rather than simply denying people through stamping and returning their documents, you can deport them. For the player, this distinction seems to fundamentally have no game-level consequence, as both end with the character leaving your booth. This would encourage the player to follow their own ethics – detaining is a politically charged and cruel decision compared to simply denying entry, and why be cruel if there is no reason? Then, you realize that there maybe is a material reason— Detaining is significantly faster, saving you time, allowing you to call another person to your booth and make more money. This deal is sweetened further when one of the Detaining guards later offers you additional money to Detain, rather than deny.
This is just one of many examples of ethics that come forward through the game, others of which are expressed through brief dialogue interactions as you sit in your booth. You are asked to make base judgments about characters’ genders, and question and take searching photos of them. You are asked to hold onto a character’s precious family heirloom, and return it in days, though you are continually offered money to give it up. You are asked – and offered money – to allow drug smugglers and sex workers through. In this quasi-marxian view of exaggerated, authoritarianist weaponized capitalism you move from the midpoint to the bottom rungs of Maslow’s. In this theory, one needs to fulfill basic needs for physiological and psychological safety before human connection, status, and self-actualization can be realized. Where the player might have begun from a place of seeking Belonging – ie, denying rather than Detaining, making up the time elsewhere – often acting ethically is not immediately monetarily compensated.
In Papers Please, when the player starts running out of money to care for sick family members, to turn on heat, to provide food – the player character’s ethics start to waver in face of economic and physiological distress. At the end of every work day, your performance directly changes if the game continues or if your family members pass away. You choose whether to put money towards booth upgrades, birthday presents, or rent, and to have it all, money is the driving force – and of course, guided by the ever-present eye of Arstoztka, which tells you exactly whenever you’ve made a mistake in your booth, and eventually punishes you by financial penalty. And if you help the rebel group and receive 1000 credits – unheard of – the government takes it, scrutinizes you, does not return it. You need the money, and yet all of it is still not yours.
Still, the game invites empathy to exist in such an immediate economic squeeze. If the player is in a good financial spot with their family relatively alive – and with two allowed citations per day without financial penalty – the player is invited to then turn to the upper rungs of Maslow’s – seeking belonging and psychological fulfillment through aiding a rebel service against the government, or through playing so perfectly that the ultimate form of psychological fulfillment – infinite mode – is unlocked through being a perfect citizen of Arstoztka. Yet it is still the innate monetary structure of the game, with a financial floor, that prompts its players to act.
