A Bleak and Heartwarming Indie Game | Papers, Please Retrospective

Glory to Arstotzka. Today, we're looking at a bleak, yet heartwarming indie game by Lucas Pope, the Soviet-inspired document simulator Papers, Please. It's such a simple idea: take control of a border inspector examining immigrants' papers as they try to cross into your country, and denying them if their documentation doesn't match up. This simple idea breeds simple gameplay, but Papers, Please still manages to leave a huge impact on the player. How does a small game like this leave such a devastating impact on the player? Let's find out in my retrospective of Papers, Please. #PapersPlease #LucasPope #GlorytoArstotzka ---- Subscribe! https://tinyurl.com/y8hebek3 Join the CloudConnection Discord! https://discord.gg/MVSrcGz I stream on Twitch! https://www.twitch.tv/cloudc0nnection Check out The Cloud Collection — buy some games and support this channel! https://www.nexus.gg/cloud ---- MUSIC: Abandoned by Simon Pettersson Afterimage of You by StockMusic No Future by Simon Pettersson Remembering When by Meditation Quest A Love Like No Other by Star Crossed Lovers Funeral by Simon Pettersson Spirit of Light by Meditation Quest Goodbye by Simon Pettersson Perfect Life by Cinematic Music All songs come from the AudioHero library. ---- TIMECODES 00:00 — INTRO 01:12 — DEVELOPMENT 02:45 — GAMEPLAY 07:23 — AESTHETICS AND ATMOSPHERE 10:05 — STORY AND CHARACTERS 14:25 — ENDINGS 16:54 — CONCLUSION ---- SOURCES / RECOMMENDED READING Papers, Please Development Forums (https://bit.ly/2PPDOwD) Edge Online: The Making of Papers, Please (https://bit.ly/2RsdGbj) Gamasutra: Designing the bleak genius of Papers, Please (https://bit.ly/3eilSEn) The Verge: Immigration as a game: ‘Papers, Please’ makes you the border guard (https://bit.ly/3nUNy5m) Culture Mass: Glory to Arstotzka: Papers, Please and an Interview with Its Creator (https://bit.ly/3ujmOxJ) VG247: Lucas Pope: “I’m kind of sick to death of Papers, Please” (https://bit.ly/3b1VEUs) BBC News: Papers, Please: The ‘boring’ game that became a smash hit (https://bbc.in/3vI166G)