Papers, Please is a bureaucrat simulator where you man a border checkpoint in a fictional totalitarian country during the late cold war. Gameplay mostly involves examining people's passports and other entry documents and calling 'gotcha' on them. Otherwise, you let them through if you can't find anything or you're lazy.

Despite there being a labor shortage, the Ministry of Admission (your employer) has enough manpower to levy warnings and penalties on you for admitting someone you shouldn't have. Someone came through and asked me to deny him entry so that he would have a reason to get a better job elsewhere. I did as requested (with a handsome bribe), and I got a penalty for rejecting him!

The varieties of calling gotcha on unsuspecting travelers include: calling out their small talk, fingerprinting them, taking nude photos of them, denying them entry, or detaining them. Over the course of the game, the rules and documents required for admission into glorious Arstotzka change. Sometimes people don't give you what you need, so you need to point this out and ask. Sometimes their mugshot matches someone on today's criminal watchlist. Sometimes they present a forgery. Since you get a kickback on detaining people, I will detain people for forgeries. Maybe the investigators will get a clue on who's forging documents, so that will them off my back. It's like I'm doing an international duty to stop people from running around gaining entry into other countries under false pretenses.

Because you're at a heavily trafficked border crossing, you get quite a few characters that are trying to subvert the rules in ways that don't involve fake documents. A handful of people are drug smugglers and human traffickers. Every so often, you'll have an anti-government agent hand you a note, which you read, then hand back, and they'll walk away. Interactions with those agents can have a heavy impact on which ending you get. The game alludes to there being 20, but the whole thing feels rigged, so I don't believe that.

Arstotzka and Kolechia (the country outside the checkpoint) recently ended a several year long war. However, your checkpoint sees enough attacks that it might qualify to be a warzone itself. It seems like there's one about every three days. At least when the alarm sounds, you are able to shoot the attackers.

Ten years ago, gamers were fawning over this. It was one of those breakout indie hits. It is a unique game that mimics a certain place and time, and portrays some very realistic characters in serious situations. Even though it has some flashes of brilliance, Papers, Please comes off as one of those boring simulator games that were the style at the time.