The Mignone

classic

So I am not a gamer or anything, but from time to time I do enjoy playing a video game just to escape reality and focus on something else. A few weeks ago I discovered an awesome vintage-like game created in 2013 called 'Papers, Please'. It's basically a game where you play an immigration inspector who has to check papers of the people who want to enter the country - I know it doesn't sound really interesting, but the game-play and the story is really fun!

You find yourself in a dystopian reality in the communist state of Arstotzka. You just received a new job as an immigration officer, who controls the flow of people entering the country. Your job is not as boring as you think, sure you have to control the papers of visitors, immigrants, asylum seekers, people looking for work, but you also have to bear in mind that among those other people are also smugglers, spies and terrorists. Therefore you have to have an eye for detail and check every single tiny information on their papers - and do this on a timer! It gets really stressful and hectic at some point when you have to check like 5-6 different papers: passport, work permit, access permit/entry permit, certificate of vaccination... and have a perfect score (aka don't make any mistakes) because the amount of people you approve/disapprove correctly earns you cash (about 5 cash/person). And from that money earned, you will have to sustain your family: wife, son, mother-in-law and uncle. All of them are lazy bastards, who won't work and just complain, that they're hungry or its too cold in the apartment or that they are sick. I didn't know at the beginning that I had to take care of them and because I couldn't raise the money necessary to sustain the family, I let them die - and that made me lose the game. So be careful and keep your damn family alive!

This is what it looks like:

Sometimes, if you find a discrepancy you'll have to search the person by taking their fingerprints or sending them through metal detector thingie. And then you can see what they are hiding underneath, like for example a sex change or weapons :P Also there are those who have fake papers: false stamps, false information, expired documents etc. My favourite of them all is this guy:

This nice old man is a regular 'customer'. He is totally awesome and funny. In the picture above he just arrived at the checkpoint with a fake hand-drawn passport which is 'pre-approved'! I mean how can you deny him the passing?! I simply adore him!

This brings me to the storyline: there multiple ways to finish the game - I think something around 20 different endings. You can be a correct and incorruptible officer or you can be a corrupt one. You can be a supporter of a secret organisation that is planning to take down the government or you can just flee the country when you have enough money. And so on. I only did three of the endings: first by mistake, killing my son and wife by not feeding them. Then secondly I fled the country like a coward leaving my family behind. And thirdly I helped the secret organisation take down the government and so I was promoted and started a new life.

I really liked game. It is fun, easy to install and play (though I would recommend using a mouse to play, because with the touch-pad is a bit tricky and since you're on a timer, it gets really difficult to process the documents faster). If you want to try it, you can find the game here: http://papersplea.se/ and if you don't want to pay for the game, you can get the beta version for free. ;)

All in all I learned that being an immigration officer is a tough job!

The Mignone

the white shirt

[Repost] Urban Textures

[Repost] Papers, Please

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