it's niche but i'm fascinated by those "Paper, please" game knockoffs who are like, perfectly fine on their own, but like... clearly wanted the mecanisms of "Paper, Please" without its politics and in a way ends up being such a weird commentary on "Paper, please" 's political subtext
"Paper, please" is set in an oppressive tyranical regime and you have been selected to run the border control. Every day you're given extremely specific rules on who to let in or not with the rules changing depending on the political landscape, or criminals you're supposed to catch. Any mistake may remove money from your paycheck, which cause problems when you have to pay the bills at the end of each days. Progressively though you'll be given more and more stories that will test your morals as a border guardian like, will you let in this refugee who doesn't have their papers? a girl will tell you a guy further down the line who has all his papers in order, is trafficking people, but technically it's wrong of you to turn him down. would you do it? And even a full subplot about terrorists asking for your participation in tumbling down the system, as long as you don't get caught. You'll get a prime for every people you arrest, so what will you do to the girl smuggling drugs who clearly is doing it because she's been blackmailed into it? so on and so forth.
There's obvious subtexts to the game such as the way tyranical regimes will slowly creep on you and find more and more things that will have you be downrigth cruel to asylum seeker, or the way if you follow all the rules the government still manages to punish you, because even just following a fascist regime isn't going to save you from said regime, and stuff like that. And i think it also drives home the inherent horror of border control of having to decide which people are "worthy" or not to move from one country to the next, which ones will you be willing to break the law for, and how it feels to see vulnerable people as threats because of the actions of the few, you get the rest.
And there are games that takes back either the same general idea (or downright the same mechanisms of the game, thinking of "You're not my neighbour"), where you play as someone who has to filter who's allowed to go into a protected place.. and systematically they play up the horror theme of "because actually now there's aliens/monsters taking the shape of humans so you have to make sure the person is really who they are" (or in a version i found, more tame, "because they're all criminals, so you're right to do it")
And there's something so... ironical as a way those games serve as a commentary on "paper, please", which asks you to examine what you're being told are the "aliens" you're supposed to look for, but it's just humans, and the rules are all made up, and you're the monster who's part of the system, to see that attempt at reproducing this type of gameplay while trying to remove its politics, gives this general "anyway DO fear the unknown and the aliens and you, as a Guardian, is the last thing standing before Those Aliens Who Will Want Us Harm".
Where "Paper, please" examines the inherent violation of private life that comes with the more and more papers asked to prove you can enter the country (including putting suspicious people into a scanner to see them naked to be sure they're who they say they are and aren't smuggling things), this type of games *validates* you for having information on the private lives of the people you're trying to "protect" from being impersonated as an alien.
idk there's something so fascinating into it. Like i don't think this type of games are making a statement, a lot of games about monsters/aliens want to play up the fear of the unknown without the political background, but the use of "paper, please" gameplay on this type of story ends up so ironical it sets my brain aflame. Incredible.
