 The title screen of a pixelated video game reads papers, please Hi, my name is Lucas Pope and I'm the creator of papers, please the on-screen pointer clicks on the word story Launching a text-based account of a labor lottery in October 1982 Papers, please is a game about checking passports You work at a border checkpoint and your only job is to look at people's documentation and Decide if they should be allowed into your country or turned away the game screen includes Pixelated renderings of applicants documents maps files and a growing line of people at the border as well as text bubble Conversations, I feel like with an issue like immigration You're dealing with kind of generalities You don't want people to come in or you want everyone to come in but something like papers Please my hope was that you can you can get way up close to it right in your face Way closer than you want to be maybe it's one thing to read about Border control or to watch movies about it, but to actually play it to be there the one making the decisions Kind of hearing people's stories and deciding from there and seeing their documents and things like that I felt like that's perfect for a game basically and my hope is that people can play the game and Understand a little bit more about the nuances and complexities of border control I also want them to enjoy looking for errors and documents and want them to feel like a hero when they can catch the spy Who's trying to slip through their checkpoint an applicant is considered a document is scanned and a discrepancy detected Which leads to an interrogation and detainment Games are basically the perfect medium to Understand other characters positions or complex issues like this I do hope that people can play the game and sort of turn immigration from a simple Yes, or no into something a lot more Considered and thoughtful So empathy to me is is a critical part of making a game game text informs us that we can now escape by ourselves Our savings and expenses are tallied $185