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[Vgray]

He is still kind of funny and senile though...unless it's an act...

[Anvilfolk]

Also less spoilery, but I'm curious. What exactly is with people calling this game soul crushing? I never got that. Is it the job itself? The aesthetics? Just... What am I missing?

It gives you a glimpse of why TSA officers act the way they act, and that can lead to you scaring yourself a little bit. Also, there's a lot of misery in there, and it's extremely dystopian (e.g. you have been selected for a "random" search), but on the other hand this stuff happens daily in the US. Heck, I travelled a week ago and was "randomly chosen" out of a group of americans to NOT get pre-checked at the airport (I'm not american)

There's just a lot of food for thought. It puts you in charge of 1) feeding your family and 2) doing your job, 3) trying (?) to maintain some basic human empathy... and all of these become mutually exclusive at some point :\

[Gunner-Chan]

and all of these become mutually exclusive at some point :\

Uh... No?

There's maybe a couple of people that seem to have legitimate super serious problems. Not enough to cost you real money. The progression of the game consistently gives you more time per day making it easier and easier so long as you can keep up with the new additions to the formula.

You can help everyone who actually, legitimately needs help, keep your family healthy and happy, and be a good border guard all at the same time. And it's not that hard.

Maybe being too good at the actual game part kinda nullifies it, I don't know. I never felt all that outright good at it since I still made a lot of mistakes some days. Even during replays. Still never had to shut anything off.

Or maybe I'm missing how I'm supposed to empathize with absolutely everyone that comes to the booth or something. Which seems absolutely silly,

[Anvilfolk]

Yeah, it does depend on how good at the game you actually are. If you are a genetically superior bureaucrat, the game isn't going to have the same tension. I didn't do too bad in general, but definitely had games where my strategy of entirely ignoring the districts/cities of each country backfired and things became ... dire ...

I still feel it makes you think a lot about some important notions in society, like immigration, empathy, power-hungry police, etc. For me it became scary when I started getting a kick out of rejecting people and sounding like an obnoxious TSA officer in my mind...

I dunno, it just got me thinking about important stuff while still giving me entertainment.

[Vgray]

Since I don't think it's ever been discussed before, Ezric, good or bad?


Edit: EZIC I mean...

[Aklyon]

Since I don't think it's ever been discussed before, Ezric, good or bad?


Edit: EZIC I mean...

Gray.

[Vgray]

Ah, but what shade of gray?

[Fniff]

Dark grey that happens to make light grey actions occasionally.

Spoiler: spoilers (click to show/hide)

The refugees they allow into the country at the end probably did some good. As for what their government is like... well, who knows.

[Vgray]

Hmm. What's so important about the mating habits of lesser Kolechian waterfowl anyway?

[Haspen]

Hmm. What's so important about the mating habits of lesser Kolechian waterfowl anyway?

I assume it's files about intelligence activities in lesser Kolechian departments, considering the news headline that comes next day.

[Neonivek]

The reason the game is soul crushing for me is rather simple

You are trying to feed your starving family and have a rather tight budget to do it. Yet you are also paid on performance... but what you have to do in order to do a passable job only increases as time goes on and yet the system is so corrupt your pay is not adjusted.

Thus logically the best way to maximize your time is to, for example, just reject people from countries that require complex paper work... and whenever someone stalls you or adds to your work you just feel the contempt on your face.

Thus it logically creates a racist system where being someone of good moral values or non-corrupt work ethics becomes impossible... and sucks you into that just thickly oppressive world.

You can only imagine how terrible the world must be where ANYONE would consider this country preferable.

[a1s]

You are trying to feed your starving family and have a rather tight budget to do it. Yet you are also paid on performance... but what you have to do in order to do a passable job only increases as time goes on and yet the system is so corrupt your pay is not adjusted.

You get more time, which (assuming you don't get tired during a "day") automatically means more money.

Thus it logically creates a racist system where being someone of good moral values or non-corrupt work ethics becomes impossible... and sucks you into that just thickly oppressive world.

Welcome to the bleak world of (real world) TSA- the work is repetitive, racial profiling is all but mandated, and if people could tell you what they think of you (which they won't, if they know what's good for them), you'd be able to moonlight as profanity dictionary publisher. Also, you never stopped a "real" terrorist, and you strongly suspect you never will.

[Neonivek]

It isn't JUST that there is racial profiling it is that the system actively encourages you to abuse them.

"UGH! You are from Swaziland? NEXT! I don't want to have to go through this junk"

[Gunner-Chan]

The thing is though, you have pretty much the same workload per person almost all the time in papers please. And because the way the penalty system works you're better off getting into the routine than making exceptions anyway.

You can only imagine how terrible the world must be where ANYONE would consider this country preferable.

Given another game the guy made, odds are they're all really not that different from one another. In this case the grass just looks greener in the slightly larger than before country.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Though given if you've been good they don't punish you anyway, like what happens in the newspaper game. Arstotzka may very well not be that bad all things considering. It could certainly be worse

[Neonivek]

The thing is though, you have pretty much the same workload per person almost all the time in papers please

Yeah things changed a lot since the demo. I actually kind of like the demo more thematically.

Where you could just be a total racist and benefit from it (ignoring the game's broken system at the time), and where they didn't seem to increase your timespan.

But I understand the demo could do that because it was shorter and could thus pace itself.