Papers, Please

LCD, Please, a free de-make of Papers, Please, released as the standout addition on August 9, 2023. The game’s 10th anniversary also brought new merchandise, a soundtrack on streaming services, the 10th Anniversary Sale, and a $100,000 donation to the International Rescue Committee.

• Free de-make: LCD, Please released as a free game built around the Papers, Please concept.
• 10th-anniversary extras:
  • Anniversary merchandise: New shirts, stickers, posters, and other goods were designed.
  • Soundtrack release: The Papers, Please soundtrack became available on several streaming services.
  • 10th Anniversary Sale: The game received a temporary $1.99 sale that ran through the weekend.
• Charitable donation: Papers, Please donated $100,000 to the International Rescue Committee.

The Haxe/OpenFL-to-Haxe/Unity engine transition was the biggest change, moving Papers, Please onto Unity 2020 and bringing substantial frame-pacing and display changes. Korean, Turkish, and Czech localizations also arrived, alongside expanded command-line controls for resolution, VSync, stretching, and save-directory handling.

• Engine and frame pacing: The Unity 2020 migration introduced a 60fps cap across all modes, revised frame-sync logic that tried 60fps VSync before CPU sync, and macOS mouse-lag compensation. These changes addressed slow animations and possible physics stutter.
• Localization: Korean localization came from BADA Games, Czech localization came from Tomas2886 et al., and Turkish localization came from Bared ÇİL. The Language Selection Dialog also handled unknown startup languages more reliably.
• Display and command-line controls: The 720p and 1080p switches overrode native fullscreen resolution, while additional switches disabled VSync and controlled screen stretching. Windowed mode stretched to the available extents, and the savedir switch replaced boot.xml for save-directory overrides.
• Gameplay and audio corrections: The booth upgrade night-budget option disappeared after day 30 when it had not been purchased, and the original inspection sound effects returned. Simon Wens’s detention softlock, the excessive night-list crash, the day 4 rent increase, and repeated interrogation-button dialogue were also corrected.

Tracked sources for Papers, Please were limited between 2021-08-08 and 2022-08-08, with only 2 verified changes captured in this window. The recorded activity centers on Added Ukrainian Localization and Updated Identity Supplement Feature Descriptions and sits between no earlier tracked updates in the current dataset and Fixed fullscreen/windowed logic on 2022-11-27 (bug_fix), making this a light but still readable period in the game's history.

• Verified activity: 2022-03-09 - Added Ukrainian Localization: Ukrainian localization added from Skovoroda l10n.; 2022-03-09 - Updated Identity Supplement Feature Descriptions: Some descriptions for the Identity Supplement feature have been changed..
• What stands out: The period is defined more by a small number of isolated updates than by a large roadmap beat or expansion-sized release.
• Before this window: No earlier tracked activity is present in the current dataset.
• After this window: The next tracked activity was Fixed fullscreen/windowed logic on 2022-11-27 (bug_fix).