Games like Papers, Please
Papers, Please is a border-inspector game by Lucas Pope, released in 2013. You check documents at a checkpoint in the fictional country of Arstotzka and decide who gets in. Inspection games are trending again, and these are the ones worth your time.
What makes Papers, Please great
Every day the rules change: a new document, a banned country, a stamp to check. You have a few seconds per person, and every mistake costs money your family needs for heat and food. Some travelers beg, some lie, some offer bribes. The game turns paperwork into hard moral choices.
It is on PC, came to iPad in 2014, and to iPhone and Android in 2022.
Inspection games like Papers, Please
- Beholder. Warm Lamp Games' 2016 game. You are a landlord in a police state, spying on tenants and choosing who to report.
- Not Tonight. PanicBarn's 2018 game where you work as a bouncer checking IDs in an alternate post-Brexit Britain.
- Contraband Police. Crazy Rocks' 2023 border guard game in a 1980s fictional state. You search cars for smuggled goods.
- That's Not My Neighbor. Nachosama Games' horror take, on Steam since 2025. You are a doorman checking documents to keep doppelgangers out of the building.
- No, I'm Not a Human. Trioskaz's 2025 horror game where you decide who to let into your house during a crisis, and some guests are not human.
- Return of the Obra Dinn. Lucas Pope's 2018 follow-up. Not a checkpoint, but the same careful reading of clues to work out who is who.
Why inspection games are rising
They work great in short videos: one face, one document, one call. Viewers yell the answer before the player does. The Exit 8 and That's Not My Neighbor took the same spot-the-difference idea and added horror, and now there is a whole wave of them.
Play it on Roam
More on Roam
Make your own inspection game with Roam
Describe the checkpoint, the rules and what is at stake, and Roam builds a playable inspection game on your iPhone.
Try: "checkpoint inspector at a space station, check passports and faces, the rules change every day, one alien is hiding in each shift"Questions people ask
Is Papers, Please on mobile?
Yes. It came to iPad in 2014, then to iPhone and Android in August 2022.
Who made Papers, Please?
Lucas Pope, who also made Return of the Obra Dinn.
What games are like Papers, Please but horror?
That's Not My Neighbor and No, I'm Not a Human use the same check-and-decide loop with a horror twist.