Mars After Midnight
Developer/publisher Lucas Pope
Format Playdate
Release Out now
There’s something disarmingly uplifting about the game’s conceit: it might lack the thematic weight of Papers, Please, but in your efforts to alleviate a community’s problems, it feels like you’re taking part in valuable work
Y ou may be tempted to dismiss Lucas Pope’s third solo game as Diet Papers, Please. After all, it’s on Playdate, which automatically makes it a more modest proposition. You assume a similar role, too, your job being to determine whether aliens are admitted or turned away, based on varying criteria. This time, though, they’re literal aliens (as are you): as the clock strikes 12, you arrive at an converted off-colony shipping and receiving office, now a community support centre for the local Martian populace. Each time you hear a knock at the door, you wind the crank to open a hatch, peering through at one of an assortment of visitors before buzzing them in or shutting it to turn them away. Again, there’s tidying up to do, though rather than shuffling papers around on your desk as a queue grows, you must clean up and reorganise the refreshments table after each visit, an insistent knock chivvying you along.