Papers, please is one of the most interesting and imaginative indie games of the early 2010s. Created by Lucas Pope, who would go on to develop Return of the Giant Din and most recently the exclusive Playdate Mars after midnight, Papers, please is emblematic of what the author would create next, and was no doubt the inspiration for a number of story-driven, visually striking management games from the indie scene – such as the upcoming Steam title Prescribe and pray.
Steam certainly abounds with these kinds of mundane but intense management simulators, with notable examples being Death and taxes, Umbrellas are not allowedand Orwell games, all of which seem to take a clear cue from Pope's seminal puzzle simulation game. It makes sense: Papers, please it's about telling a dramatic story from the point of view of banality and bureaucracy, so its premise can easily be applied to themes like mortality, far-future inequality, and surveillance. As it turns out, it could come in handy for an even stranger and more inexplicable topic: the health system.
Prescribe and pray it currently has a free demo available on Steam.
Prescribing and praying is like papers, please, but with reckless medical treatment Diagnose strange patients, investigate their absurd symptoms… and prescribe treatments that could change their lives… or shorten them. Your actions will have consequences.
As a red-blooded American, I have the privilege of a lifetime of experience with a particularly inefficient medical system. But even if you don't suffer from price gouging and insurance, chances are you or someone you know has some kind of medical horror on the books. Whether it's a misdiagnosis, an eccentric doctor, or a headache-inducing bureaucratic rigamarole, patients around the world have funny, terrifying, or just plain weird medical experiences and Prescribe and pray he aims to capitalize on it through his Papers, please gameplay.
According to Prescribe and pray Steam page, players take on the role of an incompetent doctor working at the fictional Last Breath Clinic, charged with the noble mission of “preventing undesirables from accessing healthcare.” To achieve this goal, the player must analyze symptoms, perform tests, check insurance eligibility and decide on the correct final plan of action. As in Papers, please, Prescribe and pray will present difficult decisions, forcing the player to analyze the patient's intent, various in-game documents, and other ever-changing variables to ensure the optimal outcome for the people (or rather, the hospital itself).
Prescribe and pray is set in France, so its depiction of health care may be based on the country's actual health insurance system, which offers largely, but not entirely, subsidized health care to all French citizens.
What is the Prescribe and Pray game?
from the beginning Prescribe and pray'with Papers, please the inspiration is clear: the game takes place at a table, with no movement mechanics or other environments to speak of. Prospective patients approach the table and provide you with various documents that you must review to determine if they are eligible for care. For example, if a woman comes to complain of a stomach ache, but her insurance card has expired, she will have to pull over. Other potential problems include fake names and incorrect signatures.
Assuming that the subject is considered eligible for treatment, you will need to proceed to the diagnostic phase. According to the game's Steam page, the player's toolkit will include the following:
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“rechargeable flashlight”
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“the thermometer that goes beep-beep”
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“intracardial blood pressure monitor”
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“suspicious odor sniffer”
Place 9 games in the grid.
Start
What is the message to prescribe and pray?
Based on my limited experience with the game, I think it's fair Prescribe and pray he riffs on the various perceived absurdities of the healthcare industry. A medical professional may not notice that the above tools are described in less than professional, possibly even childish language, perhaps intended to criticize the inexperience of some practitioners in the real world. This would match the game's description of the protagonist as “No qualifications, no title, and no credibility whatsoever.” And of course, it's hard to ignore the poor soul trapped under the table, who I can't imagine fulfilling the Hippocratic Oath.
That means like Papers, please, Prescribe and pray uses black humor and the mundane to draw attention to the ills of the world around us. Problematic institutions exist all over the world, and they usually don't just consist of anti-social maniacs: any system, good or bad, needs a “little guy” to make it work. Even if you think that the systems under criticism are not actually faulted, it can still be useful to examine hypotheticals in which the potential problems of any institution are turned up to eleven. That's exactly it Papers, please achieves; maybe Prescribe and pray will do the same.
