Lucas Pope is an American video game designer. He is best known for experimental indie games, notably Papers, Please and Return of the Obra Dinn, both of which won the Seumas McNally Grand Prize alongside other awards.
Pope in 2019
Pope at the 2014 Game Developers Conference
Papers, Please is a puzzle simulation video game created by indie game developer Lucas Pope, developed and published through his production company, 3909 LLC. The game was released on August 8, 2013, for Microsoft Windows and OS X, for Linux on February 12, 2014, and for iOS on December 12, 2014. A port for the PlayStation Vita was announced in August 2014 and was then released on December 12, 2017. A new port for iOS as well as for Android was released in August 2022.
The player's immigration checkpoint workstation shows the current arrival (left center), the various paperwork the player is currently processing (bottom right), and the current state of the checkpoint (top third). A body scan of the arrival reveals a concealed firearm.
Lucas Pope accepting an award for the game at the 2014 Game Developers Conference