Corponation: The Sorting Process Review (PC)

I love dystopian narratives, be it comedic interpretations of spin doctrine found in Not for Broadcast or the harsh realities of immigration in a war-torn nation ala Papers, Please. They often tug on my heartstrings and my tummy, utilizing a slow burn method of storytelling to turn a small concern into a tummy ache of concerns and anxiety. In these cases, the feelings are real despite the games being fictional only because I, as a player, can empathize with things happening. Or, perhaps, I can look through the game’s façade of attempting to instill corporate values and identify that those corporate values are illusions of grandeur and safety.

When I first came across Corponation: The Sorting Process, I felt a sense of familiarity with its designs and story. It had a simple premise as a core gameplay loop: sort cards, do work; it had a dystopian thematic just like Papers, Please. Except this game was clad in royal blue, hints of yellow, the occasional red, and a raccoon mascot.

What does it mean when a game carries a similar vibe to a pre-existing (read: older) game? Does it mean the new game is a love letter to a great title of gaming days of yore? Or, does it mean that the game in question is straight up copying its predecessor? I consider asking questions such as these to be valid inquiries into games’ uniqueness and their contributions to the gaming space.

That said, Corponation: The Sorting Process’ closest comparison is that of Papers, Please. Throughout this review, I’ll be making some comparisons to Lucas Pope’s 2013 indie classic to illustrate the kinds of things you should expect if you choose to sell your soul to Corponation’s RingoCorp. My comparisons and critiques will avoid treading into a territory where Corponation is dinged for not striking the same levels of depth and narrative power of Papers, Please. Do know that in some respects, Corponation falls short on that depth.

I digress. Let’s talk about Corponation.

I began playing Corponation at the start of February. Its dreary pixel art and dystopian premise was alluring, just like Papers, Please. The droning of the Ringo-approved chiptunes and cartoonish portraits of Ringo the Racoon filled my screen. I was Max, a young lab technician of the Ringo Corponation, a corporate entity that literally functions as a nation state. My job was to sort genetic cards during the day, avoiding incorrect placements to ensure that I served the best interests of the Ringo Corponation.

The sorting process felt similar to Papers, Please. At first, sorting was simple: just drag and drop cards to their respective tubes. Boom. In later weeks, I would be given additional tasks, such as splicing the cards, mixing them, and discarding cards that are expired. Each day gave me a unique task, so I wasn’t doing the same thing two days in a row. It got complicated later on thanks to multiple metrics that are used to gauge a card’s validity. I enjoyed the challenge curve, and I’m sure folks who’re down for simple gameplay with multiple rules would enjoy the curve, too.

Corponation: The Sorting Process felt dreary by design. My corporate-approved routine involved me sorting during the days, often being told to change up my sorting routine to meet my manager’s wishes and wants. At night, I was sent back to my windowless pod to play state-approved video games: a fighting game and a solitaire game. I was expected to pay my bills on-time, take state-sponsored surveys for credits (so long as I answered the questions in an “approved” fashion), and occasionally invest in the economy by purchasing items to decorate my pod. Simple stuff. Work, buy, play, sleep, repeat. Don’t question anything, just work hard.

Work hard.

Work hard.

Work hard.

I was reminded to work hard often, be it from my manager who occasionally chided me for making mistakes, the Ringo mascot in my employee computer who also penalized me for asking too many questions, and my faceless co-workers who would occasionally messaged me in the evenings after my shifts. It was Corponation’s version of Aloha – it was used as a greeting, a mantra, and a goodbye.

That’s the gist of Corponation, folks. It’s monotonous. It’s dreary. It puts the player into a position where “work” is manifested in the form of play. Some players will bristle at this notion, since gaming acts as an outlet for escapism for players wanting a good distraction from the doldrums of day-to-day life. Who wants to play a game about work?

Well, like Papers, Please, the gameplay loop of Corponation takes a back seat to the environmental storytelling of a future where a corporation had taken over a nation state and ultimately put its citizens to work in a reality where questions are not meant to be asked.  Unlike Papers, Please, this game doesn’t properly pull on the emotional heartstrings that emerge when attempting to make decisions about other players’ lives.

Instead, the story that Corponation attempts to tell is one of a corporate body that has all-but succeeded in hoodwinking a mindless populace of workers into believing that they’ve been a part of the greatest corporate nation on earth for 100+ years, offering thanks to their managers by buying them gifts and recycling their unneeded belongings to encourage a cycle of consumption that would make most capitalists squeal with delight.

Shortly into the game, the Synthesis dissidents emerged as the opposing force to Ringo Corponation, beckoning to me as a source of additional income (as Ringo paid me the bare minimum even when I had a perfect week of sorting genome cards). I could sabotage my sorting at Synthesis’ request in exchange for additional money and the potential hope of an uprising. At the same time, I could ignore the appeal of Synthesis, reporting my colleagues if they ever-so-slightly leaned controversial when we talked about our lives in our little pods.

The environmental storytelling that accompanied these tensions ended up being just as bleak as Ringo Corponation. Since I chose to assist Synthesis, I had access to a little pager that housed a secret forum of other disgruntled employees who hoped Synthesis could resolve the monotony of the corporate lifestyle.

You would think that by slowly allying with Synthesis, or even pushing them away, the decisions I would be making would hold some weight in-game. For instance, the folks whom I gifted money to so they could pay their bills took that money, and Synthesis didn’t react to my choices. Ringo didn’t really react, either. I kept assuming that whatever I was doing in-game would end up impacting my future decisions in a meaningful way, but it hardly came to fruition.

A similar set of choices and situations emerged when I played Not for Broadcast. I was given a wealth of options about who to “side with”; the options I ignored ended up emerging later in the story as a reminder of my negligence. My choices, or lack thereof, ended up impacting the outcome of the game I was playing. In Corponation, I lacked the tensions and impacts of the decisions I made. Instead, I was simply punished for not sorting cards well enough and/or playing enough of the state-approved minigames.

If you’re reading this and feeling concerned about the meatiness of Corponation, your concerns about the game feeling hollow are valid. Heck, I realized eight hours in that I was spending more time playing its minigames than actually progressing the story. It wasn’t because I found the simple minigames to be more appealing than the actual story, but because I lacked a connection to the biggest part of Corponation’s story.

I’m not disappointed with Corponation: The Sorting Process for not living up to Papers, Please’s legacy. Nor am I disappointed with the game in attempting to tell a dystopian narrative akin to Not for Broadcast’s ridiculous tale. Dystopian perspectives are worth including in the gaming space. However, the payoff I was hoping that Corponation would deliver ended up feeling watered down.

Corponation: The Sorting Process is an interesting, albeit well-designed simulation involving simple gameplay and a handful of minigames to break up the monotony of the corporate nonsense lifestyle. While it didn’t peak in terms of pulling on my heartstrings or senses of dread that usually accompany dystopian narratives, it sufficed in keeping me enticed with its gameplay.