Checkpoint '38

Checkpoint ’38 is a historical roguelike narrative simulation inspired by Papers, Please and Beholder. You play as Franz Weber, a German border guard stationed at the Nazi–Swiss border in 1938, deciding who may cross as persecution intensifies.

Your job at the border

Every cycle follows a tense routine:

• Inspect passports, visas, and permits
• Detect forged papers and missing stamps
• Approve, deny, or detain travelers
• Follow orders or quietly break them
• Return home and face the consequences of your choices

Random travelers arrive with desperate stories and suspicious documents. Some are innocent refugees. Others may be informants, criminals, or desperate people willing to risk everything.

You must spot discrepancies, follow Herr Kommissar’s growing list of restrictions, or quietly bend the rules to help the innocent.

Life beyond the checkpoint

After hours, you witness Germany’s moral decay during your commute and at home. Newspapers carry the regime’s messaging, propaganda posters line the streets, and conversations with your family reveal how ideology seeps into everyday life.

Your son joins the Hitler Youth. Your daughter begins asking questions you cannot safely answer.

Survive the system

Every cycle brings new laws, tighter audits, and greater risk. Obedience keeps you alive. Resistance could save others.

With randomized encounters, evolving restrictions, and multiple endings, Checkpoint ’38 turns history’s darkest bureaucracy into a roguelike test of conscience.