When comparing SpaceChem vs Papers Please, the Slant community recommends Papers Please for most people. In the question“What are the best Puzzle games on Steam?” Papers Please is ranked 3rd while SpaceChem is ranked 10th. The most important reason people chose Papers Please is:
Papers Please has a unique puzzle solving element. Instead of using mathematical logic, or quick matching thinking, the puzzles in Papers Please involve checking people's background information to make sure everything matches the immigration requirements and following clues to find anything amiss.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Could help with real life programming skills
In particular, abstraction and concurrent programming skills could be gleaned from the game as it uses broad techniques often used by computer programmers.
Pro Easy to learn, hard to master puzzle
Spacechem's mechanics are pretty simple to learn and only takes minutes to understand how the game works. Of course mastering the gameplay is a whole different matter.
Pro Allows for short or long play sessions
The gameplay allows for a player to come in and solve a single puzzle in a short amount of time or to sit and tinker with a puzzle for hours trying to devise the perfect solution and contraption. It all comes down to what one want to put into the game but the free form of the puzzle solving is what makes it great for anyones playstyle be it short or long.
Pro Light on the system
The system requirements are quite low at only requiring a 2Ghz processor, 1G of ram and 300MB of hard drive space. Basically this game should work on just about any computer from the last 10-15 years.
Pro Endless gameplay through user created solutions
An individual players choices of components, arrangements or factories used will result in completely different experiences and problems/puzzles when compared to another users experience. A truly individualized experience that expands the games replayability.
Pro Unique puzzle solving through clue based deduction
Papers Please has a unique puzzle solving element. Instead of using mathematical logic, or quick matching thinking, the puzzles in Papers Please involve checking people's background information to make sure everything matches the immigration requirements and following clues to find anything amiss.
Pro Will require making ridiculously hard decisions
There is a fine line to walk while playing, whether it is worth following the rules and ruining lives or bending the rules at the risk of getting caught in order to help destitute people. The moral choices in the game are often difficult and require hard decisions.
Pro Endless mode
Once the main story is beaten there is an optional endless mode for those that want to see how long they can play without losing.
Cons
Con Annoying action-y 'boss' stages
At the end of each 'world', there is a boss stage in which you have to perform a unique task. This wouldn't be too bad, but in these levels, you can use blocks that you can activate in real time to change the way your program runs. This often means lots of manual work and a lot of padding to hit the buttons at the right time, which is unnecessary for a puzzle game (and, given that you cannot rewind, also stressful if your program is very tight). I would imagine that the best scores for these levels also overly abuse this feature to make solutions that would be almost impossible without use of macros, for instance.
Con Late game is difficult
In later levels some players may reach a point where the game has become too difficult or frustrating, which may discourage any more play time with the game.
Con Simplistic gameplay mechanic
The gameplay itself, once the player gets a grasp of it can get repetitive pretty quick due to there really being not much deviation from a singular gameplay mechanic.