Wanted: Security guard. Must be thorough, observant, and morally flexible. Must be loyal but discreet, and not ask too many questions of management. Promotion opportunities available. Welcome to Security 51.
Security 51 is a point-and-click security guard simulator taking more than a little inspiration from the popular Papers, Please, while combining psychological horror elements from the SCP Foundation and John Carpenter’s The Thing. Set in a fictional Area 51, you are a security guard who must monitor the comings and goings from the military facility.
Flexible Working Hours
Mostly presented from a first-person perspective behind your desk, the tasks start easily: you compare documents and allow or deny entry. However, as each day progresses, more and more checks are put in place. Again, it starts easy with full-body scans, but eventually you’ll have to draw blood, X-ray skeletons, or even use a special camera to photograph anomalies.
Entry protocols change daily. While the basic document check always remains the same, what was acceptable for entry one day may be cause to call security the next. Exceptions may also bypass all the rules, so checking each requirement carefully is important and adds variety to each day.
Bonus Hazard Pay
Each day passes in real time, so managing your time effectively is key. Does a particular test take longer to give results? Maybe start that first and do another in the meantime. If the exception rule is easy to check, do that first to see if they automatically get entry.
You control the lift to the facility, so when it fills up, you send it down, and it returns with people leaving. You must use the lift’s camera and its spectrometer to identify intruders and choose to eliminate or isolate them. Isolating intruders puts them into a test chamber, which leads into the next gameplay element.
Extracurricular Activities
The world above is facing a paranormal crisis, and it’s up to you to help save the world. I mean, it’s a bit above the pay grade of a security guard, but don’t worry about that.
Security 51’s first threat is an unknown biological threat that will reach the nuclear option within days. To counter it, you must research possible solutions. This is a choice between three experimental but extreme scenarios, like using alien technology or mutating a particular type of fungus. Research can be done via planned excursions into the world or by conducting tests on your isolated “volunteers.”
Progress toward a solution is shown with a progress bar, with the threat filling up and the solution counteracting it. While this was a simple but effective way to visualise the threat, it didn’t immediately make clear that I should focus on only one solution at a time. My first few playthroughs ended in failure as I never made enough progress. I thought I had to complete all three, so I tried to maintain a balance while the threat grew exponentially with each passing day.
Solving the crisis isn’t the end, though, because the solution you manufacture becomes the next crisis to solve. Using alien technology has put you on their radar, or the fungus has mutated and created mushroom zombies, for example! So the cycle begins again, but hey, you get upgraded (or is that downgraded?) to the next checkpoint down, where more responsibilities are thrust upon you.
On-Site Catering
You must also manage your own well-being, as you have a hunger and sanity meter to manage. While hunger goes down at a constant rate between days, your sanity can be affected by many things. Sanity serves as currency to launch missions above ground. Incorrect decisions during your shift can deplete it, and you can even recover it with a perfect check.
Each day, you are scored on your performance and receive pay with bonuses and fines. You use this money to buy equipment upgrades or consumables that recharge hunger and sanity. Reduce either to zero, and it’s an instant game over.
But game overs are not the end either. Security 51 has the “Shift Branch,” where you can rewind to any particular day to restart from there, but with the bonus of keeping your upgrades and money. This lets you try something new or get through a particularly tough day with enhanced equipment. I really liked this feature, as it never felt like I lost hours of progress and gave the game a sort of roguelite feel.
Scenic Vistas
The pixel art that Security 51 is presented with is a work of beauty. The animations are buttery smooth, and there are enough variations in the employees and the scan layers that, outside of scripted NPCs, there is rarely any duplication. Each morning starts with a quirky, humorous animation of your guy procrastinating, which I’ve not seen repeated yet. Along with the various anomalies, the ever-changing newspaper on your desk, and the states the outside world can get into, it was always a joy visually.
The music was equally pleasing. A suspenseful, industrial, atmospheric synth tone builds paranoia, and it feels designed to match the game’s eerie underground bunker setting. There is no voice acting, though, with speech supplemented by gibberish for each character.
While playing, I kept being reminded of ForwardXP’s Please, Don’t Touch Anything, a totally different game but with strikingly similar themes. While I couldn’t find any developmental link between the two titles, there is definitely inspiration taken. The pixel animations and eerie tone suggest these two could be set in the same universe.
Clocking Out
I am thoroughly enjoying my time with Security 51, and although I have completed one run, I am going back to explore alternate paths and see different outcomes. In fact, the game actively encourages it with a post-game mechanic, which I won’t spoil. As of writing, the developers have added an endless mode, so post-release support is underway, which is a massive plus. Security 51 has successfully evolved and perfected the Papers, Please formula, and it wholeheartedly earns my approval.
Developer: Alawar
Publisher: Alawar
Platforms: PC
Key Provided by: PressEngine
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