Permaban

Permaban is a forum moderation game set in 2007, in which the player is an unpaid moderator on a declining internet forum. It draws inspiration from Papers, Please and centres on interpreting rules, making judgement calls, and handling users who disagree with those decisions. Posts include requests for leaked files, rule complaints, and suspected spam accounts that may be real people.

Players can ban, warn, censor, investigate, scan a link, lock a thread, IP ban, nuke, or take no action. Any ban, warning or IP ban requires a rule citation, and each tool carries its own cost. Moderating too strictly causes regular members to stop posting, while moderating too leniently lets raids, scams and flame wars take over. Campaign shifts have no timer, so the queue waits for the player’s decision. Between shifts, players answer ban appeals using only the original post as evidence, visit a break room where other moderators ask for favours and remember the replies, and deal with admins rewriting the rules. Poor performance in a shift draws the attention of the admins. The game also includes ban evaders, sockpuppets, contradictory moderation policies and a spam filter with limited accuracy.

The forum is one part of a functioning 2007-style desktop that boots with a startup sequence and includes a browser, media player, paint program, file explorer and calculator. Most of these are optional and contain hidden content, including three playable games, one of which becomes central to the story on a particular night. The game contains over 700 handmade forum posts, 28 achievements, several board themes based on classic forums, a player-queued soundtrack, retro desktop sounds, and an endless mode with escalating chaos and a break every twenty posts or six minutes. Campaign progress auto-saves between shifts. A campaign lasts roughly 40 to 80 minutes. The game is entirely in English, written in the slang and typos of 2007 forums, and its posts include harassment, threats and cruelty.