Universal Paperclips
Review

Universal Paperclips (2017) is an adventure game about making paperclips. It sounds simple, but behind the incremental process of clicking a button to create these paperclips is a story about how the desire to make paperclips (or anything) if fully realised and unrestrained will take over the entire world.

You play an entity whose sole purpose is to make paperclips. It starts by clicking on a box to create a single paperclip at a time but soon develops into a mechanised process to automatically churn out ever more paperclips. As you go on, more options open up. Soon you are investing the profits in the stock market, and investing the stock market profits into computer upgrades, all for the sake of making paperclips at the cost of all else. Steadily everything else is commodified in pursuit of more paperclips.

It's as much a thought experiment as it is a game. But it succeeds at being both. It's enjoyable to play, and just as much fun to talk about.

Our examiner, Andy Robertson, first checked Universal Paperclips 3 years ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 5 months ago.