The Westport Independent
Skip · Strategy · 2016
The verdict
SKIP IT.
The reviews do not carry it. What it costs you is time.
- Length
- 1.2h 1.9h to 100%
- Price
- Free to play
- Reviews
- 77% of 349 positive
What drives the score
How to read this
Grades run S to D, read from the buyer's side. ▲ marks a lift, ▼ a drag or a dock, ? an input we do not have, • a fact this genre's score does not use. How the grades work
About the game
The Westport Independent is a censorship simulator taking place in a post-war country, governed by the recently elected Loyalist Party. As the editor of one of the last independent newspapers in the country, your job is to remove and edit the content of your paper, affecting the people’s opinion of both the rebels and the Loyalist...
Minimum specs
Minimum on the Steam store: 1 GB of memory, Open GL 2.0, 102 MB of storage. Runs on Windows, macOS, Linux.
The value story
Against its own genre it lands in the top 28 percent on value. It is better reviewed than 63 percent of its genre. Among the games that feel like it, JudgeSim ($6.99, scores 63) beats it on value, while it beats The Fermi Paradox ($18.99, scores 36).
1 players were online in it when we last checked, on Oct 6, 03:54 UTC.
More about The Westport Independent
63 from critics against 77 percent from players, and the player number comes from people who own the game.
The drop-off
45% start to 4% rarestNo achievement in this game marks the ending, so there is no finish rate. The curve runs from the most-unlocked achievement to the rarest, and its shape is where players stop. Steam global achievements
Players
- Players online
- 1 when we last checked, on Oct 6, 03:54 UTC
Player counts from the Steam Web API.
What players say
This game, while short, is very well made. It takes inspiration from Papers, Please! but make a good job at showing that its gameplay is different. I liked the storytelling aspect through the employees' talks and i wished it was longer then 12 weeks.
2 more reviews
What does a game built on dystopia, political simulation and choice-driven design feel like? Purposeful. Consequential. Cautious. Oppressive. Pessimistic. A constant dance between taking risks and missing opportunities, hoping for the best while bracing for the worst - even when you choose to resist authoritarian violence and injustice. The Westport Independent thrives on tension. You manage a newspaper caught...
In this game, you are a newspaper editor and must choose articles for the paper during 12 turns (weeks). Since the government is totalitarian and controls the press, you must balance the needs of your reporters (comfort with the article being written, government's suspicion) with the newspaper's needs (popularity in different districts, government's suspicion, editorial bias). To balance these needs, you can edit...
Steam reviews, mixed to its ratio and rotated daily. Opinions are theirs.
Cite this score
The Westport Independent scores 41/100 on the BANG Score (a skip) as of Oct 19, 2026. The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/352240/the-westport-independentReviews set the ceiling, and the size of the player base moves the BANG Score inside it. How it works, and where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Sep 29. A number here look wrong? Tell me and I will check the inputs.