Permaban

A Papers Please-style forum moderation sim set in the Wild West of 2007 internet. Ban trolls, cite rules, survive your desktop.

Enforce the rules. Cite the violation. Survive the forum.

It's 2007. You're a volunteer forum moderator with a dial-up connection, a copy of Winump, and a mountain of unmoderated posts. Your job: review posts, ban trolls, warn gray areas, and cite the exact rule they violated — all before the thread spirals into a flame war.

Inspired by Papers, Please, Permaban turns internet forum moderation into a high-pressure bureaucratic puzzle.

Every ban requires citing the correct rule from a rulebook that grows, contradicts itself, and changes each wave. Cite wrong three times and you're on probation. Let a thread go unmoderated and it melts down. Ban a beloved forum Donor without cause and the admin is in your inbox.

Meanwhile, your Microshaft Winblows XD desktop fights against you: NSM Messenger popups, popup ads, server 500 errors, dial-up lag, and the occasional virus. Clippy watches your mental state deteriorate.

Six waves. Eighteen rules. Nine moderation tools. One burnout meter. Zero pay.

What makes it tick

🔨 Citation system — Every ban needs the right rule. Partial credit for close calls. Three wrong citations = probation.

📖 Escalating rulebook — Rules stack, contradict, and change each wave. Wave 4 introduces a "warn first" policy and a "ban raiders on sight" rule. Both are active. Good luck.

🔥 Evolving threads — Ignore a thread and it heats up from passive-aggressive sarcasm to full meltdown. Intervene early or deal with chain events.

👥 User trust — Donors, Veterans, Known Trolls. Banning a Donor without the right citation is expensive. Letting a Known Troll slide is worse.

🤖 Trainable Spam AI — Starts at 50% accuracy. A "90% confidence" flag from a 50% accurate AI means nothing. Train it by catching real spam.

💀 Burnout meter — Click too fast and your accuracy tanks. Above 80% burnout, there's a 15% chance every action is a random misclick.

🕵️ Ban evaders & sockpuppets — Investigate suspicious accounts. Check IP subnets. Find the shill products. Get bonus points for doing it right.

🔗 Link Scanner — Scan suspicious URLs before you act. The scanner is 90% accurate; let three viruses slip through and the forum melts down.

📉 Hidden forum health — A shadow variable tracks your moderation quality. Overban and the forum goes quiet. Undermoderate and raids spike. You never see the number, only the consequences.

💬 Meta drama — Users post about you. "Mods are biased." "Why was X banned?" These posts have real mechanical effects on your rep and the forum.

🖥️ Full desktop simulation — Draggable IE6 windows, Winump with an FFT visualizer, NSM Messenger popups, popup ads, a CRT scanline filter, and a BSOD game over screen.

[screenshot desktop]

Content

• 550+ handwritten forum posts across 8 types

• 10 recurring character archetypes and a 5-phase villain arc

• 4 forum skins (phpBB, vBulletin, IncisionFree, SlowBoards)

• 24 achievements

• 6 synth music tracks + 60+ synthesized sound effects

• 40+ popup ads, 30+ phone calls, 120+ NSM messages across 25+ contacts

• Endless mode with escalating difficulty tiers

Controls

• 1–9 — Moderation tools (ban, warn, skip, investigate, censor, thread lock, IP ban, nuke, scan link)

• R — Toggle Rule Book

• L — Toggle Log Book

• P — Answer phone

• Esc — Pause / Cancel

How to play

Open the game and double-click the IE icon to open the forum. Start your wave. Review posts under time pressure, cite the right rules, and meet your objectives before the timer runs out. Each wave promotes you and unlocks new tools, but adds new rules and more chaos. Between waves, spend points in the shop, read your inbox, and deal with mod chat drama.