Hi! I'm about to give what I hope to be detailed, constructive feedback. My hope is not to come off as demeaning or diminutive, but rather hopeful for a project that, I feel, could be something really really good. There's a lotttt of potential here, so let me start off with the positives:
* The atmosphere and vibe of this game is unmatched. It has the confined claustrophobia of a game like Presentable Liberty (which takes place entirely in one room), and I absolutely love that game. In Balikbayan Box, I felt isolated and cold, taking in and putting out orders like a machine. Excellent work there.
* The gameplay loop is definitely a good foundation. Inspired directly by Papers, Please, it sees the player checking through the titular balikbayan boxes, accepting and denying them based on both permanent bans and temporary bans that change every day. I will give more comments on this later on, but my main point here is that it's a good foundation for something interesting.
* The sound design is crunchy, mechanical, hostile and just perfectly off-putting.
* All-in-all, if there's anything I can give your team biggest praise for: it's your ability to sell worlds. Upon the first frame of me opening this game, I was already hooked into the world. I know that tutorials and guidance is probably going to be your most requested feature, but I implore you to do this diegetically and in a way that doesn't break immersion, because it's very easy to just do a tooltip and call it a day. The lack of opening or intermediary sequences gives this game a sharp, immersion-building edge, so please don't lose that for the sake of accessibility.
Now for some hopefully constructive feedback:
* This game is a chore simulator. Perhaps it's on me for expecting something similar to Papers, Please given the immediate and clear inspiration, but if you were looking to create something akin to the Papers, Please experience, I feel that it would be best to take some more inspiration.
Despite PP's inherently repetitive nature, it avoids the feeling of a chore simulator by resting its difficulty in the thoroughness required to sort through the papers. What I mean to say is: it actually takes time and mental effort to look through the papers and check for discrepancies. The thing with Balikbayan Box is that this mental effort is but entirely absent. I just have to put all of the items in the box while looking at the bottom of the screen, and if there's any item that was on the list, I click "deny". Otherwise, I click "accept". All of the drudgery of pressing the numbers; opening, trashing, unsealing, and resealing the boxes; and delivering the boxes all make this game feel more involved than it actually is. The number of steps that it takes to complete an individual task makes it seem as complex as PP's system, but it really isn't. All of the other steps are just there for padding. Balikbayan Box thus takes the foundation of PP without the parts of PP that actually make that game interesting for a sustained period of time.
Of course, I should also give suggestions on how you can go about this. If you want your game to be more menial, with the intent/message of isolation and routine, something that gets you into the zone while you listen to music or podcasts, then I suggest reworking some parts to be at least more involved. Just as an example: maybe make it so that when you're cutting the box open, you actually have to drag your mouse down or something (think: House Flipper).
On the other hand, if you want your game to be have a more interesting gameplay loop that can require more mental effort, make it so that each item can be inspected individually, and have it so that some items can hide contraband inside of them. So, even if a camera isn't banned, it might have drugs inside of it. You feel what I'm saying?
Anyway, I hope y'all take this comment in good faith. I love what you've done here, and I think you guys have something great going. Congrats on participating, congrats on being the only 3D submission, and I wish you all the best.