while he had been able to come up with the mechanics of the passport checking, pope lacked a story to drive the game. he was then inspired by films like "argo" and the "bourne" series, which feature characters attempting to infiltrate into or out of other countries with subterfuge. pope saw the opportunity to reverse those scenarios, putting the player as the role of the immigration officer as to stop these types of agents, matching up with his existing gameplay mechanics. he crafted the fictional nation of arstotzka, fashioned as a totalitarian, 1982 eastern bloc state, with the player guided to uphold the glory of this country by rigorously checking passports and defeating those that might infiltrate it. arstotzka was partially derived from the setting of pope's earlier game "the republia times", where the player acts as editor-in-chief of a newspaper in a totalitarian state and must decide on which stories to include or falsify to uphold the interests of the state. pope also based aspects of the border crossing for arstotzka and its neighbors on the berlin wall and issues between east and west germany, stating he was "naturally attracted to orwellian communist bureaucracy". he made sure to avoid including any specific references to these inspirations, such as avoiding the word "comrade" in both the english and translated versions, as it would directly allude to a soviet russia implication. using a fictional country gave pope more freedom in the narrative, not having to base events in the game on any real-world politics and avoiding preconceived assumptions.