PAPERHEAD Walkthrough — From Opening to a Stable Run

There is no published PAPERHEAD walkthrough, because the Steam store page does not list chapters, levels or a mission order. What it does document is the shape of the progression and the tools you gain along the way, and that is enough to lay out the order of play honestly: start by learning to move, then learn the pencil, then learn to fight with both.

Stage One: Learn the Space

The store page sets the opening scene in one line: a cute cardboard world where something went horribly wrong, and an abandoned research facility to explore. It does not name the first area or describe a prologue, so the first stage of any honest walkthrough is simply learning what the space allows.

Movement comes first because three of the four documented combat options are physical. You toss enemies, you kick barrels and you jump on heads. All three require you to be in the right place at the right time, so the earliest useful progress is understanding how far you can jump, how fast you accelerate and where the vertical routes are.

• Establish what you can climb, drop from and cross.
• Test whether walls accept a drawn door before treating them as solid.
• Learn the reach of a kick by using barrels rather than enemies.
• Get used to fighting while moving instead of stopping to aim.

Stage Two: Add the Pencil

The pencil is the second layer, and the store page gives it its own heading. It is described as not only your weapon but a tool to change the world around you, with three listed uses: sketch bombs to kick at enemies, draw doors to kick down, and write words on walls.

The order matters here. Drawing doors changes where you can go, so learning it before you need it is better than discovering it at a barrier. Sketching bombs gives you a throwable you can kick, which extends your reach into a group without spending a shotgun shell.

Stage Three: Fight With Everything

The store page's combat section is the point at which the walkthrough becomes situational rather than sequential. It lists two routes and treats both as valid: toss enemies into the air, kick exploding barrels at them and jump on their heads, or simply blast them to smithereens with a shotgun.

Stage	Focus	Documented tools
One	Learn the space and how you move	Boots, jumping, the environment
Two	Learn the pencil as a tool	Draw doors, sketch bombs
Three	Combine physical and gun combat	Tosses, barrel kicks, head jumps, shotgun
Four	Push deeper into the facility	The same kit against harder encounters

Because there is no published difficulty curve, no documented enemy list and no stated level count, the transition between stage three and stage four is where a sourced walkthrough stops and a guess would begin. The store page simply says the goal is to uncover the dark truth behind the question of why cardboard bleeds.

Reaching a Stable State

A stable state in PAPERHEAD means you are comfortable with the loop rather than finished with the game. That state is: you move without thinking about it, you check for a drawable route before backtracking, and you look for a barrel before you look for ammo. Every one of those habits follows from the store page's own description of combat and the pencil.

What Is Not Documented

A walkthrough would normally cover level names, boss fights, collectibles, puzzle solutions and ending conditions. None of those are published for PAPERHEAD: the store page does not name a single level, boss, collectible or ending. Anything beyond the three stages above would be invented, so it is left out rather than filled in.

For the systems behind those stages, see PAPERHEAD gameplay and PAPERHEAD weapons. For the habits that go with them, see PAPERHEAD tips.