Most of the video games I’ve played were pretty good. The only one I can think of that I didn’t like was MySims Kingdom for the Nintendo DS. Dropped that pretty quickly. It was a long while ago, but I’ll guess it was because there were too many fetch quests and annoying controls.
Fwiw, it is absolutely possible to save your whole family in Papers Please. First time players aren’t necessarily expected to manage it, though, so you’re not wrong about losing family members being the intended experience. It’s definitely a game that tries to be “engaging” rather than " fun". I enjoyed it a lot back in college, but who knows how I’d feel now that I have a full-time job.