Developer: Placeholder Gameworks
Publisher: Placeholder Gameworks
Rrp: £7.14 (Steam), £10.99 (Gog.com) and $12.99 (itch.io)
Released: 20th February 2020
Available on: Steam, Itch.io and Gog.com
Played Using: A Mouse
Approximate game length: 5 Hours
Imagine if you had the power of life and death in your hands. You and you alone get to choose when someone lives or dies, what a responsibility... of course you have no say on how they die, or what they do with their lives once you spare them. You also have absolutely no clue as to what the consequences that such a choice will be. Now imagine that all the information you have to go on for each person is a small set of paragraphs along with some basic information like their name, and age. Are you sure you'd pick correctly? If such a thing exists.
Death and Taxes is a short narrative based game where you play as the Grim Reaper, or more specifically Spawn 21. Your job is to decide who gets to live or die from the portfolios presented to you at your desk, yep that's right Death is a desk jockey. Along with those portfolios you also are given a letter with instructions, usually telling you how many should die etc.
Once your done consigning people to their fate you send the now filled out portfolios away and wait to hear about what your choices have done.
It should be noted that you don't actually have to follow the instructions you're given, but your decisions do have consequences.
You get paid each day, unless you disobey the instructions you're given for the day, in which case you get nothing. However that disobedience must may be what tips the balance of the world one way or another.
Discovering how your choices have affected the world is primarily though a phone on your desk where you can check the afterlife version of Twitter. Depending on the various outcome you can unlock any one of (apparently) thirty endings.
So what do you do with all that money you've been accruing? You don't pay rent, nor do you require food or water, you also don't have any dependants you have to cover. Well it turns out that at the bottom of the tower where you work (and live) is a shop run by a pirate skeleton called Mortimer. The items that Mortimer has for sale fall under three categories; cosmetic, useful items and 'widgets' (which are strange items that provide no bonuses but are just fun). I had a great time buying all of the items he had for sale because each item comes with a story attached on how Mortimer procured it.
I have no qualms in recommending this game to everyone, its such a great little game with a very basic set of mechanics (at least on the user side). I implore you to give this a go, or two, or ten and see what endings you can get.
If this appeals to you perhaps try;
Not Tonight
Headliner
Do Not Feed the Monkys
