Death and Taxes (video game)

Death and Taxes is a simulation video game by Leene Künnap, an Estonian indie game developer, and published through their company, Placeholder Gameworks on February 20, 2020. The game has the player take the role of a Grim Reaper, who must bureaucratically decide the fates of humans, specifically whether they will live or die. The game shares its ideology with the death-positive movement.[1] On March 18, 2020, Placeholder Gameworks uploaded the game code under the MIT License on GitHub.[2]

Death and Taxes
Developer(s)Placeholder Gameworks
Publisher(s)Placeholder Gameworks
EngineUnity
Platform(s)
Release
  • February 20, 2020
  • September 10, 2020 (Nintendo Switch)
Genre(s)Puzzle, simulation
Mode(s)Single-player

Gameplay

The gameplay of Death and Taxes focuses on the work life of a Grim Reaper on an office job. The main objective of the player is to make difficult decisions to determine who could be saved from death and who is destined for certain doom, while keeping the game's fictional world in balance. Each human the player decides the fate of is given a short description about who they are; based on this, certain people living or dying can affect the world in various ways; the outcome of the game depends on the player's decisions.[3][4][5][6] The player is given instructions on how they are supposed to make these decisions by their overseer, Fate, but the player may choose to ignore these instructions.[3][7] Players can also customize their workspace and appearance with the money they earn.[8] The game attempts to help people relate more easily to themes of death, to see them in a new perspective and to offer the player a chance for self-reflection.[1]

Reception

Critical reception

Death and Taxes was met with positive reception. Alice Bell of Rock Paper Shotgun called it "very funny" and praised the "really fun story running through [it]."[3] Courtney Ehrenhofler of TechRaptor reviewed it as "a short, fun game with plenty of replay value."[7] Many positive comparisons were drawn between the game and Lucas Pope's Papers, Please,[9][8][4] which served as an inspiration for Death and Taxes.[6]

Awards

Death and Taxes won the third place at the 2018 Game Camps Kotka competition.[10]

References
  1. Paprocki, Matt (2020-03-09). "'Death And Taxes' Puts The Grim Reaper In A Cubicle". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-08-29.
  2. Dawe, Liam (19 March 2020). "Death and Taxes goes open source after selling 'pretty well' to help others". GamingOnLinux. Archived from the original on 19 March 2020. Retrieved 6 December 2020.
  3. Bell, Alice (2020-08-20). "Have You Played… Death And Taxes?". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Retrieved 2020-08-29.
  4. Sykes, Tom (2020-01-20). "Death is a matter of paperwork in the free demo for Death and Taxes". PC Gamer. Retrieved 2020-08-29.
  5. Couture, Joel (2020-02-20). "'Death and Taxes' Puts You to Work Deciding Who Lives or Dies". Indie Games Plus. Retrieved 2020-08-29.
  6. Stoneman, M. (2020-07-28). "[AltWire Interview] 'Death and Taxes' // Placeholder Gameworks Development Team". AltWire. Retrieved 2020-08-30.
  7. Ehrenhofler, Courtney (28 February 2020). "Death and Taxes Review". TechRaptor. Retrieved 2020-08-29.
  8. "Death and Taxes is coming to the Nintendo Switch eShop very soon". Explica. 2020-08-29. Retrieved 2020-08-29.
  9. Bell, Alice (2020-03-19). "Death And Taxes lets you not think about the value of life". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Retrieved 2020-08-29.
  10. "Game Camp Kotka - Hackathon for Game Business in Rankki island". Cursor Oy. September 10, 2018.
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