Death and Taxes Review (Nintendo Switch)

Review code used, with many thanks to Pineapple Works

Death and Taxes is a narrative based indie title that was originally released on Steam in February 2020. Now it’s the Nintendo Switch’s turn to host the Grim Reaper!

An Office Job

In this narrative-based, point and click game, you take on the role of the Grim Reaper….on an office job! Spread over 28 game-days which lasts about 2-3 real-world hours, you’ll deliver life and death to numerous humans by picking them from case files. You’ll also get special instructions from your boss. And each day you will see the consequences of your choices through your mobile phone news feed.

Death and Taxes LadiesGamers — What’s Fate cooking up?

After the opening cut scene, you awaken into the world to be told that you are spawn number 96. And you are there to start work as the Grim Reaper. Fate is your boss and it is by your hand that he dictates who shall live or die. Great, no big pressure then, it’s only a matter of life and death!

Fate immediately orders you to get to work. Death waits for no man it seems, not even the grim reaper and it’s time to get cracking at your new job. You are shown what to do for the first few steps of the game, and you get an introduction to the finer points of dealing death.

Say Hello To Death

As each new day begins, a new batch of human case files finds its way to your desk and your bony hands. Instructions will also appear from Fate, complete with requirements regarding how many humans need to go. The quota for the day’s demises from Fate includes things like age and occupation.

One day you need to kill a mere two people, while on the next you’ll need to kill six people, two of whom have a law background, and another two must be under the age of 30. Tough job being the Grim Reaper with so many decisions to make.

You can, of course, ignore some of Fates instructions but you will lose some pay for that day’s work. Once your decision on who dies that day is made and marked on their file, the fax machine on the desk takes care of the files and you report back to Fate.

The game revolves around only a handful of main characters. There’s you, the Reaper, your somewhat snooty boss Fate, his cat Lady Pawdington, a cheerful pirate skeleton shopkeeper Mortimer, and your inner voice of doubt that you often talk to when looking in the mirror.

Who Shall Meet The Reaper

The people whose files you mark you don’t get to meet. However, the majority of them have something interesting going for them, based simply on their profile, and many of them do have an effect on the human world which you do not get to see directly.

Death and Taxes takes place entirely within the one building. You’ll work, sleep, and shop there. There is only one shop, which sells various items, run by shopkeeper Mortimer.

Some of the items Mortimer sells are purely for cosmetic use, such as to open up more options to customize your character’s look. Other items can be used as tools to help you when marking files. Some of those items can provide you with more information on the effects of your choices, which can be very useful, especially when replaying the game.

The choices you make during the day can have dire consequences to the world you don’t see. But you do read about the aftermath of those consequences on your mobile phone each morning. It’s a lot of fun making decisions and using the black marker to mark the little tick boxes and handout death or life to someone.

What you’re not told is each decision you make as Grim is balanced on several attributes in the world such as environmental and economics. There is a great deal of choice and consequence in Death and Taxes which might not have an effect on you choice right away, but it could all catch up with you later on.

Visuals and Controls

Death and Taxes is fully voiced acted during gameplay and cutscenes and there are plenty of answers to pick during the conversations with Fate. Will you be daring and go with whatever plan Fate has up his sleeve or will you become a failed Grim? There are numerous endings to the game, allowing for you to replay it quite a few times, changing your decisions as you play through the game again.

Death and Taxes features some music, mostly just a jazz-style type of background music that fits the game well, but it can get a bit repetitive after a while.

Original artwork featuring watercolour graphics are used throughout Death and Taxes giving the game a quirky feel. Along with the humour peppered throughout, this is a game that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Everything is controlled by the joy-cons and for the most part it works fine. Though I did have a slight problem with the desk and the hand pointer not moving as freely as I would have liked.

Conclusion

As Death and Taxes is quite a short game its definitely worth your while to play through the game a few times to make the most of it and its different endings. I found the game to be enjoyable and funny. On my second play through I made different choices and got a completely different ending.

While playing as the Grim Repear and dealing out death to unsuspecting humans may not be to everyones taste, Death and Taxes is a sarcastic, humorous take on a mundane office job with a twist!

Final Verdict: I Like It A Lot