Death and Taxes

[got_quiet]

Name: Death and Taxes
Status: Complete
Site: https://placeholdergameworks.itch.io/death-and-taxes
Pairing: n/a
Description: Another Papers Please-like. Choose who lives and dies and get fancy hats as a reward.



This is another game that I suppose ends up in the VN category because it is mostly reading, and then clicking on choices. It copies its basic concept from Papers Please, and is not the first game in the bundle to do that. Just like Papers Please and Headliner, its basic game loop is that you are given an array of options and can say only yes or no to them. In this game the options are people, and your choice is whether they live or die. Depending on what you choose, the world will be affected on four separate axes. So if you kill some crooked politician you could improve the environment but cause an increase in human deaths, etc.
 

Each day you get a certain number of files, and a couple rules for how to make your decisions, including how many people to kill, along with some secondary rules like sparing all the people with a transportation background, or killing at least two people younger than 30. At the end of the day you have a chat with your boss, who will be generally satisfied with you as long as you kill the right number, and the money you get paid can go to outfit stuff and a few mechanics enhancements, like a snowglobe that will tell you the state of the world and how you're affecting it that day, or a lantern that will show you what effect your choice had for each file, but only after you made the choice. I can't tell if the secondary rules actually have any effect on the plot. One of them is literally impossible to follow, because it asks you to kill the last few files to come out of the machine, but all the files literally appear on the table at the exact same time and there is no animation of the files emerging from a machine. Maybe this was a nudge to get the player to stop listening to directions.

My problem with these games is that I just get bored doing the same thing over and over again. Read the file, make the choice, next. While you can sort of predict how things will go based on who you kill or let live, there are always unforeseen effects too, so you're never in complete control unless you're looking at the stats in a guide. There's also some added mess with a weekend bar where you can talk to some NPCs for no reason but flavor as far as I can discern, and a mirror that talks at you and says ominous stuff that I largely just ignored my first play through (obeying it seems to lead you to another ending). Through the choices you're given in your talks with your boss the game seems to give you the option to act appalled at the fact that your job is to kill people. I didn't really care. The game didn't quite sell me on the stakes. I mean, living things do have to die at some point. The little human profiles were decently entertaining, and there was some humor in the game that I appreciated, at least.


 

If you follow all the orders your given as dutifully as possible, the outcome is not good due to simplistic plot reasons. At the end you're given an option for a new game plus, where you start from the beginning but with all the doodads you bought to make things maybe a little easier, even though the guesswork is still there. There's also no save scumming. I got bored enough that two times I just lost concentration and started stamping death instead of life and vice versa, but the game state is set as soon as you choose and there's no going back, so I just took the hit. I don't think it would have changed my catastrophe at every facet ending if I had been able to fix things. I think you have to disobey with some regularity in order to get any other ending, and there is an ending for you personally outside of whatever has happened to the world at large. There is a section in the menu where you can see what endings you've completed, and the percentage of people who've completed each ending. I got the highest percent endings (all around 80%), and some of the other endings were quite low in completion rate otherwise (in the teens). I suspect that like myself many people didn't bother with multiple playthroughs to obtain different endings. I managed to do about a week on my new game plus and then decided I didn't care enough to keep going.

The UI tends to be frustrating at times. You need to sort of travel between your room, your office, your boss's office, and the store by getting an elevator and scrolling the mouse wheel. That sort of busywork interaction I feel typifies the design philosophy of the game, where you spend a lot of time engaging in a UI but the underlying gameplay is shallow. If you like that sort of interaction it has it for you. If you're not super into filler it feels like a constant waste of time.

This whole thing takes place in four in-game weeks. That felt like a lot of grinding and this game maybe shouldn't be played in one or two sittings the way I did it. If you stretch it out it may not be so monotonous.

If you like stuff like Papers Please and find charming paperwork sims an attractive genre this does do what it says it will with success. I'm not a huge fan of these sorts of games, but it was amusing enough for one run through at least. I would say that it is a little more polished than another game in the bundle with a similar approach, Nova News, but Nova News was a little more engaging. But had the game not been categorized as a VN I probably would have given it a pass.