Death and Taxes (v1.2.44)

A fluorescent office becomes the afterlife’s most unsettling workplace in Death and Taxes, a witty 2D narrative game about deciding who lives, who dies, and what kind of Reaper you become. Each shift places a stack of human files on your desk, along with orders that can seem straightforward, cruel, absurd, or suspiciously political. The mood balances dark comedy with genuine moral discomfort: a bad call can reshape society, while an apparently sensible choice can lead somewhere unexpectedly grim. Behind the paperwork lies a larger mystery about the Reaper’s purpose and the organization controlling death itself.

Most of the action revolves around reading profiles, comparing details, and stamping individuals for life or death before submitting the day’s decisions. Orders often establish targets—perhaps a certain number of people must die, or a specific profession must be spared—but the game regularly invites you to ignore instructions and accept the consequences. Conversations with your supervisor, fellow office workers, and the people affected by your rulings expand the branching storyline, with dialogue choices adding personality to your silent bureaucratic role. Progress unlocks cosmetic items for your Reaper and new office decorations, while multiple endings encourage repeat playthroughs built around different moral codes and loyalties.

Watercolor-inspired art gives its bureaucracy-of-death premise a surprisingly warm, storybook look, offsetting the cold implications of every stamped file. Fully voiced characters and a strong soundtrack make the workplace feel livelier than its document-focused structure suggests, while optional Twitch integration lets viewers influence decisions during streams. Its closest relatives are Papers, Please and Reigns, though the focus here leans more toward supernatural office satire than resource management or monarchy simulation. Fans of choice-driven indies, branching narratives, and games that make small decisions feel uncomfortably important find plenty to revisit, while newcomers get an accessible, compact introduction to the genre.