Well, it’s nearly Tax Day here in the United States. This year, April 18th is the deadline for most American citizens to submit their tax returns to the Internal Revenue Service in the hopes of getting a sizable tax refund or (at the very least) not having Uncle Sam realize he’s owed some serious cash and coming to collect. In light of that, I thought now would be an excellent time to remind our audience of the two cliché, inevitable certainties in life. It turns out, both of them are now conveniently in video game form.

Yes indeed, Death and Taxes does its best to remind us all that not even the cessation of all biological processes can save you from bureaucracy if you don’t play your cards right. This title comes our way from developer and publisher Placeholder Gameworks. You play as the Grim Reaper. Well, I shouldn’t necessarily say the Grim Reaper. More like a Grim Reaper, as your boss/creator makes it quite clear that you can and will be replaced if you consistently fail to perform well at your assigned duties.

Yes, I did say “boss/creator” a second ago. You, a Grim Reaper, were created by a figure known simply as Fate, Keeper of World Order. I must say, Fate’s physical appearance strongly reminds me of the Medic from Team Fortress 2, while his demeanor and apparent supernatural powers are more akin to the titular necromancer in Iratus: Lord of the Dead. When I first saw him upon launching the game, I was sure I was in for an interesting time with those factors in mind.

I’m still not entirely sure whether or not I was correct about that hunch, though. If you’re anything like me, when you hear the phrase “you play as the Grim Reaper,” you probably imagine controlling a skeletal figure lopping off heads of the condemned with a scythe. Even given this game’s title and what I now realize it implies, I must admit I expected something similar at first. I thought at the very least, you’d go out into the game world, collect some mortal souls, then have to come back to the office afterward to file the requisite paperwork or something.

As it turns out, the process of collecting those mortal souls within Death and Taxes is entirely composed of paperwork. During each workday, you’re given a list of people’s names and background information, a super-powered marker, and your daily set of instructions from Fate. You are then expected to figure everything out on your own. You have to examine the documents you’re given in order to determine who among the people on your list should be allowed to live, and who must die.

Denoting whether or not someone will be spared is where that super-powered marker I mentioned comes into play. You simply use it to check off either the “live” or “die” box on a person’s document. Once you’ve done that on every form assigned to you and done your best to follow Fate’s instructions (if you feel like it), you then fax the completed files to Fate’s office and call it a day. That probably sounds pretty simple and straightforward. In all honesty, it usually is.

For what it’s worth, Fate attempts to reassure you at the beginning of the game that you’re not actively killing people by going about your day-to-day business. That is, a perfectly healthy person isn’t going to just keel over from a sudden, massive heart attack because you checked the “die” box on their form. You may be the embodiment of Death, but you do not possess the Death Note, if you catch my drift. Instead, the people whose files are presented to you are already in life-threatening situations when you receive their documents.

You’re simply tasked with choosing who to save from their unfortunate circumstances. If you’re anything like me, though, that explanation doesn’t exactly do much to make your job seem morally right or any less nerve-wracking. I never said Fate was any good at this whole “reassuring you” thing, after all. Regardless, I suppose “capitalizing” on already-dangerous situations is a little better than any alternative I can think of.

Fate explains that as morbid as your job may be, someone has to do it in order to maintain the balance of the Universe itself. Humans, whether they know it or not, generate “constant Chaos,” which threatens that delicate balance. By eliminating enough humans to meet your daily quota and fulfill Fate’s instructions, you’re removing some of that Chaos from the equation and preventing the Universe from falling prey to its effects. At least, that’s how I understood what I was told.

Should you desire to goof off to a certain extent while you’re on the clock, you have a smartphone that you can pick up at any time when you’re in your office. The main reason for doing so is to open what’s basically the game’s version of Twitter. This allows you to read news stories about the effects of your deeds and what the people you’ve spared are up to now that they’ve escaped their life-threatening circumstances. However, there will also be news about the people you chose not to spare and the societal impact of their deaths, so I’d suggest bracing yourself for that if you consider it necessary.

As I mentioned earlier, after you’ve decided who shall live and die, you’ll fax your completed documents to Fate’s office. Once you’ve done that, you’re usually expected to take the elevator upstairs to have a chat with the boss man himself. If Fate is in his office at this point, he’ll typically ask you things about how you’re acclimating to your new job and whether or not you understand your place in this bureaucratic afterlife.

To the game’s credit, more often than not, you’ll have several dialogue options available while talking to Fate in case you’re like me and never really wrapped your head around this whole “paperwork-based Grim Reaper” thing. Fate will do his best to answer any questions and quell any misgivings you may have, if only to keep you focused on your all-important job that sees the Universe hanging in the balance.

Despite ostensibly being a game about being forced to choose who lives and who dies based on little more than a bit of background information about each person, Death and Taxes also features quite a few aspects I found more enjoyable than the in-game daily grind. I’ve actually got a few examples of what I mean by that. Firstly, once you acquire a mirror for your dwelling’s dressing room, you can freely customize your Reaper to look virtually as silly as you like with things like face paint and wigs.

Because I tend to be a bit of a stick in the mud, I chose to make my Reaper look like a reanimated (and slightly less handsome) version of the Hitman franchise’s protagonist, Agent 47. Secondly, there’s at least one point in the game’s story where Fate goes on vacation for a few days. In that case, with the boss gone, to whom should you fax your daily quotas of documents? His secretary, perhaps? No. Your business will instead be handled in this scenario by (wait for it) Fate’s pet cat, named Lady Pawdington. I don’t know why, but I found that hilarious.

My final example of this title’s sense of humor concerns one of the ways in which you can spend the currency you earn from doing your job. In the basement of your office building, you’ll find “Quartermaster Mortimer’s Plunder Emporium.” Here, a jovial, skeletal pirate named Mortimer will sell you some of the “booty” he acquired from plundering on the high seas when he was alive. Mortimer’s offerings usually consist of things you can add to your office to give you additional things with which to tinker, such as a cactus which the game refers to as “the most brutal of plants.”

Overall, I enjoy Death and Taxes for what it brings to the metaphorical table. I think its gameplay is a novel concept on what it means to be the Grim Reaper, not unlike a somewhat similar title known as Peace, Death!. Having said that, I completely understand if a game that requires you to choose who among a list of random, yet typically important people won’t make it out of a sticky situation doesn’t appeal to you. I’m still a bit unnerved by that concept myself, honestly. If you can deal with that aspect of the gameplay, though, I’d recommend that you give the game a try.

A PC review key for Death and Taxes was provided by Placeholder Gameworks for this review.

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Death and Taxes

$12.99

7.5

Score

7.5/10

Pros

• Novel Take on the Concept of Being the Grim Reaper
• Sense of Humor Despite its Circumstances

Cons

• Gameplay Could Prove Unnerving