Death and Taxes

 PC
User Score
6.2

Mixed or average reviews- based on 20 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 20
  2. Mixed: 14 out of 20
  3. Negative: 2 out of 20

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  1. BulgarianCritic
    Feb 24, 2020
    4
    I felt that this game had a lot of potential but it was executed poorly.The voice acting and design was pretty good but the gameplay is just a repetitive slog fest that makes you pay less attention to the game just because of sheer boredom.Your choices don't really matter which is fine for this type of game but i was expecting something more interesting from the idea of playing as aI felt that this game had a lot of potential but it was executed poorly.The voice acting and design was pretty good but the gameplay is just a repetitive slog fest that makes you pay less attention to the game just because of sheer boredom.Your choices don't really matter which is fine for this type of game but i was expecting something more interesting from the idea of playing as a bureaucratic grim reaper.I would suggest playing papers please.… Expand
  2. Listad
    Jun 19, 2020
    0
    beware, left and sjw propaganda, while hypocritically on forum they deny their game have agenda
  3. PublicNuisance
    Apr 22, 2021
    7
    Death and Taxes is certainly a quirky game that is distinct in the visual novel genre. It is also a management sim akin to Papers Please in that you have to choose who lives and dies based on rules given to you where in papers Please you had to choose who to allow into the country. The big difference to me was that Death and Taxes was a lot more lax with the rules in that you could chooseDeath and Taxes is certainly a quirky game that is distinct in the visual novel genre. It is also a management sim akin to Papers Please in that you have to choose who lives and dies based on rules given to you where in papers Please you had to choose who to allow into the country. The big difference to me was that Death and Taxes was a lot more lax with the rules in that you could choose to not follow them and the story branched into a different path rather than end with you and your family dead. You make more money by following the rules but to be honest there wasn’t anything to spend it on that affected the game. You can get trinkets for your desk but nothing that is needed. You also need money to drink at the bar on weekends but to be fair even if you don’t drink there you can talk to the bartender and patrons to learn more about the background of the reaper business. The art is great and you can make your Grim Reaper look different enough that most people should be satisfied. I will say there was a couple times where they had white text on a white background that was hard to read. The voice acting was largely fantastic aside from a couple characters. I will single out Cerri the bartender and Fate for the best voice acting. I also loved the character of Lady Pawdington, Fate’s cat and your boss in his absence. Whoever made that character must have cats because they nailed their attitude. The end of the game seemed a bit flat for it’s lead up. I expected more to happen or to be revealed but it was much simpler than expected. The end credits was also unique as you get to decide the fate of each of the team while learning who did what. The game lasts for twenty eight in game days of decisions.

    I played Death and Taxes on Linux. It never crashed on me; and I didn’t notice any glitches or spelling mistakes. Alt-Tab didn’t work. The game would save on exit and there was just the one save file. One annoying thing I found was that I couldn’t advance the text with the “Enter” button, I had to press continue with the mouse.

    Game Engine: Unity
    Save System: Auto on exit
    Graphics API: OpenGL
    Game Version Played: 1.2.11
    Disk Space Used: 2.5GB

    GPU Usage: 0-79 %
    VRAM Usage: 1088-1638 MB
    CPU Usage: 2-4 %
    RAM Usage: 1.9-2.3 GB

    Many of the gripes I found with Death and Taxes were minor. I do wish the ending had been stronger though. Overall I enjoyed it and found it to be a great combination of management sim and visual novel that didn’t try to be too difficult on the management side and had a great number of choices for the dialogue on the visual novel side. I paid $19.03 CAD for it and finished it in three hours. I found the price to be good value for it given the combined strengths where it did well.

    My Score: 7.5/10

    My System:

    AMD Ryzen 5 2600X | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | MSI RX 580 8GB Gaming X | Mesa 21.0.2 | Samsung 970 Evo Plus 500GB | Manjaro 21.0.2 | Mate 1.24.1 | Kernel 5.11.14-1-MANJARO    … Expand
  4. Mystichydra
    Aug 14, 2020
    8
    This game should be played at least once, as it makes one ponder fatalism and free will, chaos theory and morality. It is clever, the voice acting was good, and overall it is enjoyable. However, it gets extremely repetitive, and despite the minorly different endings, you can experience most of this game in about 3 playthroughs. Also, there's no getting around certain bias. It's impossibleThis game should be played at least once, as it makes one ponder fatalism and free will, chaos theory and morality. It is clever, the voice acting was good, and overall it is enjoyable. However, it gets extremely repetitive, and despite the minorly different endings, you can experience most of this game in about 3 playthroughs. Also, there's no getting around certain bias. It's impossible not to. The concept is that you decide who lives and dies, and based on their actions (or lackthereof) the world is either saved or damned a little more. So maybe an unemployed guy in his mid-20's should die so as not to take up resources. Or maybe the CEO of a chemical company should die so as not to do some shady backhanded plutonium deal or something. I'm relatively liberal, and somewhat agreed with the assessment of the "value" of these characters in the game, but if you identify with any of the "bad" characters, I wouldn't blame you for getting offended. I don't like being forced what to think, even if I'm inclined to naturally agree with much of it. All that said, the game is genuinely fun and unique, and it is quite engaging and clever. Similar to Papers Please and Out of the Box.… Expand
  5. Lx1R
    Jun 9, 2020
    5
    Great idea, somewhat boring execution with very repetitive days and nonsensical missions. The dark humour and the tone use during the dialogues somehow keep you getting back for more, expecting things to get more interesting as you progress, but it somehow falls pretty flat.
  6. oliwill1
    Jul 17, 2020
    7
    This game was fairly enjoyable but the gameplay got a little repetitive and boring over time. It would've been nice to have some variety over the course of the 28 days. The story was a little interesting but overall this game was enjoyable mostly for the dialogue and ideas.
  7. PiggyOink
    Jul 4, 2020
    6
    Good voice acting, i really liked the characters. Gameplay felt kinda repetitive after 2 weeks. So i just went through the profiles really fast. This game isn't something to play in one go.
  8. Fyxhcl
    Dec 22, 2021
    5
    Text game where every turn you have to choose the fate of certain characters (life or death) after reading a very brief presentation of them.

    It has a nice style, and at the beginning it's interesting to go ahead and see what happens, but after playing a bit several issue with the gameplay become evident: the game is too repetitive (read, decide, get paid, restart next day), and it's    Text game where every turn you have to choose the fate of certain characters (life or death) after reading a very brief presentation of them.

    It has a nice style, and at the beginning it's interesting to go ahead and see what happens, but after playing a bit several issue with the gameplay become evident: the game is too repetitive (read, decide, get paid, restart next day), and it's not very clear how you're influencing the world or which long term consequences you caused. It's short and after playing it once I didn't feel the need to replay it.

    I suggest it only to people that like this kind of game and that are very curious to try it, considering its low price you might find the cost/fun ratio appropriate.    … Expand
  9. ZzTopNemesis
    Jul 22, 2022
    6
    Score: 6.1

    It's nice but gets boring after a couple of hours.
    Had a lot more potential than it actually executed.
  10. Jerg4n
    Apr 27, 2023
    5
    Somewhat interesting, the voiceacting is good and the atmosphere and art are good. Overall it's a bit mediocre, and the gameplay itself isn't all that entertaining. Choices having weight is fun, but making those choices isn't that great.

Critic Reviews

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No score yet - based on 2 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 2
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 2
  3. Negative: 0 out of 2
  1. KeenGamer
    Jun 22, 2020
    80
    All in all, Death and Taxes is a very enjoyable game, and fans of point-and-click games like Papers, Please will absolutely love it. The story offers us interesting routes which we can explore to get alternate endings, the emporium allows us to add some interesting features, and the quirky graphics and audio adds to the overall atmosphere. I will point out that while the game is fun to play, it does get quite repetitive after a while, as with most games of its kind. We can mix things up a little with the choices we make, but ultimately, the gameplay remains the same. Death and Taxes is probably best played in short bursts.
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  2. CD-Action
    Apr 17, 2020
    55
    I had lots quite a lot of fun at the beginning, especially while livestreaming, but the feeling faded as the office remained rather empty until the end. [05/2020, p.82]