the necessary evil | A Game About Literally Doing Your Taxes
2money makes the world spin after all
REVIEW
______________________________
Emulation of the oddest things through game form is always an interesting thing to see. Menial work that might not be appealing to people has a lot more entertainment value when produced in a virtual world be it a farmer, a truck driver, a janitor, a power washer, or even someone just doing paperwork. Dealing with taxes is a horror experience in itself.
AGALDYT has very little plot or gameplay as it revolves simply sorting your taxes into 1 pile and discarding junk in another. A trivial form of tax work but an important step all the same as not having consistent paperwork with the government opens many cans of worms no one wants to deal with.
Memes aside, the game takes advantage of something that appears seemingly innocent at first but teases that something is not right. Near the end, it takes a drastic change as the environment and interactions with letters implies extremely different circumstances of insanity, imprisonment and potentially supernatural influences at play. Considering the game does not present much else, everything is left to interpretation.
Perhaps the change in atmosphere at the end of the game symbolizes the craziness of taxes and how it dwindles the human psyche, being a slave to money in some shape or form (the pills might be something to justify a sense of normalcy). An over-the-top execution but I'm sure people can relate.
I've said this in the past and I'll say it again, it's impressive what people can come up with in different genres, especially with time restraints as this game was part of a 2-day game jam. How even an extremely dull process in life can be warped into something menacing is pretty neat to see.