Developed by Placeholder Gameworks and published by those clever folks at Fat Dog Games, Death and Taxes is often described as Papers, Please meets The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy. You play as a lowly, shapeshifting creature known only as "The Intern." Your desk? A floating rock in a void. Your boss? "The Boss" (a disembodied, semi-corporeal skull). Your task? Decide who lives and who dies.
In this short-but-sweet indie title (roughly 2-3 hours per playthrough), you are placed in charge of the "Fate Department." You receive a daily list of mortals. Using an old magical typewriter, you affix either a "Live" stamp or a "Die" stamp to their file.
But here is the catch: You are not a mindless killer. You are a bureaucrat with a budget.
The management layer involves balancing three cosmic meters:
Depending on who you kill (a wasteful CEO vs. a struggling artist) and when, the entire dialogue tree of the game shifts. Kill too many innocent people? The game gets quieter. Spare too many villains? Reality begins to unravel.
Death and Taxes is a hidden gem in the Switch eShop library. It proves that you don't need high-octane action or 4K graphics to create an engaging experience. It is a game about paperwork that somehow manages to be thrilling, emotional, and darkly humorous.
If you are a fan of titles like Papers, Please or Reigns, and you are looking for an exclusive digital title to add to your Switch library, clocking in for a shift with the Grim Reaper is highly recommended.
Where to buy: Nintendo eShop (Search: "Death and Taxes")
Title: The Ledger of the Last Breath
Logline: In a whimsical yet grim indie game, you play as a lowly Grim Reaper assigned to a desk job in the Afterlife’s bureaucracy. Your only tools: a quill, an ancient ledger, and a Nintendo Switch. The twist: Death and Taxes is an eShop exclusive, meaning the fate of every soul is filtered through a handheld screen.
Story:
The office was a dim, dusty cube floating in a void. No windows, no water cooler gossip—just a desk, a creaky chair, and a single glowing Nintendo Switch docked to a terminal older than time.
Mortimer, a newly hired Grim Reaper (Class C, probationary), stared at the screen. His scythe had been replaced with a stylus.
“Welcome to the Fiscal Afterlife Division,” said the onboarding tutorial, voiced by a sarcastic floating skull named Marge. “Rule one: everyone dies. Rule two: dying costs money. Your job? Approve or deny the ‘life invoices’ of the living. Balance the cosmic budget.”
Mortimer’s first case blinked onto the Switch’s OLED screen:
Subject: Clara, age 34. Occupation: Beekeeper. Cause pending: Struck by falling satellite debris. Life debt: $14.37 (unpaid library late fees). Net worth: $412,000 (savings), 3 beehives.
“Approve death if their debt outweighs their contribution. Deny if they’re too valuable,” Marge droned. “And remember: the eShop doesn’t do refunds. Once a soul is processed, it’s final.”
Mortimer hesitated. A beekeeper? Bees pollinate crops. But unpaid library fees? Fourteen dollars? That felt petty, even for the afterlife. He tapped DENY with the stylus.
The screen flickered. Clara’s file turned green. A notification popped: “Fate altered. Tax revenue from Clara’s future honey sales: +$8,000 projected.”
Marge sighed. “Soft. You’ll learn.”
Days bled into eons. Mortimer learned the rhythm: wake up in the void, boot up the Switch, scroll through lives. A billionaire who hoarded vaccines? APPROVE (death by spontaneous champagne cork). A poet who wrote one good line? DENY (let him live to write the sequel). Each decision sent a ripple through the mortal realm, displayed on the console’s tiny screen via grainy news headlines. death and taxes switch nsp eshop exclusive
But then came Patch 2.0: The Audit of All Souls.
An update downloaded automatically—because eShop exclusives always update at the worst time. The new feature: Consequence Replay. Now, every denied death showed you the butterfly effect.
Mortimer denied a kind baker. The baker lived, opened a chain of bakeries, and accidentally started a gluten-free revolution that collapsed the wheat economy. Millions suffered.
Mortimer approved a corrupt politician. The politician died, but his successor was worse—a tyrant who banned video games. The irony was not lost on Mortimer, sitting there with his Switch.
He snapped. He started approving everyone—chaos. Then denying everyone—overpopulation, famine. The cosmic scales groaned.
Marge appeared, skull crackling with static. “You’ve broken the ledger. The eShop gods are watching.”
The screen glitched. A final case appeared:
Subject: Mortimer (you). Occupation: Grim Reaper (probationary). Cause pending: Fired by the Afterlife HR. Life debt: Every soul you misjudged. Net worth: Zero.
Mortimer’s stylus hovered over APPROVE or DENY. His own death. His own tax.
He looked at the Switch. The battery was at 5%. The charge cable was lost somewhere in the void. He had thirty seconds. Developed by Placeholder Gameworks and published by those
He laughed—a hollow, reaper-y rasp. Then he tapped DENY.
The screen went black.
A new notification appeared in the void, glowing softly:
“Error: Decision cannot be processed. Please connect to the eShop to verify your Nintendo Account. Or don’t. Either way, you’re fired.”
And somewhere in a forgotten corner of the eShop, buried under shovelware and $0.99 puzzles, Death and Taxes remained an exclusive—unreviewed, unplayed by most, but running forever in an empty office, waiting for someone to pick up the Joy-Cons and balance the books one last time.
THE END
Post-credits scene: A single beehive, floating in the void. Inside, Clara the beekeeper—now immortal—sips tea. “Told you I was valuable,” she says, and presses the home button.
Death and Taxes Switch NSP eShop Exclusive: A Unique Blend of Strategy and Dark Humor
The Nintendo Switch eShop has been home to a wide variety of games, ranging from indie darlings to full-fledged AAA titles. Among these, "Death and Taxes" stands out as a particularly intriguing addition. This game, available exclusively on the Nintendo Switch via the eShop, offers a unique blend of turn-based strategy, dark humor, and a peculiar theme that sets it apart from other titles. Let's dive deeper into what makes "Death and Taxes" a noteworthy eShop exclusive.
The gameplay loop is deceptively simple. You are presented with a profile containing a person's age, occupation, hobbies, and a snippet of their personality. Using a set of rules provided by your employer (Fate), you must decide who stays and who goes. Depending on who you kill (a wasteful CEO vs
However, the brilliance of the game lies in its consequences: