Death and Taxes APK (FULL GAME)

Every mortal who crosses your desk gets a stamp — and that stamp changes the world. This walkthrough is for first-time players working through the paperwork and for returning players hunting every secret ending. Here you will find sections covering the decision-making mechanic, the Make-Your-Own-Grim-Reaper system, Mortimer’s Plunder Emporium, the progression and endings, and tips for beginners.

What Is Death and Taxes and How Does It Play

Death and Taxes is a short indie narrative game from Placeholder Gameworks. You take the role of the Grim Reaper — not as a fearsome figure in a battlefield, but as an office worker sitting behind a desk. The job is simple on the surface: review profiles of mortals and decide who lives and who dies. However, those decisions carry real weight. Each choice shapes the world around you in ways that accumulate across every in-game day.

The game sits firmly in the tradition of narrative-driven bureaucratic titles. It rewards players who pay attention to the details on each profile. Tone and pacing are both slow and deliberate. This is not an action game or a reflex challenge. Instead, it is a game that asks you to sit with uncomfortable choices and accept their consequences.

What the Decision-Making Mechanic Is and How It Works

The core loop in this title centres entirely on the paperwork mechanic. Each day the game presents you with a set of mortal profiles. Each profile contains information about a person — their name, occupation, health, social connections, and other data. You review the file and mark it approved for life or rejected for death.

No decision exists in isolation. The game tracks the cumulative effect of your choices and feeds that back into the narrative. Mark the wrong person and a subplot may shift. Let someone live who was supposed to die and the world register that too. The paperwork mechanic is therefore not just a gameplay action — it is the story engine itself.

The Setting, Tone, and Office-Life Story Premise

The setting is an afterlife office. You are the Grim Reaper, but the existential weight of that role is played largely for dry, deadpan comedy. Your boss calls in. You stare at the mirror. There is a cat to interact with. There is even a notably catchy tune in the elevator. Placeholder Gameworks built a world where the stakes are enormous — literally the fate of humankind — but the delivery is quietly absurd.

The tone walks a careful line between comedy and genuine unease. As the narrative progresses, the humour fades in places and the questions become more serious. The mystery of your own incarnation — why you are who you are — unfolds slowly. This creates a story that feels light to enter but heavier to sit inside as it develops.

How Death and Taxes Compares to Papers Please and Reigns

Papers, Please is the most common comparison and the most accurate one structurally. Both games centre on document inspection and approval mechanics. However, the tone differs significantly. Papers, Please operates in a grim, realistic political register. Death and Taxes moves between existential comedy and dry surrealism. The two games share a mechanic but target different emotional registers.

Reigns is the other close comparison in terms of binary choice structure. In that game, choices are left or right swipes that balance power between factions. Death and Taxes uses a similar approve-reject binary at the desk level. However, it adds far more dialogue, character interaction, and an upgrade layer on top. By contrast, Animal Inspector and Beholder share the theme of systems governing life and paperwork but feel tonally distinct from the office-comedy register that defines this title.

How the Core Gameplay and Controls Work

Each in-game day follows a clear rhythm. The game presents your desk, your current status, and a queue of mortal files to process. You interact with each profile, read the information provided, and make your decision. Then you move to the next file. After the day ends, consequences register and the story advances.

Controls are minimal by design. The game is point-and-click at its core. Players click through profiles, select dialogue responses when the boss or other characters call in, and navigate the office space between shifts. There is no combat, no inventory management in the traditional sense, and no reflex-based challenge. The entire experience runs on reading, thinking, and choosing.

How Players Approve or Reject Mortals Each Day

Step one: open the mortal profile when it appears on your desk. Step two: read the file carefully. The name, background detail, and listed information all matter. Step three: apply your decision — approve for life, or reject for death. Step four: move to the next file until the day’s queue is complete.

Players can also interact with other elements between or during shifts. The office itself holds interactive objects. However, the paperwork processing is the primary daily action and the one that drives every branch in the narrative. Every approve or reject stamp is a story decision, not just a gameplay input.

How Dialogue Choices and Office Interactions Function

Between shifts and during in-game calls, Death and Taxes presents dialogue options. These conversations involve your boss, Mortimer, and other fully voiced NPCs. Each NPC uses original voice acting, which adds personality to interactions that might otherwise feel like simple menu choices. The dialogue options shape tone and reveal story information.

The office also contains interactive objects separate from the daily files. The mirror triggers self-reflection sequences that are tied to the narrative of your own incarnation. The cat can be interacted with. Desk decorations change the visual feel of your workspace. These interactions are secondary to the paperwork mechanic but meaningful for atmosphere and for players invested in the full story.

What Happens After Each Round of Decisions

After each session of mortal processing, the game registers the cumulative effect of your choices. Some changes are visible immediately — a news headline, a shift in the world described by your boss, or a change in the files that appear next. Others accumulate silently and surface later in the branching storyline.

This feedback loop is what makes the paperwork mechanic feel meaningful. Players are not simply sorting files. They are steering a narrative that responds to their pattern of decisions over time. Consequently, two players processing the same queue differently can end up in entirely separate story branches before the middle of the game.

How the Make-Your-Own-Grim-Reaper System Works

Before the story begins in full, Death and Taxes gives players the chance to shape their Reaper. The Make-Your-Own-Grim-Reaper system is a character creator that lets you define the visual identity of the protagonist. This feature sets the game apart from its closest comparisons, which typically offer no character customisation at all.

The character creator feels consistent with the game’s overall tone. It is quirky, slightly absurd, and takes itself lightly. However, it adds a meaningful layer of personalisation that makes your Reaper feel specific rather than generic. For a game built around an existential premise, the ability to decide what your Grim Reaper looks like adds an extra layer to the identity questions the story raises.

Customisation Options Available at the Start

The creator offers visual customisation for the Reaper’s appearance. Players choose from options that shape the face, style, and general look of the character. The watercolour art style of the game makes every customised Reaper look like it belongs to the hand-illustrated world Placeholder Gameworks built.

Players should spend time here before moving forward. The choices feel small but the character creator feeds into the mirror interactions later in the game. The reflection the Reaper sees in the office mirror is the one you created at the start. That detail matters more as the story’s identity questions become harder to ignore.

How Your Reaper’s Appearance Affects the Experience

The chosen appearance does not change the mechanical outcomes of the paperwork mechanic. However, it shapes the experience in subtler ways. The original watercolour artwork means every Reaper design renders in a style that feels intentional and cohesive rather than placeholder or generic.

Additionally, the NPC interactions — which are fully voiced — respond to the player character as a consistent presence. Your boss does not know what your Reaper looks like, but you do. That small act of ownership changes how players relate to the choices the game asks them to make.

What the Mirror and Self-Reflection Moments Add to the Story

The office mirror is one of the more distinctive objects in the game. Interacting with it triggers moments of self-reflection — brief sequences where the Reaper addresses their own reflection and the questions that come with the job. These sequences tie directly to the mystery of the player character’s incarnation, which the game treats as one of its central narrative threads.

The mirror moments are not optional flavour text. They accumulate in thematic weight as the game progresses. Players who skip past them miss context that makes the later story beats — particularly in the branching ending sequences — feel more earned and more resonant.

What Mortimer’s Plunder Emporium Offers Players

Between shifts, players can spend their earnings at Mortimer’s Plunder Emporium. This is the in-game upgrade shop, run by a character named Mortimer, and it is one of the most underserved features in existing coverage of this title. The shop sells items that affect both the gameplay experience and the physical appearance of the office space.

The currency players earn comes from successfully completing daily shifts. Mortimer’s inventory includes desk decorations, functional upgrades, and items that add texture to the office environment. Managing this currency well across a playthrough makes a noticeable difference, particularly for players aiming at specific endings.

How the Upgrade Shop Works and When to Access It

Mortimer’s Plunder Emporium becomes accessible early in the game. Players visit the shop between shifts using the currency they accumulate from their work as a Reaper. The shop interface is presented in the same watercolour visual style as the rest of the game, and Mortimer himself is a fully voiced NPC with his own personality.

The shop does not pressure players into buying anything immediately. However, leaving earnings unspent for too long means missing items that become available only for a limited window. Therefore, players should check Mortimer’s inventory regularly rather than saving currency for a single large purchase at the end.

Which Items to Prioritise on a First Run

On a first playthrough, desk decorations are the lowest-priority category. They add atmosphere but do not affect story outcomes or the paperwork mechanic. Functional upgrades, by contrast, can add information to mortal profiles that makes decisions easier to navigate. Prioritising those first is the most efficient approach for beginners.

Players chasing specific endings should note that some shop items interact with the branching storyline mechanic in subtle ways. However, on a first run, the priority is understanding the decision-making loop. So shop with that in mind and save the full Mortimer’s Plunder Emporium collection for subsequent playthroughs.

How Desk Decorations and Purchases Affect the Office

Desk decorations purchased from Mortimer’s shop appear on the Reaper’s physical desk in the office. As players accumulate items, the workspace transforms from a bare and anonymous space into something that reflects accumulated choices. This is a small but meaningful touch for a game so invested in the idea of identity and role.

Some decorations also add to the comedy tone the game maintains throughout. A cluttered, personalised desk feels right for a Grim Reaper who is slowly becoming invested in an office job. The visual transformation is also a quiet way of tracking how far through the game players have progressed.

How Progression and Multiple Endings Work in Death and Taxes

The progression system in this title runs on two tracks simultaneously. The first track is the rank system — the player’s position in the Reaper hierarchy, which advances from entry-level toward middle management. The second track is the branching storyline, which moves toward one of several secret endings based on accumulated decisions.

Both tracks respond to the same actions. The choices made during the paperwork mechanic influence rank advancement and story direction at the same time. Therefore, every decision the player makes in the core loop is also shaping which ending they are moving toward, often without any explicit signal from the game.

How the Rank System Advances Through the Reaper Hierarchy

Rank advancement happens by meeting the performance expectations your boss sets. Each shift comes with implicit or stated objectives — approve certain types of mortals, avoid creating specific kinds of chaos in the world, or fulfil a directive that aligns with the organisation’s goals. Meeting those expectations consistently pushes rank upward.

The progression from entry-level Reaper to the promised destination of middle management is both the game’s joke and its structure. It mirrors real career bureaucracy deliberately. Advancement feels earned rather than automatic. Players who ignore the boss’s directives entirely will find rank progression stalls quickly.

What Choices Affect Which Ending Players Reach

The branching storyline in Death and Taxes does not announce which ending a player is moving toward. Instead, choices accumulate quietly. Approving mortals who destabilise the world pushes toward certain outcomes. Maintaining order pushes toward others. Some endings require specific decisions at specific points in the narrative that are easy to miss on a first run.

Players chasing every secret ending should pay close attention to the NPC dialogue — particularly the fully voiced boss conversations and any Mortimer interactions that seem unusual. Those conversations often contain the most direct hints about what the game is evaluating behind the scenes.

What Completing the Progression Unlocks

Completing a full run of the progression system and reaching an ending unlocks context for subsequent playthroughs. The mystery of the Reaper’s incarnation — why this particular entity is sitting behind this particular desk — reveals itself differently depending on which ending the player reaches. Each ending recontextualises events from earlier in the run.

Consequently, the game is designed for multiple playthroughs. A second run with knowledge from the first ending plays very differently. Players who know what the game is tracking can make deliberate choices toward a different branch. The original soundtrack and the original artwork also reward replaying — there are details in both that become meaningful after the first playthrough.

All Hidden Features and Common Mistakes in Death and Taxes

Several features of this game receive almost no attention in existing coverage. The most significant of these are the hidden interactions built into the office environment and the specific decision patterns that quietly lock players out of certain endings without any warning. First-time players frequently miss both.

Understanding these gaps before a first run is the most efficient preparation. Replaying is enjoyable, but reaching an ending only to realise a better path existed and was missed is frustrating for players who wanted a specific outcome. The following subsections address each of these areas directly.

Hidden Interactions Most Players Miss on a First Run

The cat is the most commonly missed interactive object. Players focused on the paperwork mechanic move through shifts without exploring the office space around the desk. However, the cat and several other objects in the environment respond to interaction. Some trigger voiced lines from Mortimer or the boss that contain narrative information not available anywhere else in the game.

The elevator music — referenced directly in the game’s own feature list — is also easy to overlook. Pausing in the elevator between shifts and letting the soundtrack play is a small moment but one that contributes to the atmosphere the original soundtrack builds across the full experience. Players who rush through transitions miss one of the game’s most deliberately designed sensory details.

Most Common Mistakes That Lock Players Out of Endings

The most frequent mistake is treating every mortal decision as morally equivalent and defaulting to a consistent pattern — always approving or always rejecting — without considering the cumulative world consequence. The branching storyline mechanic tracks patterns, not individual choices. A player who approves everyone or rejects everyone will find the narrative closes off multiple branches by the midpoint.

A second common mistake is ignoring the boss’s directives. The boss conversations are fully voiced and feel like flavour content. However, they often contain specific instructions about which type of mortal the organisation wants approved or rejected that day. Players who skip or ignore those conversations lose the context needed to navigate the rank system and the ending branches simultaneously.

How the Fully Voiced NPC Dialogue Reveals Story Clues

Every named NPC in Death and Taxes has full voice acting. This includes the boss, Mortimer, and other characters encountered during the run. The voice performances carry a significant amount of implied narrative information beyond the literal dialogue. Tone, hesitation, and phrasing in specific conversations are the game’s primary method of hinting at story developments before they become explicit.

Players should listen to every voiced line rather than clicking through quickly. The original voice acting is one of the features Placeholder Gameworks specifically highlighted, and it earns that emphasis. Several of the harder-to-reach secret endings require players to have absorbed information delivered exclusively through NPC dialogue — information that is easy to miss when treating conversations as optional.

Best Death and Taxes Tips and Tricks for Beginners

Beginners enter this game expecting a clear objective and receive something more ambiguous. The paperwork mechanic is simple to understand but complex to navigate well because the game withholds explicit feedback about whether a specific decision was correct. The following tips address that ambiguity directly and give new players the clearest starting foundation.

Most of these points come from identifying where the game’s design is deliberately opaque versus where players are simply not paying close enough attention. Understanding the difference between those two situations early saves a significant amount of second-guessing on a first run.

How to Approach the Paperwork Decisions Early On

Read every mortal profile fully before making a decision. The profiles contain more information than first-time players typically process on an initial pass. Names, occupations, and social details are all relevant. Some profiles contain information that only becomes meaningful when cross-referenced with a previous decision from an earlier shift.

Additionally, do not approach the paperwork mechanic as a puzzle with a correct solution. There is no objective morality system displayed to the player. Some decisions feel obviously correct and still carry negative consequences. Because of this, beginners should approach each decision as a story choice rather than a mechanical optimisation problem.

How to Use the Upgrade Shop Without Wasting Currency

Visit Mortimer’s Plunder Emporium at the end of each shift rather than saving currency for a single large purchase. The shop inventory changes and some items have limited availability. Missing an upgrade because currency was sitting unspent is a common first-run frustration.

Prioritise functional upgrades over decorations on a first run. Decorations are rewarding but do not change the difficulty of the core paperwork decisions. Functional items can provide additional context on mortal profiles. For beginners, that additional context makes the decision-making loop feel less arbitrary and more manageable.

What to Do When the Choices Feel Impossible

Some decisions in Death and Taxes feel genuinely impossible — situations where approving or rejecting both seem like they will cause harm. This is intentional. The game is interested in what players do when there is no clean option available. Rather than treating those moments as failures, beginners should treat them as the game’s actual subject matter.

In those moments, interact with the office environment before making the choice. Check for any outstanding NPC dialogue. Revisit the mortal profile. Sometimes additional context exists that makes the decision marginally clearer. However, sometimes the game simply asks players to choose without certainty and to accept what follows. That acceptance is the core of what Death and Taxes is about.

Frequently Asked Questions About Death and Taxes

What platforms is Death and Taxes available on?

Death and Taxes is available on PC via Steam. Placeholder Gameworks developed and published the title as a small indie release. Players on other platforms should check the Steam store page for any updates on additional platform availability, as the title’s footprint as an indie game means distribution decisions can change after initial release.

How long does it take to complete Death and Taxes?

A single playthrough of Death and Taxes typically runs between one and two hours depending on how much time players spend with dialogue and office interactions. However, the branching storyline with multiple secret endings means completionist players will need several runs. Total time across all endings ranges from four to six hours for most players.

Does Death and Taxes have multiple endings?

Yes. Death and Taxes features a branching storyline with multiple secret endings that depend on the cumulative pattern of choices players make during the paperwork mechanic. The game does not announce which ending path a player is on. Different endings reveal different aspects of the Reaper’s incarnation story. Reaching all endings requires at least two to three dedicated playthroughs with intentionally different decision patterns.

Why Death and Taxes Is Worth Playing for Narrative Fans

Death and Taxes is best suited to players who enjoy narrative games that use a simple mechanical loop to carry philosophical weight. The paperwork mechanic is accessible enough for anyone. However, the game rewards players who are willing to sit inside uncomfortable choices and follow them to their consequences. Players who need explicit feedback or a clear moral compass will find the ambiguity frustrating — but that ambiguity is the point.

After spending time with this title, what stays is not any single ending but the feeling of sitting behind that desk with the fate of humankind in a stamp. The original watercolour artwork and the original soundtrack give it a texture that punches well above its short runtime. For fans of Papers, Please or Reigns who want something tonally lighter but emotionally honest, Death and Taxes delivers exactly what it promises — and then asks you to live with what you chose.