Death is a matter of paperwork in the free demo for Death and Taxes

There are, famously, only three certainties in life: death, taxes, and games where you play as the grim reaper. We've had Deadbolt, and Grimm's Hollow, and lots of others I can't remember the names of, and here's another that makes you the reaper—don't fear it, eh?

Death and Taxes imagines that reaping isn't quite so grim, it's just slightly banal. It's Papers, Please but more upfront about the weight of your actions: you're literally picking people to die, from a list of potentials. That's because you're a newly fashioned reaper, and it's your day job. You sit at your desk and read through character sheets and pick up your stampy thing and, after some deliberation, you mark one of the mortals for an imminent death.

The tone is fairly light, and the artwork is stylish and whimsical. These are Difficult Choices, of course, but they're not really difficult ones, owing to that light tone. Will you be a model employee, unquestioningly signing these folks' death warrants, or will you question what you're doing, to your mysterious boss? Play the free demo for this in-development Papers-like and find out.

For more great free experiences, check out our roundup of the best free PC games.

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.