Summary
Is there anyone out there who genuinely likes office work? While some handle it better than others, and it will (hopefully) pay the bills, tedium begins to set in quickly when workers see the same four cubicle walls all day, every day. It’s the kind of thing topush some people to find new jobs,while others take it as inspiration to make a video game.
These games all explore the mundane nature of office work, although their approaches to that exploration differ wildly. Some go for authenticity, others for thematic commentary, and others stillturn the whole thing into a spectacle.Whatever the case may be, despite the settings of these games being an average office workplace, their interpretation of the daily grind goes a long way in transforming something soul-draining into something fun and fresh.
Probably the most well-known corporate office game on the market,The Stanley Parableis an experiment in player agency as much as it is a game about an office worker, but that’s exactly what Stanley is, and his life is nothing if not mundane. That is, until a narrator steps in and starts dictating his every move.
Whether or not Stanley listens to the narrator is another story, literally. In fact, going along with the narrator’s instructions is the least interesting way to play the game, and leaves a lot of its best secrets hidden away. It’s a game thatencourages players to break away from the mundane,and will respond accordingly when they do so.
Genre
Action-Adventure
While the action may be plentiful, everything else aboutHarry the Handsome Executive, from the way Harry pushes himself around in his desk chair to the staple gun he uses as his primary weapon, is derived from the mundanity of office work. After all, who hasn’t wheeled around in their desk chair on a boring workday, just to insert an iota of excitement into the mix?
The story is simple enough: Harry is an executive at ScumCo., a company where fighting up the corporate ladder is a little more literal than in other contexts. Here, Harry must literally shoot his way past middle management—and a few robots as well—along the way. The game uses a top-down perspective, giving players the best view of Harry as he kicks his legs to propel his desk chair ever onwards.
PC, macOS
Battle Royale, Online Shooter
While nothing aboutLast Man Sittingis particularly mundane, it is inspired by the very real attempts of office workers to break through the mundane nature of their working lives; that being the competition known as “Office Chair Olympics.“Last Man Sittingis a competitive Battle Royale shooter that is still in development, but that is being called “the last Battle Royale there is to make” by its developers.
While the premise is interesting enough, it’s the ragdoll physics that really make the game stand out. Both shotgun blasts and impacts send players flying, and given that they’re strapped to office chairs, that momentum can result in some wild occurrences. It’s the kind of game that will appeal to a niche player base at first, but it’s unique enough that it should stillstand out from the Battle Royale crowd.
Build A Game Development Studio From The Ground Up
Platforms
PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC, iOS, Android
Simulation
Closely paralleling the history of the video game industry,Game Dev Storyis all about allowing players to start their own game development studio and manage it into an industry powerhouse. Players can control everything from the staff they hire to the roles they’ll perform, as well as the speed and focus of the game development itself.
Game Dev Story,despite its age,is a shockingly addictive game.The gradual increase in profits, which leads to a gradual increase in game quality (which leads to more profits, and so on), is a great hook, and the game is not afraid to throw a few surprises the player’s way. It is also impressively well-suited to mobile gaming, which may be the best way to play the game today.
There’s something to be said for a game that actively represents the mind-numbing mundanity of an office job, while also making the gameplay itself riveting. That’s the best way to describePapers, Please.Players control an unnamed border guard in the fictional country of Arstotzka. Their duty is to ensure that everyone crossing the border has their required papers in order.
That’s easier said than done. Every day, new regulations come down from on high, forcing players to pay attention to more and more minute details about each individual’s papers, and giving them more and more protocols to follow if anything is amiss. Make a mistake, and they have their daily pay docked, whichmakes it harder to feed their familyand keep the heat on (yes, this is a mechanic also). The tension of trying not to make a mistake, coupled with the feeling of inevitability that one will be made anyway as the complexities ramp up, makes for an intensely compelling gameplay experience, even if the job it is based on holds very little appeal.
Sometimes, office work can make workers feel like mindless drones, aimlessly going about their duties without thought or concern. It’s exactly this feeling thatHuman Resource Machineis founded upon. In this game, players manage a collection of literal employee drones, giving them orders and tasks to complete in order to solve a collection of 40 puzzles.
This game is what’s known as a visual programming puzzle game. Similar toBaba is You,players use basic programming to direct their workers through each puzzle. They are given a handful of basic phrases and must apply them correctly to complete the task and move up to the next “level” of the company. For those who aren’t programming-savvy, fear not;Human Resource Machinekeeps things very basic and easy to understand, allowing it to appeal to the layperson and the programming wiz alike.
Brian is the new hire at Sintracorp, a massively-successful company and one of the world’s largest to boot. Brian is wildly under-qualified for his new position, but who can say no to a pay raise, right? Well, as it turns out, Brian’s new job isn’t exactly as advertised. It seems that Sintracorp’s success is due in large part to the presence of a witch within the company, and she has slowly begun to corrupt it from within. Brian was hired to be the company’s witch hunter, and to finally set Sintracorp free from this supernatural entity.
Despite its mundane office setting and design,Yuppie Psychois a survival horror game. Brian must brave the corporate-themed monstrosities found throughout Sintracorp in order to eventually face down the witch. The game’s pixel art style—designed on an in-house engine created by the developers themselves—and anime-inspired aesthetic all lend themselves to a feeling of both familiarity and unease, which is exactly where corporate horror like this thrives.
The work of the Grim Reaper is, well, grim, to say the least. It’s a job very few are cut out for, yet players can get a taste of it inDeath and Taxes. In this game, they play asa newly-hired Grim Reaperwho is tasked with determining the fates of the various humans that make their way across the player’s desk.
All that is easier said than done. The Reaper’s boss, Fate, will often give the player directives on how to proceed with doling out death, but it’s up to the players whether they follow those directions or not. Saving one human or killing another can have grave consequences on the world, and in turn, affect the game’s ending. The point is for these decisions to be difficult, pushing players to make tough calls at every turn without knowing what the outcome will be or how it will ripple outwards.
Editing For State TV Is More Fun Than It Sounds
PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PC, Meta Quest 2
Ask anyone who has done it, and it’s no surprise that video editing is tedious work. While the end product is often exciting and engaging, the process of stitching all those disparate shots together into a cohesive whole is meticulous, time-consuming, and ultimately exhausting. So what better inspiration to build an entire video game around, right?
