Have A Nice Death
From Death’s Door to Grim Fandango and even Kentucky Route Zero, it’s become more commonplace for videogames to depict the afterlife as a macabre bureaucracy. Have A Nice Death’s rendition of the hereafter, then, isn’t quite as imaginative as it would like to think it is – for better and worse, it’s LucasArts’ adventure of which we’re most often reminded here. Yet this handsomely crafted Roguelike is glossy, taut and refined, even if it’s lacking a little light at the end of the tunnel.
In this corporate afterlife, the Grim Reaper is a CEO presiding over a company now falling well out of his control, due to both his own negligence and that of his subordinates. So with his trusty scythe, he sets off to cut their losses and restructure, exploring the various departments that make up the afterlife before battling against their managers. Structurally speaking, Have A Nice Death is pretty standard genre fare: before each new attempt you have the opportunity to pick a weapon (or unlock new ones), choosing from a series of optional modifiers and selecting which items will appear during your forthcoming run.