Dungeons & Deadlines wants you to succeed. Whether you choose to do so in your family life or career is up to you, because you can really only choose one of those.
You’re a recent hire and need to survive to the end of your probationary period. You’re not exactly getting paid a lot for your efforts, though, so how hard should you throw yourself into your tasks? Do you spend long hours at the office with the hope of impressing your bosses and getting a promotion? Or do you prioritize your family life (arguably the people you’re making the money to support)? And how will either decision screw you over?
All you do to press forward is to make a few decisions about what you want to do at certain points in your day. Do you go in early, late, or on-time? Do you work hard or try to take care of yourself throughout your day? Do you go home on time or stay late? All of these affect you Health, Stress, Esteem, or Family in some way, with each decision giving you some points in a few categories and remove them from others. If you don’t carefully balance them, you might not survive. Still, if you don’t get that Esteem up there, will you even keep your job? And what happens if you sacrifice your family to get that job?
Dungeons & Deadlines seems lighthearted at a glance, but is a depressing look at the labor many of us put in at our day jobs in order to feed ourselves and our families, and how all of that extra work to “get a leg up” often makes our employers rich as we rot in our personal lives and health. It’s bleak, but extremely effective at capturing the steady drain our jobs can have on our lives. Assuming you need another reminder about how you’re working your life away.
Dungeons & Deadlines is playable for free on itch.io.
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