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Ive written before that Im asick freak who loves typing games.
While many people consider typing to be ‘work’, I love it.
I love hitting my keys hard and irritating my co-workers.
So you could understand why I was excited by Dead Letter Dept.
- a game that promised both scares and using my keyboard extensively.
But let me do my best.
In Dead Letter Dept., youre an anonymous person in a semi-anonymous big city.
I say ‘semi-anonymous’ because a lot of the little details change from playthrough to playthrough.
More on that in a second because Im too excited and Im explaining everything out of order.
It’s a creepy way to set the table.
How Dead Letter Dept.
Works
Anyway, the majority of the game is you working your job as a Data Conversion Operator.
In the game itself, you spend most of the time sitting in front of a computer monitor.
Sometimes this is just a loose envelope with a normal address.
Sometimes its a whole lot of weird stuff written all over the envelope.
Since this is a horror game, the more you play, the more weird stuff pops up.
Then again, having to read it written as litre is horror enough.
Could honestly be a toss up.
Also, sorry to my editor, who is British.
You ride the subway home from work every night and comment on the ways in which youre suffering.
You beg your friend for a new job that doesnt seem to ever come.
Even walking to work becomes more belabored and strange and, hell, even difficult at times.
Your apartment is oppressive.
Your apartment hallways are oppressive.
And your office issuperoppressive.
As with many horror games, the more you advance, the worse things feel.
But your character needs the money to survive.
Thats your reason for being here.
Not that you actually receive virtual bucks for completing a day.
Youre not a super cop with a shotgun.
Youre not even a regular guy with a wooden plank stuck in a town.
Youre an employee at a faceless company in a faceless office and everything is falling apart.
Dead Letter Dept.
Your apartment building and workstartgross and only get squishier and creepier from there.
Typing up the addresses on normal letters feels almost pointless - especially when theyre absolutely clear.
Other times you just have to punch in in the text from a vacation postcard.
You never really know why.
But its your job, so you might as well keep doing it.
Oh, hey, the monitor just showed something weird!
You really need that paycheck!
One of the best parts of Dead Letters Dept.
are the little stories hidden within the mail.
While your life crumbles around you, you get glimpses of other peoples problems too.
Some of these are complete arcs that kind of take you on a bit of a journey.
Some of these are summaries of horrible things that actually happened, such as the Byford Dolphin incident.
Also, you definitely donotwant to look up the Byford Dolphin incident.
What happened to her?
I gotta play the game again and see what else pops up.
Inside Mouthwashing’s cargo hold, you’ll find 2024’s biggest fright.
This isnt nearly the first horror game to involve a job going sideways.
But theres something about the work in Dead Letter Dept.
that just feels so brutal and soul-crushing.
Theres something familiar to it, even as it gets strange and weird and bad.
Its a dead end gig taken to just pay the rent.
Actually, its definitely because of that.
The other nice thing is that this game is designed to be played multiple times.
Its about two hours long each run and switches up things a little bit each time.
Starting over doesnt feel like a pain, it feels like watching a movie again with different scenes.
There are also multiple endings, not that Im entirely sure how or why Im getting them.
The Dead Letter Dept.
feels like it was specifically designed for me (outside of “litre”, ugh).
Its a crunchy, oppressive, short horror game in which you have to bang out a lot.
Exactly what I need.
The Venn Diagram of me and the premise is a circle.
If you wanted your mind broken by going to the severed floor, this is for you.
It aint the coziest job game, but what actual job is cozy anyway?
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