Behind the Hydra's Eyes

Great game! Really captures the feel of creeping guilt and dread as you realise the cheery office you've joined isn't actually all that cheery. The writing and art are phenomenal. Everything from the emails to the animation of walking around with a cup of tea roots you in the space and gets you immersed. There's something almost supernaturally creepy about the design of your boss. There's also a mini-game where you get to make an ideal cup of tea. Ideal.

A well-written, thoughtful and very funny narrative adventure, in which you preoccupy yourself with office minutiae and guiltily facilitate corporate greenwashing. Exceedingly dark subject matter notwithstanding: Behind the Hydra's Eyes is, first and foremost, a playful satire. Fresh into a new job at 'Forward Green', your protagonist must try to keep an overseas construction project on track as the company rapidly circles the drain of corporate malfeasance. The story packs in an enviable amount of darkly witty moments: in knuckleheaded conversational asides; in flavour text when exploring your indifferent workspace and inhospitable living quarters; in opportunistic screeds from the brazen chancers filling your inbox with offers of BIG BUSINESS IMPROVEMENTS. The joke rate is high, and the hit-rate too. Although there's a sprinkling of more straightforward Gags (the various news reports you can peruse on your computer being a particular highlight; it's here that the game shows [i]The Day Today[/i] chops), for the most part the game's sense of humour is bone-dry, with a lot of the satirical oomph coming from the varied flavours of ghoulish insouciance seen in your network of colleagues (as well as your protagonist's own sterile responses to complaints from halfway around the world as, behind the white-collar farce, a grimly impactful story starts to unfold in your inbox). Behind the Hydra's Eyes is a relatively short experience (your first playthrough ought to take around an hour), but it's a rich and memorable one. The pared-back spritework subtly lends the game bags of character and perfectly complements the tone (the protagonist's jaunty bounce and permanent cup of tea are great touches), although there are a few pieces of very nice fullscreen pixel art too (I absolutely love the view from the player character's balcony that's featured in some of the game's more reflective sequences). If you're someone who feels like Late-Stage Capitalism Simulator 2k25 may be your kind of thing, I think there's an extremely good chance you'll be right. It's well worth playing, and so far it seems to be a surprisingly overlooked gem! Highly recommended, and I'm looking forward to seeing what the studio do next.

A very funny and sharply-written game about office life and greed masquerading as virtue. If you've ever been made to sit through corporate presentations about making the world a better place through business-driven real-world impact, this game will resonate with you.

This is a fun little adventure that satirizes greenwashing, Britain and its corporate culture. A nice way to spend an hour or two, with a few good laughs for good measure.