Office Stress

YOUR JOB IS TERRIBLE. YOUR BOSS IS WORSE. DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

You've had this job. Maybe you have it right now. The printer jams twice a day, the phone never stops, someone keeps sending you spreadsheets that don't reconcile, and at four o'clock a man in a slightly-too-expensive shirt appears at your desk to ask how it's all going.

Office Stress is about the part you don't get to do in real life.

MAKE IT PERSONAL

Before you start, you build two people: yourself, and him.

Name him. Pick his face. Give him the haircut. Every insult he shouts across the office has his name on it, every warning letter is signed by him, and when he finally goes down, the game says so by name. It is astonishing how much better this makes everything.

DO THE WORK. FEEL THE STRESS.

Answer the phone. Unjam the printer. Send the email. Shred the evidence. Water the plant that nobody else waters. Every chore is a little minigame on a deadline, and they don't queue up politely — they land on top of each other until you're sprinting across the office with a box of A4 wondering how your life got here.

Miss one and you get a written warning. Get enough warnings and you're fired, which is the one ending where you don't get to punch anybody.

THEN THE DOOR OPENS

Fill the stress meter and he comes out from behind his desk to tell you what he thinks.

That's when the day stops being a job and starts being a boxing match. He blocks. He telegraphs. He talks the entire time. Knock him down and the day is cleared, the paperwork is forgotten, and you go home genuinely feeling better.

AFTER HOURS

When he's gone, the office is yours. Race the chairs down the corridor. Play paper-ball basketball across the desks. And do other crazy things with your co-workers!

THREE WEEKS. TWENTY-TWO LEVELS. ONE MANAGER.

• 12 working days of escalating chaos — by week three he patrols the floor while you work, and the only way to buy back time is to slap him on his way past

• 10 after-hours events — chair racing, paper basketball, hide and seek, egg toss

• Build yourself and your boss — names, faces, the lot

• Chase the clean sheet — letter grades on every working day, gold stars on every evening, and a completion score that knows exactly how far off perfect you are

• Six languages — English, Bulgarian, German, Spanish, French and Italian

No managers were harmed in the making of this game. Several were named, modelled, and repeatedly knocked over