Hazard Pay Review
Cover up gruesome lab accidents in Hazard Pay, a darkly funny, cleverly designed block-pushing puzzler.
Hazard Pay. Credit: Smitner Studio / Numskull Games
Hazard Pay is a dark spin on Sokoban from Smitner Studio and Numskull Games. A game like this lives or dies on well-designed puzzles, and Hazard Pay delivers on that end. Then, the pitch-black humor of its premise, writing, and presentation adds a layer that truly makes it truly memorable. Its uneven difficulty can be frustrating.
You work as cleanup crew for the shady corporation IPT. You’re not a janitor: your job is to cover up lab accidents and leave no trace. Clean trails of blood. Remove vats of waste. Dispose of bodies, and not just the dead ones. Die, and you’ll be delisted per company policy, then replaced. Termination without an exit interview. A voice on your radio gives you instructions, and part of your job description is not asking questions.
Levels introduce an escalating number of moving parts. Early puzzles give you a bucket and mop to push along the grid and clean up blood. Step on the blood and you leave footprints, creating an additional complication. Vats of acid will dissolve bodies, including your own. To push a barrel without falling in and dying, you first have to push a cap onto it or use another object as a buffer. Living scientists can’t be moved until you push a roll of duct tape onto them. Soon you’ll discover that blood trails conduct electricity and can complete circuits to open doors. Electricity will also kill you, of course. The complexity keeps growing, and cleaning up isn’t enough: you have to get your gear back onto your truck to finish a level.
Hazard Pay. Credit: Smitner Studio / Numskull Games
Hazard Pay. Credit: Smitner Studio / Numskull Games
Two quality-of-life features ease the frustration these kinds of games can create. As puzzles demand more intricate planning, a move-by-move rewind takes the sting out of mistakes. If a level feels beyond saving, another button instantly resets it. Levels can be challenging enough, but if you’re a masochist you can try to find perfect solutions with a minimum number of steps. If you get stuck, you can also skip the puzzle by simply driving your truck to the next one on the level select map. I frequently got stuck, so that option was a godsend. The difficulty curve was uneven; sometimes a later level gave me an epiphany about an earlier puzzle, while other times I was truly stuck.
The game’s tile-based pixel art is ideal for making a block-pushing puzzle legible. I find that 3D can obscure clear paths on fixed axes in games like this. Pixel art also lets Hazard Pay get gory without becoming so gruesome that it overwhelms the dark comedy. Scanlines and CRT ghosting during rewind are a nice touch, as though you’re watching through the CCTV feed of a shady supervisor.
Hazard Pay may not be my favorite Sokoban-style game, but it’s still one of the best I’ve seen. I love its central conceit, and its layered mechanics were a true source of surprise. The difficulty left me stuck more often than I wanted, yet the puzzles were compelling enough to keep me trying.
Hazard Pay
Hazard Pay pairs layered puzzles with a memorable, pitch-black premise, though its uneven difficulty left me stuck more often than I wanted.
Hazard Pay puts you on cleanup duty for a shady corporation, disposing of bodies and wiping away blood in darkly funny block-pushing puzzles.