Developer & Publisher: Tuokio Oy
Platforms: Android & iOS
Price: Free
It’s an odd thing, but I really hate the sound of the printer. It reminds me that I’m at work, a wage slave trapped inside the confines of the four walls of my over-lit, over-air-conditioned office with undersized paper cups so that I don’t drink too much lukewarm processed coffee, and not at home staring at a laptop or smartphone screen like the wandering free spirit I really am. If I had a giant hammer, I would smash every single piece of furniture, every gloriously buzzing printer, every door or window, every boardroom round table, every single water cooler around. As far as non-sexual fantasies go, this one features in the upper echelons of my personal list.
No surprise, then, that I took to Smash the Office like a fish to water. You might pretend otherwise, but we’re not all that different, you and me. It’s not just my fantasy, it’s a universal one. And this game brings it to life, sort of. The protagonist — the player you control — is an employee of an evil organisation aptly called Slavetech. He’s armed with a weapon — a baseball bat — and the objective is to move from room to room, smashing as many Objects Found in the Office as possible, with coins and time reprieves to continue the journey the in-game incentive.
You have a minute to destroy as much stuff as you can, earning little power-ups and points, and trying your best to get more time. You smash things and accumulate coins, so that you can purchase better weapons to smash more things and better. And then the time runs out, which makes you angry so you smash even more things the next time around with the fancy new weapons you buy. And then the time runs out, which makes you angry. It’s this endless loop of rage and more rage — cloaked in a fun graphics layout — that makes Smash the Office both therapeutic and infuriating. It’s not exactly a new game, but one whose novelty has seemingly been lost in a sea of This Run and That Run variants. Its one major problem, of course, is that there are so many things to smash and so little time.
- Advertisement -