Just when you thought we were done with PAX East 2024 content, we’re nowhere near done. We’re just pacing ourselves. I was just about to tell you about a hellish game I didn’t even know existed. That game is called Hell of an Office, which was already available on Steam as an Early Access game but was also shown off during PAX East 2024 in the Joystick Ventures booth and is in development by 43 Studios. If you thought your job was hellish, it doesn’t hold a candle to this.
Hell of an Office is a speedrunner delightful first-person experience with players attempting to navigate actual levels of hell as they try to realize, on their first day on the job, that this place isn’t for them. I suppose it’s better late than never. You’ll have to navigate through 100 levels of craziness, including “don’t touch the lava,” opening portals with a stapler, and rocket jumping, similar to Quake Arena, to reach the end of each level. As you’d imagine, with each progressing level, things get harder and more interesting, with most levels not even being clear about where the goal is. It’s like Portal x Hell, which is the best way to despite this game.
But during PAX East 2024, for some reason, I entered a contest to play Hell of an Office to see if I could beat a certain amount of levels in under 5 minutes. I like challenges. I play Soulslike games for crying (streaming) out loud. So, after getting my ass handed to me in Big Boy Boxing, which I’ll talk about in another article, it was time to play Hell of an Office. I did not know what I was getting myself into.
The early levels are simple, getting you acquainted with your abilities, and aren’t too hard to manage. It’s not until you get used to them that the game pulls the rug from under you and goes, “OK, now it’s time to die.” Well, it doesn’t say it, but it as well. Levels get more challenging, and the lava that once sat under you now rises to engulf the platforms you walk and jump on. While areas that can’t be rocket jumped on start appearing, making it ever so more complex to get around the levels. We can’t forget that paths that you used to be able to see are now obscured, and it’s up to you to punch a portal through them and do it fast because that lava is rising fast. There’s no break to the madness; soon, you find yourself making silly mistakes that you previously didn’t. You start to second guess yourself, and you begin to scream, but terror takes the sound before you make it. Oh, wait. That’s Michael Jackson’s Thriller, but it works all the same.
Hell of an Office pushes you to the breaking point and then turns more gas on the fire, and truthfully, I enjoyed it.
I’ll spare you the details of the contest, but needless to say, thanks to my experience in other speedrunning games, a very long history with Quake games, and perfecting the art of rocket jumping, I managed to beat the time somehow—barely. I don’t even know how I managed it, especially since I was going mental trying to figure out the later levels. My reward? A bunch of swag from the Joystick Ventures team, including a mug that nearly dropped during my ventures at PAX East, a cool-looking T-shirt, and some other things.
Despite never having played Hell of an Office, it is now one of my favorite games, though I feel the game still needs to iron out a few concerns I have with it, such as not reaching certain heights with rocket jump, even if done correctly. Still, if you like speedrunning games and don’t mind being burnt, try Hell of an Office. And if you don’t like supporting early access games, which I completely understand, there’s a demo available to check out.
Hell of an Office currently doesn’t have a release date.
