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- A Little Too Relatable
Just a couple of days to the big day, and I stumbled upon a fine gem!
Use Up All Your Sick Days had quietly gone completely free on Itch as part of a discount offer. Usually, I take a full week with a game before writing about it. I like to let my thoughts settle. But this time, I took a different route; what you’re reading now is me sharing how I feel about the game roughly twelve hours after my first play.
Also, the offer only lasts till the 31st, so I sorta had to rush! Don’t want you guys to miss out on it.
The first thing that got me hooked was the story, which felt quite relatable...
In the multiplayer mode, you work in a small office. The year is ending. Everyone still has paid sick days left. But you cannot all take them at the same time, and you cannot take two in a row; if you mess up, you get punished with extra work!
While in solo mode, you step into the role of HR, trying to keep everyone happy before they burn out or quit. It’s funny, but it also hits a nerve in a way that feels real.
Narrative-wise, the game evolves beautifully depending on how you play it. In multiplayer, it feels like a chaotic office dance where people jump in out of turn, accidentally clash, and call each other out for mistakes.
In solo, the tone shifts completely. You are no longer just another employee. You are HR, inspiring (bribing) tired workers with pizza parties, carefully placing days on a calendar, and desperately trying to line things up before the system collapses. And then there is the automa!
At higher difficulties, management forces AI into your workflow to “help.” Every time you play a card, the automa reacts, pushing pressure onto the schedule. It is such a clever and hilarious addition that somehow manages to feel stressful and funny at the same time.
Mechanically, I loved how puzzly the game felt. Cards slot into a calendar grid, and winning hinges on creating horizontal or diagonal patterns that keep workers happy. It pushes you to think a few moves ahead, weighing whether to play, discard, or use a Doctor’s Note as scaffolding to reach lower weeks.
I have only played solo so far, but I can already tell this is coming to the table during Christmas. The events alone, from celebrating birthdays to freezing everything during a coffee break, feel tailor made for a group setting.
And to top it all- the artwork is a delight! I’m no stranger to Dylan Coyle’s game, having already played Otter and Doom Cat. Watching him releasing a series of games featuring adorable animals is a treat for the eyes!
Somewhere between the humor, the calendar puzzle, and the relatable theme, Use Up All Your Sick Days stuck with me. And that is probably the best compliment I can give a game I only played twelve hours ago!
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