One thing that covering such a wide variety of indie games has taught me is that in theory there are games out there now being made in every flavor possible… and sometimes that can include those that could be considered to be in poor taste. Having been around to see the likes of the Postal series and some others historically, I’m quite familiar with the concept, and will even admit that sometimes experiences in that vein can be amusing. Unfortunately though, more often than not, I’ve found that the shock value tends to be the emphasis rather than quality play, which leads us to Customers From Hell.

Your objective is quite simple, you’ll want to stay alive while protecting some stuff in your store, and this will only be done by using lethal force. Your enemies will be handbag-wielding “Karens” who’ll come at you for no obvious reason, and what appear to be old men with walking sticks who are simply there to slowly steal your inventory (not that you ever see them reach for anything, they just take your supplies by being near them). You do have some options for how to deal with them, being able to both enable a variety of barriers and/or traps between rounds, or more likely you’ll be inclined to invest in improved weapons for mowing them down. With each new wave will come more enemies but then also the promise of more potential money for investing in dealing with the next one, and so on.

The problem is that this feels like a game that would have been at its funniest a few years ago, at best. Lines that include encouraging people to wear masks now feel dated, though honestly I can’t say making light of people trying to survive a pandemic is a great source of comedy anyway. The shooting itself is also pretty disappointing, with your enemies feeling more like bullet sponges than anything, and headshots not being rewarded as they should with an instant takedown. The result quickly then just feels like wave after wave of more of the same. Yes, you can try out different tactics, weapons, and obstacles, but without there being much promise of any of that making the fundamental play more tolerable, the whole endeavor just feels pointless.