Execute: I clicked people into oblivion for an hour and now I feel a bit weird

So I found this one at about half eleven on a Tuesday. Kids were finally down, I had maybe an hour before I knew I'd be too knackered to do anything useful, and I just started clicking through the Steam queue on autopilot. And then I hit Execute.

The title screen alone is something. Big blocky pixel art, nuclear aftermath cityscape, the word EXECUTE in the kind of font that tells you this game isn't messing about. I actually laughed a bit. Like, fair play, you've committed to a vibe here.

The premise is exactly what it says on the tin. You've got to bring the world's population from 8 billion down to zero. That's it. That's the whole game. And you start, I am not joking, with a guillotine. One guillotine. Click to execute. Click click click. 8 billion people, mate. With a guillotine. The math is not in your favour at first.

The interface is done up like a Windows 98 desktop, old tube TV filter and everything, and it genuinely works really well. Its a bit grim obviously, the whole thing is quite grim, but theres something almost absurdist about it that stops it feeling like gore for gores sake. Its more like a very dark comedy about the scale of the world, if that makes sense. The writing has a dry wit to it that caught me off guard a few times.

You unlock work camps pretty early on. You send people there, they work, they die slower than the guillotine but you can have way more of them going at once. There are upgrades you can buy to improve their "wellbeing" which honestly just made me feel worse about it, but in a way the game clearly intends. Its making a point. Whether you agree with the point or not is up to you.

The real turning point is when you start generating energy. You burn... look, I'll spare the details, but once you've got an energy supply going the whole thing opens up. Suddenly things are automating, numbers are going up faster, and you start genuinely optimising stuff. That classic incremental game brain kicks in, the "just one more upgrade" thing, and before you know it its quarter past midnight and you've unlocked nuclear weapons.

The nuke section is where the game gets actually impressive as an incremental. Theres a whole supply chain to build, uranium, warheads, the lot. And when you launch one the animation is genuinely satisfying, proper retro-styled mushroom cloud, the numbers drop massively, you feel like youve accomplished something terrible.

I got through one full run in about 45 minutes. There's a prestige system which resets you but gives bonuses so you can go faster next time, and tbh I can see myself going back to it a couple more times to see how quick you can really push it once you've got everything unlocked.

I should probably say: this is not for everyone. Ngl the content is dark and if you're sensitive to that stuff you should just skip it. Its not gory in a graphic way but the subject matter is what it is. For me, the game earns it because theres clearly a point being made about scale and systems and how easy it is to reduce humans to numbers. Or maybe I'm reading too much into a Steam clicker I found at 11pm on a Tuesday.

Would I go back? Yeah probably. Its short and a bit twisted but the automation loop is genuinely well done and the pixel art is lovely. One of those games where you feel slightly funny after but you cant quite say it wasn't worth the hour.

Execute on Steam