Cheat or Die

My first impression was that Kanonix had built the sort of game nobody commissions and nobody covers, the kind that exists purely because someone thought it would be funny and quietly brilliant to simulate the anxiety of exam week from the wrong side of the rules. That hunch turned out to be mostly correct. Cheat or Die is a 2D puzzle game set inside Hartmann School, where you guide a student named Mathilde through her final exam week by passing notes, texting answers, and deploying a surprising range of perks and tricks to keep her classmates supplied with answers before the Supervisor catches anyone in the act. The structure is a ten-level escalating challenge, each level shuffling classroom layouts and student counts, while the Supervisor grows progressively more dangerous the better Mathilde actually does. That last wrinkle is a genuinely sharp design choice: succeeding draws more heat, which means the game keeps tightening the screws in a way that feels logical rather than arbitrary. The mechanical vocabulary is richer than the sub-five-dollar tier would lead you to expect. There are selectable perks before each level, a Teddy Bear relay mechanic for longer table passes, cell phone texts for reaching students across the room, and even a "deadly coffee" gambit that buys breathing room by neutralising the Supervisor temporarily. The achievement list essentially doubles as a tutorial for every trick in the toolkit, pushing you toward combo plays like saving two pupils in a single action or nailing a perfect score on a specific exam subject without being seen. Multiple difficulty levels, including a Hard mode where the Supervisor hits maximum aggression, provide a reason to revisit levels after your first clean run. The presentation is where the handcraft shows most clearly. The hand-drawn art style is colourful and stylised without being garish, and the comedy leans into dark territory just enough to give the story texture. Character dialogues flesh out the finals week with a light narrative spine, the writing charming and slightly edgy in a way that feels very much like a solo developer amusing themselves. What is missing is a broader sense of polish: documentation on its critical reception is almost entirely absent, the game has been quietly sitting on Steam since September 2020 with only a handful of user reviews, and there is no sign of post-launch updates or community activity. For players expecting a tightly tuned commercial release, that silence will be a genuine warning sign. The honest read is this: Cheat or Die is a first game by a solo developer, and it wears that identity openly. Its scope is deliberately small, its ambitions are legible and human-scaled, and within those limits it delivers a complete and good-natured little puzzle experience. If you like dark-comedy indie puzzles, appreciate hand-drawn 2D aesthetics, and want something you can finish in one sitting without much friction, the game earns its place. If you need depth, longevity, or any kind of community, look elsewhere. I find myself rooting for games like this one, not out of charity, but because every now and then the Steam catalogue surprises you with something that knows exactly what it is.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

Be the first to comment on Cheat or Die.