Felix The Reaper is an indie puzzle game described as a “romantic comedy about the life of Death.” It follows Felix, a newly approved field reaper for the bureaucratic Ministry of Death, as he goes about his business arranging unlikely deaths for mortals. Felix The Reaper offers a unique art style and interesting gameplay, but fails to deliver a satisfying resolution to a clever idea.
The premise of Felix The Reaper is simple. Felix works for the Ministry of Death setting up Rube Goldberg machine-type deaths for people that the ministry has marked to be killed. He’s in love with Betty The Maiden, his counterpart from the Ministry of Life, who he hopes to run into in the mortal realm. He is continually warned against pursuing his star-crossed by his supportive mentor, wonderfully voiced by Sir Patrick Stewart. Oh, and of course, he loves to dance.
Simple Mechanics
The gameplay of Felix The Reaper is deceptively simple. Felix is a reaper, which means that he can only operate in the shadows, and he uses a device to change the position of the sun to one of two directions, moving the shadows so that you can traverse the levels. This is all explained in a blessedly brief tutorial. After that, the player is on their own.
A few new mechanics are introduced through the first half of the game, but they are well-integrated in the game and easy to figure out without much hand-holding. For a little while, these keep the puzzles interesting enough to keep going. The last few chapters, however, the puzzles do not change that much. They get harder with more steps that mostly involve micromanaging moveable boxes to cast shadows in exactly the right way, but they aren’t meaningfully different from the chapters that came before them.
Surprisingly Replayable
There are five chapters in all, each one with several levels where Felix completes various steps to eventually cause the death of a mortal. It ends up being a bit of a short play, but that’s fine because the game offers a lot of replayability. The puzzles on their own are challenging enough, but there are also challenges that come with each level. These challenges can include beating a minimum time, turning the sun a minimum number of times, or taking a minimum number of moves. These challenges are clearly not meant to be completed in the first round, since they require prior knowledge of the levels, and will likely take many tries to complete all of the challenges in any given level. There are also hardcore versions of levels that are even more difficult. For players who thrive on a challenge or enjoy speedrunning, these will most likely be a welcome addition, but it can be disheartening to some to finally finish a level and find out that they could have completed it twice as fast and four times as efficient.
The strong point of Felix the Reaper is definitely its art design. Each level in the game opens with a cutscene that combines the cutesy and the grotesque, creating an art style that contributes to the unique tone of the game. Felix, on the other hand, is the only character who is nice to look at, with a pleasing round, friendly shape that contrasts with the deformed mortals he interacts with. The whole effect makes Felix detached from his job – he never even appears in any of the cutscenes. It makes sense. His main purpose is to find Betty, the object of his affections, and to dance.
The problem with this is that although Felix’s connection with Betty is heavily emphasized, the game never resolves the plot. Betty only ever appears in narration, and only at the very end of the game. Much is made about the incompatibility of Felix and Betty and the fact that as a member of the Ministry of Life, she can only stay in the light. It seems to hint at a new mechanic and a new character that has to work alongside Felix with similar but opposite restrictions, but then the game abruptly ends. The credits roll and the game gives you the option to replay the levels that you haven’t completed all the challenges on.
That's It?
It doesn’t feel like a sequel tease. It feels like the end of a first act. Kong Orange refers to Felix The Reaper as a romantic comedy, but in reality, it’s more like a third of a romantic comedy. We get to watch Felix’s story up until the meeting, then nothing. It seems uncharitable to criticize a fairly simple puzzle game for a lack of story, but everything about the introduction and characters implies that there would be something more. If the main character of the game doesn’t care about the gameplay, there should at least be a satisfying payoff for what he does care about.
It’s clear that the developers put a lot of effort into the writing and themes of this game. They even included information on the history of death as a symbolic figure and how it affected the game design. The art style is one of a kind, Patrick Stewart’s voice acting is phenomenal, and Felix’s character is lovable. Still, both the gameplay and the story lack any sort of satisfactory resolution and leave you wanting more, not necessarily in a good way.
A copy of Felix The Reaper was purchased for this review.Felix The Reaper is available now for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
Felix the Reaper