Felix the Reaper is a top-down grid-based puzzle game about being a trainee reaper, setting up cruel and unusual deaths for people.
The core gameplay is pretty simple. As a reaper, you can only move in the shadows. There are four primary ways to manipulate shadows:
1) You can shift the direction of the shadows by 90 degrees.
2) You can pick up and move boxes, barrels, and similar items to cast shadows.
3) You can throw levers to move objects around in the environment.
4) You can stand on buttons (or place objects on buttons) to move objects around in the environment.
These very simple mechanics combine with level layouts to create complex puzzles, many of which require lateral thinking in order to acquire the objects you need and move them through the level to reach your objectives.
All of the levels are ultimately solved either by throwing a hard-to-reach switch or by moving some object to a destination to cause some sort of mayhem, like moving a goat in front of a dog so it bites its tail.
There are 5 sets of 4-5 levels, each with its own little theme, as you set up some horrible death for some character; half of them are set in medieval times and half in the 1980s, but there’s no meaningful mechanical differentiation between the eras, it is purely cosmetic. The levels are not generally too difficult to complete (though some are tricky), and there is an in-game hint system if you are stuck.
If you want an additional layer of challenge, you can try and complete optional objectives – completing the levels in a minimal number of moves, or minimal shifts of the sun, or within a certain time limit, or only moving a limited distance, or taking minimimal actions. These vary from level to level, but while they took some practice, none were overly onerous – though some of the action limits do require you to exploit the levels efficiently to avoid unnecessary movements.
There are also “hardcore reaper trainee” levels, which are remixes of the main levels, but often with heavily altered arrangements, resulting in a significantly more difficult solution – at least in theory. In practice, while they’re ostensibly harder than the mainline levels, if you are trying to get the skulls on the mainline levels, they’re not really much different in terms of the time they’ll take to beat.
Overall, the game will probably take you about 5 hours to beat if you are just trying to get through all the levels ASAP, and probably about 10-15 hours if you are trying to 100% it.
But I guess I haven’t really answered the central question: is the game good?
I think it’s fairly decent. It’s not the best puzzle game I’ve ever played, but a bit of clever lateral thinking is required to solve many of the puzzles, especially efficiently. The overall quirky nature of the game is also fun, with a dancing reaper swaying to the music. On the downside, the strictly linear nature of the game means that if you are struck on a puzzle, you have to keep beating against it until you beat it – though all the mainline levels can be solved with the help of the hint system.
If you’re a fan of puzzle games, this is a reasonable enough example, but if you are looking for something more action-oriented, this is not the game for you.
3.0