Felix The Reaper

Felix The Reaper

Felix is a strange game. First impression was good – visuals are nice, narrator was setting up the premise. Menu looked promising - a detective board with clues to solve. But the more I played the more I felt that something was off - I wasn’t having fun.

I was expecting a sokoban-style game at first. But then there was some life-death mechanic, and the trailer looked like some music was involved. Do I move in rhythm? Create melodies? Think of elaborate ways to kill people? Why am I killing them in the first place? What about his goals?

Turns out there is only one interesting mechanic in the game – Felix can only stay in the shadows, and move the sun around so those shadows change place while time is frozen. Even then, it’s not implemented well – for the most levels I found it hard to tell what tile I could stand on, and which was a decoration. Even hovering over them with mouse did not guarantee that they can be stood on, so each level was more trial and error than puzzle solving. The puzzle aspect of it should not be that hard – if there exists several ways to make a shadow at one spot, you can change the angle of the sun to move around. But actually judging where all the shadows would be is not easy in 3d, and you have to either memorize patterns or check it every time.

The levels themselves look stylish, but still have a raw feel – level is floating in space, with some lab background. What is actually going on in those levels is another thing. As I mentioned, the main task is to kill someone, but there is hardly any reason to do so (some are bad people, others not), and the level objectives seem to have no correlation with out goal – move the deer, roast some meat, feed the birds. Our victim gets terrified or pushed, but mostly its not directly connected to their death circumstance. Without those visuals, the game objectives come to moving one thing to another place. If the time is frozen, why not move the victim off the cliff or do something with them directly?

Even when the levels we good, they required to be completed in smallest amount of moves, sun changes, and, worst of all, time. So you replay it over and over optimizing same thing and spending most of the time waiting for him to move where you want rather than thinking and solving. Thankfully more difficult version involves different challenge – collecting coins. But now at least part of them are not hard to get compared to main level goal, it just gets more tedious. The levels don’t evolve much over the course of the game – same switches in the beginning as in the end.

The main problem of narrative is love conflict between death and some angel, and it never gets explored either. He has some plans in the beginning and still has some plans in the end, and it could be removed from the game altogether but then we’d not have the only two cutscenes it has.

Same goes for Felix’s love for music – if anything, it’s detrimental to gameplay : I stop moving to think about puzzle, and screen starts rotating and Felix starts dancing, and the music makes you feel like you are in some dance club and makes it hard to concentrate. It’s even more obnoxious in the menu where the game gives you some real life lore behind death. It’s interesting on its own, but not with music, and also feels too much out of place – you pause and read for several minutes instead of playing.

And, of course, lets mention bugs and issues – game crashed, showed black screen for a minute and fixed itself, goal of the level disappeared so I had to guess what to do. I managed to get Felix in the sun and nothing bad happened to him. Also, part of his body seems to be exposed to it from time to time. On top of it all, it has long load times, even resetting same level is not the same as moving some tiles to their initial location, and have to wait for it. It feels very heavy and unoptimised for a level with chessboard size order. Most annoying thing for me was advertisements in main menu, and considering the issues I had it left a bad taste.

After two big breaks I managed to complete it, and it feels like I spent way more time with it than I actually did, but enjoyed it for way less.

It's fine. Nothing ground breaking or anything. The 3D light mechanic is interesting, but didn't keep me playing for long. It's fine, but I've got tons of other puzzle games i'd rather be playing.

Super cute.

"Felix the Reaper" is a puzzle game that is second to none. The puzzles start out easy, but quickly become more complex as new elements are added. I have to admit that I usually don't write a review until I've reached the end of the game, but with Felix it might take a little more time because your head gets boiling quickly. Dividing it into smaller levels was probably a wise decision, so you can take a break sooner than if you had to play everything in one go.

The setting, however, is not necessarily suitable for everyone. It also appeals to a slightly older clientele. The rather dark humor and allusions are actually not for children. If you like solving puzzles like how do I bring a fox, a sack of grain and a goose across the river if I only get two things in the boat, then you should grab it. If you also have a penchant for dark humor, you should hit the jackpot. If you don't like morbid jokes and can't ignore them, you're better off using something else. There is also additional replay value because if you complete certain tasks, you can unlock bonus material.

Clear recommendation.

This is going to be one of those reviews where I give a thumbs up and then proceed to shred the game. I like it, it's a competent puzzle game that keeps you itching with the feeling that "I could do that better". It has good replay value, extra stages unlock when you get higher grades on each stage and there is a challenge mode on top of that. There is much to like and Felix The Reaper is not a bad game, but there is too much lost potential here to ignore.

Let's start with gameplay. The puzzle mechanics revolve around getting around stages without touching the light, which Felix, as a Reaper, can't abide. The flavor is that you're setting people up to die, but generally the game is about getting object A and getting it to location B. There are two problems here; firstly, the difficulty ramp. This game gets hard really fast. You can see it in the Steam achievements, completion rates go down to below 10% at about the halfway mark and ends up at 4,4% of players actually finishing the game. It's jarring when you play, as you start scratching your head pretty damn early. There are even items that you're never introduced to, you're just expected to intuit what you should be able to pick up and not. The game really needed some levels to make players used to the game and feed them information a little at a time.

The second problem is the controls, or at least how they're used. Changing the angle of the sunlight is a core part of the game, and much of it has you using items to give shade as you change the angle, giving you acess to new places. This becomes really finicky by the end, as you're juggling several different items (you can only pick up one at a time) and changing the light angle over and over and over again. The asymmetric angle of the camera and the bulky items also make misclicks surprisingly common. It's mainly a problem in the last few levels, to be clear, but it does become a really annoying feature, exacerbated by the fizzing sound and the small animation every time you accidentally hit Felix with the light.

Then there's the music. The presentation of Felix The Reaper is overall a standout feature, with a unique art style, flavorful UI/menues and an extremely charismatic main character. But for a character that is all about dancing, Felix's music choices are questionable. You can switch between a dozen or so tracks on the fly and there's even a bit of info on each of the artists involved; it's clear that the developers were proud over this feature. And yet, I can't understand why. It's elevator music. It's dull as dishwater, as if designed to just be background noise. Felix is clearly having fun with the music in his headphones, why am I not having fun with the music in mine? There are even flashy references to songs like Footloose and Just Dance – so give us songs with that kind of energy! Instead, the music ends up hampering the game more than it helps, which is a big shame.

Storywise, I don't know what the game wants to do. Hell, I don't know if the developers know. On one hand, we have the charming Felix, with a dancer's soul and an intense wish to interact with his crush. There's some interesting lore one can read through as well, detailing real-world references to Death as a character and their connection to dance and sensuality in art and mythology. On the other hand, we have the slap-stick, gruesome deaths we are orchestrating, which takes up most of the actual runtime of the game. It's dark humour, but to its credit it's somewhat amusing on its own. It just doesn't gel with Felix himself, and when the entirety of his quest for love gets thrown together in a haphazard ending cinematic... it's a huge waste of a character that will be one of the main reasons why people buy this game.

I was disappointed by Felix The Reaper. At the same time, it's not a bad game for what it is. If you can accept the game as a good and difficult puzzle game about arranging accidents, then I think you can have a good time here. Just don't expect a game about the character Felix the Reaper.

It's a fun and unusual puzzle game. Great concept, characters, art, and storyline. I have only played for 3 hours but I would recommend it. The audio and sound are great too. The comedy is fun and the achievement bling is satisfying. It's well-conceived even the transition pages are cute and well-designed.

all around nice game 3D puzzles being the main focus with a little story development.
Felix is one hellova lovely memorable character with all that sway.
But in the end it's just another puzzle game.
i thought dancing/music was some sort of core gameplay element from the trailer. But it's not.
Its really not that interesting to pick up some rock and place them somewhere else over and over again.
i hate myself for not recommending this but the gameplay really needs to be a bit more variations.

Good to hear Patrick narrating this game, but the budget for the actor's voice must have been pricey, because you only hear him on the final levels. The puzzles are hard and frustrating, with little feeling of reward. I did fall in love with Felix, but I wanted to murder every barrel I saw. Watch a gameplay video to get the idea of the game. I certainly wasn't able to finish the game without a walkthrough.

Concept and backstory is neat, at least from what I could see from finishing the first chapter but after 2437834 crashes I gave up.

Seriously constant crash-fest, glad I got it for snack price. Might give it another go if it gets updated in the future.

Funny little puzzle game. The difficulty is a bit off, often the hardcore levels are easier than the normal ones. Also some are really hard while others are comparatively easy despite being at the end of the game.

The only thing that bothers me is repetition. There are time challenges that simply end if the time runs out, so you have to repeat the first x steps over and over again just to try something out shortly before the time runs out again. Also there are disappearing tiles, so if you make 1 mistake, you have to restart the level (thank god, there aren't many of those levels).

The story is neat, but totally irrelevant, like patrick stewart's voice. I really wish we could see more about the department of death/life and Felix/Betty/narrator.

Graphically/Performance wise the game is good, the controls are ok (played it with keyboard/mouse), the camera work could be better (only zooming in/out, rotating, no free camera movement) but doesn't bother too much.

Overall a good game with about 10-20hours of playtime.

Came for the music, stayed for the dance moves.

Nice game mechanics, interesting levels. However, the story is very brief and not very rewarding. And the music is a bit of a letdown as I very quickly silenced the game and put on my own music because the effect sounds became too annoying.

Overall a humorous and demanding puzzle game, maybe a bit too expensive for the short time needed to finish it. Except if you're into collecting all the bonus goals which I did not bother with because they do not really augment the fun of playing Felix the Reaper .

I love puzzle games, and this one oozes with brilliance in its presentation: it has charming graphics, funny animations, catchy music and a wonderfully weird theme and characters. There are historical essays about Death in culture as well as developer commentary about the dancers that influenced how the main character moves. The game even has Sir Patrick Stewart providing voice-over!

But there's barely any game to go along with it. The entire thing is 23 levels long (or ~5 hours to complete, if you don't plan to redo the levels to get perfect runs). And you don't even get to be the Grim Reaper in most of these levels - majority of objectives are such exciting tasks as delivering barrels of beer or attaching rubber hoses to old cars. And for the most part, you will be doing it on the same five maps over and over again.

The mechanics itself are simple and don't really go nowhere after the basics are introduced. You get buttons and switches that move stuff, and you can stack stuff - but the levels don't really get harder, they just get bigger and longer. The solutions don't feel clever or rewarding, they feel tedious.

The interface is somewhat clunky. The main feature of the game is changing the light/shadow position, but the preview of the action is a pretty animation that is way too slow. Why isn't there a simple highlight appearing on mouse-over (and why there is no preview of movable objects' shadows whatsoever) is mind-bending. Hint system instead of being helpful is a puzzle of it's own.

Finally: theme - the game labels itself as a romantic comedy about death. But there's no romance. The object of the hero's desires is a trophy girl which with no characterization (or spoken lines) and what he displays towards her is only a creepy fascination of a Peeping Tom (with loading level sketches clearly portraying him as one). To make matters worse, there's hardly any comedy either - there are jabs at ministerial bureaucracy, characters have cartoonishly big butts and a couple of pious nuns die violently (but not as violently as you would expect after watching Happy Tree Friends). There's even barely any death - after the tutorial level, which promises a funny corpse-laden romp through a day of a Grim Reaper, the game feels more like Felix the Janitor, an overproduced short about stacking barrels.

At the premium asking price this game is a huge disappointment.

I usually enjoy puzzle games but beating these puzzles doesn't give much satisfaction. Its a lot of picking up objects and working your way to another part of the level to put them down and doing this through out every level over and over again until you get it right. It doesn't feel fun just like a tedious chore.

Not a fan of puzzle games, but the visuals and music kept me playing and trying to figure out the puzzles on my own. Its nice that the game also lets you get hints on what to do next in the levels so i didnt need walktrough help with this.
Also love the character designs in general. I love that all the characters are round and chubby except for the second hunter brother in the first chapter.
Absolutley briliant im glad i bought it.

Story 2/10 - They told you a story and then try to keep your hope up for development in the story and then they betray you. You got nothing and it's ends just like that.

Gameplay 7/10 - good idea but too hard to distinguish between what can do and what not. Is it just a prop or key item to complete the puzzle. Shadow block need to be more distinguish. Control feel a bit clunky and would make time limit challenge a much harder task. Anyway your dance move is the best.

Music 4/10 - you said it would be a great match with stage but you failed me.

This game is good but I can't say it's a good buy. It's leave me with a hole in my heart from how small the prize is with this much challenge and cost of the game.

This game is so lovely and thoughtful. At first I wasn't sure how a reaper and dance go together, but each chapter has some historical trivia you can read and having done so, everything makes so much more sense! The dancing is not just a nice thing to look at, but it relates back to something and I found that you can find meaning in a lot of such details. It really makes me see how much love and effort the developers put into this game.

As for the puzzles, up to (including) chapter 3 I never felt frustrated or not challenged enough. There were some puzzles that took me longer to figure out while I got a grasp of others more quickly which made it all in all a very nice experience. Now, I do love puzzles so it might be more difficult for others, but the mechanics itself are rather easy so even if it takes some time, you will get there eventually. There is an option to get a hint for your next move if you are stuck or simply think about something the wrong way (like I admittedly did once).

The main story is simple and not really the main focus for what I have played so far, so not much I can say about that expect it makes sense (refering to the beginning of my review). Each death has its own little story though and the developers managed to surprise me in some way with every single one of them. The macabre humor is just the way I love it! I'm looking forward to the chapters I haven't played yet.

The graphics are fairly simple, but nice and fitting.
The music is great in my opinion, the sfx maybe even more so (the deer in ch.1 is hilarious!) and the voice-over is done by Sir Patrick Stewart. Need I say more?

In the end, there is only one negative thing I can say so far: While reading the historical trivia, it's not easy to tell the comma and full stop/period apart (at least in german, I haven't looked at other languages). It didn't bother me a lot, because you can often tell by the flow of the text, but I tripped over that a few times.
Other than that minor detail, I am fully enjoying myself!

A lovely game, with a unique twist in both art and gameplay. The shadow mechanic is used expertly to make for interesting puzzles. What impressed me the most was the unique feel of the game, A dancing protagonist in a unique environment. Puzzles like this is not normally my game of choice, but I will make an exception for this little gem.

Uhhhhh, LOVE this puzzler, it has a lot of headscratching, but once you get a feel for it, the rewards are the bomb.

Nice and even old school to a certain extend and bloody grim dark comedy in the cutscenes for sure.

And the god damn Death is dancing throughout the gameplay. He is in love with life apparently. Betty life is called.

Lean back! Don't be in a hurry, that makes it the more rewarding. You can always chase achievements, and fuzz about it if you want, but luckily it's not forced on you.

Ok, that was a bit all over, but I really love this experience, and I was in a hurry to do this review. I've never done one before.

Played till midway in chapter 2 now, and the game is evolving great, but I'm looking forward to those teleporters,right, I saw teleporters somewhere.

Go be Felix, he is lovely. And his music is wild, and sometimes crazy wild, but you can change the tune in the menu, which sometimes I had to tbh.

(But I also had the game just running, while doing other things, because the track I had landed on was sweet whistling stuff, I liked.)

I love puzzles but this game is too hard for me. The optimal time for a level will show 2 minutes and it'll take me 20. Love the art style and idea of the game but my brain is mush now.

The art is simply gorgeous, the sense of humor behind everything is fresh, and I love the concept of the game. Felix himself is wonderful, and I'd love to play the character more...
The gameplay on this is...unpleasant. I love riddles and puzzles, but by the second level this becomes tedious and maddening. There's no real gentle tutorial process, whereby the levels get progressively more difficult...the mechanics are introduced (mostly...some of them you figure out for yourself), then it's on full difficulty level.
I was looking forward to playing through the plot (the tagline is that it's a romantic comedy about the life of death)...and a plot would have given me a reason to go muddling through the frustration of the levels. The levels get maddening long before any story kicks in, so with no payoff in sight, I'm out of motivation to continue. Asking for a refund.

I bought this mostly for a chill, artistic experience. I love the art, animations, and humor. I was pretty disappointed with the soundtrack... Felix is always groovin' about with his walkman and headphones - I had assumed the music would be more inspirational/creative, but it fell pretty flat for me.

As for the the actual gameplay, I tired pretty quickly of mentally tracing lines and constantly flipping the light. I admittedly stopped playing on the last stage of the first level to get a refund, but based on other opinions out there, it doesn't seem like the puzzle solving really evolves that much. Also there is a level that is unlocked through social media - not a big deal for most, but that's pretty lame.

Again, I wasn't looking for spectacularly groundbreaking gameplay so I would've continued on if the music had been better... it was just so terribly uninspired.