Flipping Death is a platforming puzzle game. The game focuses Penny Doewood and her life or unlife as it were. She sorta dies and is trying to figure out how to get back into her body, but Death being a halfwit, doesn’t listen to her for even 3 seconds. He just assumes she’s a demon because of her outfit so he gives her his job so he can go on vacation because she must be the temp he requested over a thousand years ago. Why he wants this break… well I’m not sure because he’s never shown working or being even remotely useful. Regardless, you’re assumed to be the temp agent here to take over for him for a while and he forces it on you; then fucks off to the moon.
In the game, you’re trying to figure out how to get back into your body and back to living your life, in a very literal way. In order to figure this out, you need the help of the ghosts that inhabit the land. They all have unfinished business which is why they’re still there in the first place. The only way they’ll help you is if you fix their issues so that they can move on. This usually requires you to possess someone and solve little puzzles to get things moved around in the land of the dead to solve issues. A good example of this was in one of the chapters you scare a firefighter to death so that he can put out a fire in the land of the dead.
Sometimes the puzzles aren’t obvious and they’re really hard to figure out, however to counteract this there is a hint system. The hints are singular pictures that show what actively needs to be done to move on in the level. They’re all static so they don’t change based on whether you’ve done something already or not. However if you’ve already completed what a hint showed you or was going to show you to do, it’s grayed out so you can’t view it, that way you don’t get confused trying to redo something. The puzzles are pretty obvious with the aid of the hints thankfully.
All the characters are quirky and attempt at humor though some of them fall flat to me. A good example of this was again, that same firefighter mentioned previously, he has a heart condition that he knows about. He also loves horror films and is a complete chicken shit. When you’re not possessing him he’s in the fire station watching a horror movie. The on the other side there’s individuals like the dentist who hates his job but does it with a smile acting like he does, beyond that he lacks any real personality.
In order to possess people you have to collect ‘things’, which are floating skulls. They aren’t actually given a name in the game. There’s three different types the normal ones which always respawn after a short period of time a moving some distance away from them. The other two types are provided to you for doing specific things. One is a collection race where you have a limited period of time to collect all the skulls, there’s no time piece or number it gives you to know how much time you have left or how many skulls you have left. The other is running around a creature trying not to let it hit you until a unseen timer again runs out and the creature explodes giving you the skulls it held.
Each person that you possess has their own special skill. The firefighter has a fire extinguisher; Tina has a brace face and teeth of fucking steel, and there’s even a pigeon that poops on cue. Yep you read that right, a pigeon that poops on cue. These abilities are used to solve puzzles. You can also read their minds while they’re possessed. Sometimes this adds some amusing information about the character and sometimes it provides information about one of the puzzles you need to solve in that level.
There’s no combat or anything really in the game, just collecting the skulls so you can unlock everyone in the level for possession and solving the puzzles. There’s only 7 levels but they can take a while if you have trouble with the puzzles and don’t want to use the hint system, like me. Just use the fucking hint system, it won’t count against you and it’s not super in depth as it’s only a single picture that looks like a drawing. However because of this, the game can feel boring on occasion. Because to me anyways, it sometimes starts to feel like a point and click game, which I don’t particularly like. Overall though the game is great fun, the story is hilarious, just don’t play it all in one sitting, I suggest an episode or two a day.
Flipping Death was developed by: Zoink! Games
Point of Sale: Steam, X1, PS4, Switch
$20.00: Not even Death shuts them up.
A review copy was provided by the developer Zoink! Games.
darkmikasonfire has awarded Flipping Death The Indie Gamer Team Seal of Approval
Indie Gamer Team 