By Desiree Bonilla

Flipping Death is an engaging puzzle platform game  with mild horror elements created by Zoink! Games. Here, you play as a girl named Penny, a very brave and unpredictable person. She used to work at a funeral home but got into trouble and lost her job. Because she wanted to liven things up, she jumped out at someone while wearing a cape and devil horns and shouted “BEHOLD MORTAL! You have entered the Domain of the Dead!” Penny’s boss confronts and fires her. To clear her head, Penny decides to go on a late night drive with her boyfriend.

That’s when things take a turn for the worse. Penny gets in a crash and then takes shelter in a crypt, which ends up crumbling down and sending Penny to her death. Awakening in the underworld, Penny meets Death himself. Since Penny is still wearing the cape and horns, Death mistakes her for a demon temp he ordered and hands a the scythe.

With the scythe, you can travel through the underworld and the real world. It’s now your duty to help the ghosts you encounter find peace by solving the problems they had in the real world and completing their unfinished business. To do this, you have to possess someone who is still alive and communicate with them by talking to them through their minds.

Then the world flips, and you can carry out the wishes of the dead. Each person you possess has different abilities that help you complete the task that will resolve their real-world issue. For example, the first guy you possess is a man obsessed with ice cream, who talks about his knowledge of a secret government-made ice cream flavor. All you really use him for is to get around in the living world. I found this character funny because of his appearance: his tongue sticks out, and he has a cone of ice cream in his hand.

The art of Flipping Death is very unique but spooky. The 2D characters look as if they are made from cardboard (in a good way). There is a nightmarish theme in the background, with little ghosts flying around and gravestones. It’s cool in a Halloween way. But a problem I had with the game was that the dialogue sections were very long, which was not compelling for me. I ended up skipping parts of the dialogue, and partially for that reason then I had a hard time figuring out the “living side” tasks I needed to compete. I often ended up possessing someone and then running around the map without knowing what to do. But I still think Flipping Death is a very good and entertaining game. It didn’t leave me wanting to go out and tell people that they HAVE to get it, but if you enjoy 2D puzzle platformers and very amusing content, then you should play Flipping Death.

Desiree Bonilla, a New York Videogame Critics Circle intern, is the founder of our Orlando satellite bureau.