Death Incoming!

Review by eFreeware

Death Incoming! is a free puzzle game from Lion Studios, the studio behind Mr. Bullet, Happy Glass, Ink Inc and Love Balls. You take the role of the Grim Reaper, cloak and scythe included, and work through chapters of scenes where the goal is to bring about the demise of the people in them. It sits in the Adventure category, but the core of it is brain teasing rather than exploration.

The main reason to consider it is the premise. Most puzzle games ask you to save someone, guide someone or match something; this one hands you the scythe and asks how you would finish off a careless bystander using whatever the scene provides. That inversion is the hook, and it is the thing I would weigh first when deciding whether to install.

A puzzle game that lets you play the villain

Death Incoming! puts you on the villain's side of the equation and treats the whole exercise as comedy. It is a darkly humorous setup rather than a horror one, and the game is pitched as something to relax with.

That pitch matters, because the subject matter could easily be unpleasant in other hands. Here the victims are drawn from absurd situations, and the joke is usually on their own poor judgment rather than on the violence itself. If you like puzzles with a mischievous streak and don't mind the macabre dressing, this is the appeal.

How the chapter puzzles work

Each chapter drops you into an interactive scene populated with characters going about their business. One example the developer gives is someone bouncing on a trampoline beside an open construction site; another is a person standing too close to a tiger pit at a zoo. Your job is to study the scene and work out how the available items can be used to bring each of these people to an end.

The puzzle layer is about cause and effect. You are looking for the object or the sequence that turns an ordinary moment into a fatal one, which makes the puzzles a test of your brain power and your smarts. The scenes are meant to be funny as well as solvable, so part of the enjoyment is in seeing what the designers have set up around you.

The emphasis is on observation and working out the chain of events, which makes it a sit-and-think experience rather than something to play in short bursts of frantic tapping.

Dressing up your reaper

Beyond the puzzles, there is a customization layer. The developer lists a range of skins and options for decorating your Grim Reaper, so you can give your version of Death a look of your own. It gives you something to work toward between chapters.

I would treat this as the lighter half of the package. It gives the game a bit of personality beyond the scenes themselves, and players who enjoy collecting and tweaking appearance will get more out of it than those who only care about solving levels.

Cost, ads and the studio behind it

Death Incoming! is free to install and carries advertising, and it also offers in-app purchases. The Teen rating reflects the subject matter rather than anything more explicit. With more than 50 million installs and a 4.5 average across 160,707 ratings, it is a well-established title rather than a recent experiment, and it has been available since August 2020.

Lion Studios points players to its contact page for feedback, help with a level that has you stuck, or ideas for the game.

Who this reaper role suits

This is a good fit for players who like self-contained logic puzzles and don't need a long narrative to stay interested. Each chapter gives you a fresh scene with its own little problem, so the game works well for people who enjoy dipping in, studying a setup carefully, and moving on once it clicks. The comedic tone keeps it from feeling heavy despite the theme.

It also suits anyone who appreciates a puzzle game with a distinct identity. The reaper angle, the skins and the deliberately silly scenarios give it more character than a straightforward matching or physics puzzler. The free price and the size of the audience make it an easy thing to try without much commitment.

Where I would be more cautious is with players who want their puzzle games to have a serious or emotional register, or who prefer a continuous story to a series of separate scenes. The game is built around individual chapters and the comedy of each setup, and that is the experience it delivers.

Is the reaper worth recruiting

Death Incoming! is a free, ad-supported puzzle game with optional purchases, and its strongest asset is a premise that few other puzzlers bother with. Playing as the Grim Reaper and engineering the downfall of careless characters is a genuinely different angle, and the chapter structure keeps each scene short and self-contained.

I would recommend it to players who enjoy logic puzzles with a dark sense of humor and who like the idea of a game that can be picked up scene by scene. The customization options add a bit of personality on top.

If you want a puzzle game that rewards patience and observation, and you don't mind ads and in-app purchases in a free title, this is a reasonable one to try. The install numbers and rating suggest plenty of players have found the formula works for them.

What's new in version 2.1.33

Bug Fixes