Platform Through the Stages of Grief As You Rage in Peace

WARNING: Rage in Peace deals with sensitive subjects related to death, and therefore so does this article. Reader discretion is advised.

• Price: $12.99 USD
• Developer: Rolling Glory Jam
• Publisher: Toge Productions
• Release Date: November 8, 2018

We were generously provided with a review code by (At) sarahhana, and are delighted to cover Rage in Peace, a game we mentioned in our article highlighting Switch games from Indonesia.

Timmy, our character in Rage in Peace, often thinks about the way he’s going to die. Like many of us, he’d prefer doing so peacefully and painlessly at home in his sleep. Unfortunately, Timmy’s time is up at age 27. An oddly adorable chibi grim reaper appears one day and tells him that not only is he going to die today, but he’s got the dubious pleasure of being beheaded before making his way through the pearly gates. 😬 😇

On the questionable plus side, the grim reaper is willing to let Timmy try to make it home to fulfill his dream of dying peacefully. But the grim reaper’s interference with Timmy’s scheduled gruesome fate causes some problems for him getting home.

The game gives you the option to turn on “goldfish mode,” which is easier. I am not very skilled at non-turn based games, so I unashamedly used the goldfish mode. I finished the first act with 70 total deaths. (I was even worse in another, with nearly 200 deaths there! 😅) And that was with goldfish mode! You have to memorize the different obstacles that can kill you, and avoid them. I had trouble timing jumps to avoid the many hazards in the environment, but like I said, unless it’s turn based, I need to “get good.” 😂 It kind of requires you to die a few times to memorize where the traps are located, and my ability to focus has worsened over the past decade so sometimes I’d end up haphazardly walking into traps I’d just seen a minute before. Despite my lack of skill, I still enjoyed my failures because of the nonsensical nature of the deaths. I didn’t feel the need to rage quit, despite the name’s title.

The methods by which Timmy dies attempting to leave his office to die peacefully at home are hilarious. While the overall “plot” about Timmy’s inevitable death seems dark, the deaths are comical. There are puddles on the office floor with sharks that somehow jump out at you and kill you. Some of your coworkers have formed an office chair rowing team and will run you over. Some methods are actually feasible, like heavy lights falling on you, but there are more funny, ridiculous ways of dying in the game. I will say that some of the deaths were kind of cheap – the aforementioned office chair rowers ended up killing me when I jumped on top of them. Despite the zany death methods that don’t make as much sense in real life, I’d think that Timmy jumping on top of other humans wouldn’t end up killing him. Getting run into or run over I could maybe see, but any contact with other humans at all killing Timmy was weird.

Thankfully, the game provides checkpoints after each “room” of obstacles. Getting killed doesn’t start you over at the very beginning of the level (at least in goldfish mode?). This was especially nice during “boss fights”; if the boss had already lost some HP and you die, you respawn with their HP remaining depleted. I think it might have been interesting to have Timmy gain more special abilities besides the “double jump” and other movement-related abilities – maybe an energy blast? But Timmy is described in the in-game file as an “extraordinarily ordinary dude.” So maybe it’s better that he isn’t provided with more abilities because he’s meant to be average. A grappling hook might have been cool though!

I really enjoyed the soundtrack from sound artist company Monkey Melody (cool name!) and indie label Nanaba Records. The songs are by multiple Indonesian indie bands. I really liked that they put the song name on the bottom left of the screen when it starts up in the game. Rage in Peace also has achievements and collectibles; they’re nice additional features, but I wish that as soon as you run into the collectible it’d go straight into inventory. Instead, it runs a clock for a few seconds before going into your inventory. It does make for a more challenging experience when you have to maneuver around enemies and obstacles when waiting for the collectibles to be added to your inventory.

Before starting the game, I wasn’t expecting there to be much dialogue or plot beyond the beginning where the grim reaper explained things. I’m just not used to that in the platformers I usually play. But I like the inclusion of plot, and some of the dialogue between Timmy and his personal reaper was…not silly…but perhaps quirky? There’s a more meaningful discussion of the purpose of existence here. In each stage, there are brief glimpses into Timmy’s psyche, in addition to the interactions with the grim reaper and other minor characters. The whole experience is so much deeper than I could have imagined.

Now, the fourth level belongs in the ninth circle of hell! I ended up dying over 500 times because I kept instinctively going the wrong ways during the level (it was a rapid fire level that was very rhythmic, requiring extremely quick memorization – I had to sing the eventually learned patterns to myself 🎶 up, down, down, up 🎶 to get through! 😅).

Despite the occasional frustration, there were a lot of things I really liked about Rage in Peace. I appreciated the inclusion of a pretty meaningful backstory, plot, and character interactions. The soundtrack was excellent, and the art in the cutscenes especially was well drawn. And being able to play an easier mode with “goldfish mode” as well as having checkpoints was a really nice addition to the game that made it more accessible for me.

I have issues with reaction times and my memory isn’t the greatest anymore. It took me a while to memorize the order of the obstacles and how to avoid them. But once I got past them, I felt a real sense of accomplishment. Having checkpoints really helped me because I didn’t have to memorize extremely long paths of obstacles at a time. Before starting the game, I wondered how I’d do with the gameplay. I did perform poorly overall in terms of the total times I managed to die (1,529 times for the entire game 😂) but still managed to have a good time with it. Rage in Peace isn’t too unreasonable with its difficulty – you just need to have decent reflexes and an okay enough memory. The subject matter could be a sensitive topic for some, but for those who don’t mind some darker humor and very minor cartoon gore, it could be a game that you would enjoy. I know I sure enjoyed the six and a half hours I spent playing this.

Switch it ON or Switch it OFF? I’d say to go ahead and Switch it ON and play! This isn’t my usual genre, but I’d give it an 8/10!