Heaven's Hoodlum

Heaven's Hoodlum was one of those games you'd find on a Flash portal in the late 2000s. It had a simple, hand-drawn look that felt typical for the time, a side-scrolling action game where you played a character trying to break out of the afterlife. The premise was straightforward, but it stuck with you.

You control a small, determined soul armed with a scythe. Your goal is to climb upward through a series of platforming challenges, fighting off angelic guards and avoiding environmental hazards. The moment-to-moment play involves careful jumps, using your weapon to dispatch enemies, and navigating moving platforms. The game could be unforgiving, with a difficulty that demanded precise timing. It felt like a persistent, scrappy fight against a system that didn't want you to leave.