A month or so ago, I was privy to sitting in on a preview of Escape Academy from Skybound Games and developer Coin Crew Games. The devs were known for putting together actual escape rooms in real life but had to shift their plans to a video game world when COVID hit hard. What they have created with Escape Academy is wildly addictive and best played with multiple people. While visually it’s nothing next generation or spectacular, the gameplay design and execution are outstanding enough to make you forget you have some last gen graphics going on.
Let’s get right into it.
Escaping is fun
The first 30-40 minutes of this game are right into three escape rooms. It doesn’t hold back, and it doesn’t set up some long-winded narrative, though there is a short-winded narrative that plays out in each room, rather it simply gets you going. There is nothing quite like being dropped right into puzzle-driven gameplay and asked to figure it out without much help. For games like The Witness, where you’re literally not even given a backstory or instructions, or a goal, this can be maddening. For a game like Escape Academy, it gives you a little push here and there but pretty much allows you to discover things on your own and find balance with its design. It does enough subtle direction pointing to give you hints to the next clue or solution. You won’t sit staring too long at something.
Getting back to the narrative, each room comes with a crisis. For example, the first real room you get dropped into is the headmaster’s office. You must escape the room within 15-minutes. To give you an incentive to do so the game starts pushing poisonous gas from the vents. If you don’t find the solution to the problem before the timer runs out, then you will pass out, and fail the escape. The push to escape the room before the timer runs out feels very real, as is a small sense of danger from the gas added to the escape, but it’s innocently doable with calm minds at the wheel. It feels like you’re progressing even when you’re stumped at times. To help things out, the game does have a hint feature that will point out something to get you moving, but generally, you can push forward without too much fuss.
Should you not complete a room, don’t fret. You can either start over or continue with a penalty added to your point total at the end of the room. The fact that it gives you the choice between the two is reassuring because it’s sometimes fun just solving puzzles without pushing a countdown down a gamer’s throat. The scoring and timing of the escape, if it’s not obvious, is the name of the game and the goal you want to do your best at when going through Escape Academy. If you have ever been in an actual escape room, it’s a perfect emulation. This is an old-school arcade concept where you want to be the best and that is enough. Welcome to the 80s, kid.
As for the rooms, the puzzles range from easy-peasy to tricky-as-hell. For example, I played an art escape room in the game that had me uncovering invisible ink, deciphering shapes, and colors, and trying to put a proper face on a lion. While all of this might sound hilarious, they’re quite difficult and had me scratching my noggin more than a few times. These rooms are an honest-to-God challenge and they do a great job of emulating an actual escape room. Cognitively, they’re engaging, and you won’t feel too frustrated, even when the rooms get more complicated and are broken into larger, grouped-together pieces. What is fascinating about solving some of the rooms is that you can and will skip steps to find solutions. You do have that option if you feel confident enough. For example, during the Headmaster’s Office escape room, I figured out her name without finding all the right pieces. I was able to skip ahead and get us out of the room without fully going through the entire process. It is possible to do some skipping, but as I said before you must feel pretty darn confident about your answers. Otherwise, you’re going to be wasting more time guessing than you are finding the right way to complete the room. Regardless of guessing or not guessing, the best way to approach these rooms, and certainly the more entertaining/fun way, is to do it with co-op.
Co-op is the best
While I enjoy playing solo in most games, Escape Academy is not one where I would immediately go that route. I streamed this with a colleague of mine this past weekend and we had a helluva fun time talking and communicating hints and what we thought were solutions. The devs warned me that playing co-op would be more fun, but I didn’t fully grasp it until I did it – and they were right. While having two brains in the mix to solve an escape room is nice, it’s made even nicer by the fact that you have a split-screen during it. Yes, I know split screens have been around for decades but imagine going into an escape room and being able to see what the other person is seeing, especially when it comes to solving numerical or shape puzzles. One person can fixate on the object, while the other person looks on and solves whatever the puzzle might be. It’s so useful in this type of game and it’s so much fun. It just adds another layer of enjoyment to the co-op process.
If you’re looking for that co-op game to play with people, this is probably one of the better ones. Unless you don’t communicate with your friends well. Then you have bigger issues to face before you trap yourselves with friends in an escape room. Get that solved, so you can get solving.
Other odds and ends
The motivation to repeat the escape rooms is simple. You go back and play this game to do better with scoring and times. The alternative reason is to have fun with friends. Beyond this, I think this game can go quickly, but I also firmly believe that this game is going to have some additional content somewhere down the line. That isn’t an official announcement or anything, it’s just a gut feeling. Adding to this world and expanding it is probably one of the cooler and quickest ways for Escape Academy to grow. Having expansions, as any good MMORPG does, would probably bode well for this game. I’m not a developer, so I can’t say if that is easy or not, but it would fit the bill perfectly. I can almost guarantee people would buy more of these rooms.
Conclusion
Escape Academy is a good game. It emulates the structure of an escape room while allowing the idea to go beyond real-world confines. It might be quick for some players, but it’s nonetheless enjoyable, especially with a group of friends.
