Despite its obvious gameplay shortcomings, there is a masterful, undeniable beauty in The Artful Escape. A musical and artful journey of self-discovery, Beethoven & Dinosaur's delightful experiment is now available across all platforms.
The Artful Escape‘s swirling potpourri of foreign celestial bodies and magnificent narrative blueprinting serves a singular purpose: To move players.
It’s bare-bones gameplay structure merely acts to propel the player towards one fantastical digital fresco to the next breathtaking zenith or soul-searching chunk of dialog. Developer Beethoven & Dinosaur seems keenly aware of their immaculate constructions and heartfelt analysis of a delicate condition of being human.
To play The Artful Escape is to understand that it is less a “game” first and more of a narrative experience, buttressed by a simple and common aspect of play. When Nathan Stevens reviewed the game last year, he took justifiable umbrage with how the game actually plays. Understandably, a video game requiring players to jump up and around unchallenging levels, select dialog options, and mimic color-coded button prompts with no punishment for failure isn’t a very complex game.
There were times when playing The Artful Escape–which is now available on all current platforms–that I was somewhat perturbed at the act of actually having to play it. I misread a color or pushed the wrong button that was indicated on the alien “faces” of the numerous unfathomable creatures that populate the game’s universe and would have to start a sequence over. One of the few instances I missed a jump was when I forgot myself and thought to see if there was a secret on the floor between two gaps in a game in which there are few to no tucked away secrets. This is not a game about exploration. Players are funneled towards their ultimate destiny with little to no extravagant collectible or Easter egg sprinkled about.
And when boiled down to its most basic mechanical part, The Artful Escape‘s primary gameplay moments act as an elaborate version of Simon (Says). I thought of the somewhat ancient toy that bleeped and blooped colors and their corresponding sounds in increasingly complex configurations, requiring a deft memory to repeat. Or simply a spoken word version where the person dubbed Simon tells the group what to do and has the request repeated.
Protagonist Francis Vendetti would come upon the Glamourgonn and need to perform or test out the sound system and pyrotechnics on stage in the Cosmic Extraordinary. A series of colored lights would play with their corresponding sounds, stringing together a few notes of a tune that Francis would respond with in kind using the screaming licks of his guitar. These call and response moments lasted only a few button prompts before moving the scene on to some new baffling, beautiful direction. And soon enough, it was over.
Beethoven & Dinosaur perhaps hopes that players don’t get too lost in the rigamarole of simple platforming and button presses. I think it is more concerned that anyone touching this game is flummoxed and bewildered at how most of these alien figures have a face constructed of three circles and two curved lines. A lesser game would make two of the circles eyes, one circle a mouth, and the two lines eyebrows. In The Artful Escape, these fleshy, hairy, crystalline wonders are Picasso-like gargantuans that often defy comprehension, as I’m sure most non-humanoid aliens would appear to us on Earth.
The Artful Escape is a tidal wave of serene, brain melting spectacle. It is also a reflection of self-doubt and self-discovery, the hunt for purpose. The game manages to craft one of the most unquestionably unique universes while maintaining its sense of humanity.
Francis Vendetti is a hopeless musician, living in the shadow of his Bob Dylan-esque uncle who is an indie folk legend. Riddled with anxiety about living up to the standards set by his ancestry, Francis is preparing for the next day in which he is going to perform his first show at a music festival in tribute to his uncle. Does Francis have any aspirations to play music in the same vein as his storied uncle? Is he any good at the guitar? Should he abandon any attempts at his own style, just to give the people what they want?
These questions won’t be answered on Earth as Francis is plucked from his home by an alien made of spider legs, a cloak, and a glass oval containing a brain stem and other meaty bits. What better place to find out who you really are when stripped of virtually every known comfort?
As The Artful Escape plays out, Francis meets a cast of characters who press upon him the immediacy of merely trying to exist on an unknown path. There isn’t really a set objective outside of a future space concert with a legendary space musician who is also human and Francis’ eventual return to Earth. Throughout the game Francis and the player are given multiple ways to respond to a number of questions and concerns presented by other players. So much of the dialog and boundaries of Francis are shaped by the player. Early on, the player dictates the name of Francis’ stage persona. An alien interviewer will ask him how he got there with a handful of responses ranging from through a portal in a giant’s eye to some other equally bizarre option that I can’t for the life of me remember. The joy of selecting dialog in The Artful Escape is that it is often nonsensical and without any previous context. Players’ eyes are meant to shift between the multiple choices and decide. Is this what my Francis would say? Does this response sound the most badass? Should there be a “right” answer?
Those choices may rarely be referenced anywhere outside the moment in which they are decided and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Whether evoking laughter, a head scratch, or a pensive moment of personal reflection, The Artful Escape belies its brilliant and expertly written dialog. More importantly, I think what players often choose serves to reflect their own personal headspace.
When asked about where Francis came from the scene shifts to him floating in space in front of a number of named locations with a small description. Is Francis… Am I… from the planet that produces a milk that instantly transports the drinker to a dance club in 1987 Manchester? Are we from a doorway on an asteroid that leads into something? I can definitely tell you that neither myself or Francis comes from the place that develops and enacts a new language every three hours. Fuck no.
Barely any of this matters outside of forwarding the plot. But what it truly does is attempt to tear a little bit of the player out of themselves and sew it into the fabric of the The Artful Escape. Being an Annapurna Interactive game, players shouldn’t be shocked that there are a number of star-studded actors who voice several of these roles. And while Hollywood clout may give the game some extra spice, it would have meant nothing if the lines they are performing weren’t written with gusto. The obvious nods to Dylan, Ziggy Stardust and Bowie, Kubrick, Bill & Ted, and countless other known and unknown quantities exist and supplement enjoyment from those who are fans of multiple media.
The Artful Escape might be universal in its broad strokes as Francis is pushed from all angles both internal and external to become himself or at least figure out who and what he is. As a person who is mired in self-doubt, I often felt the game winking and nudging me. Being personally aware of your own limitations or those you impose on yourself may cause the writing to feel a little on the nose but that isn’t necessarily a personal qualm. It’s just a reflection that as a human being, most of us tend to get lost in one shuffle or another. It takes being removed from a comfort zone or forcing a push to actually get somewhere.
Often I felt a bit weightless when playing the game. I found myself more devoted to choosing the “right” answer for myself and my ideal Francis. I knew there were some dialog choices that took more thought and more soul to answer honestly. Other times, I saw how unnecessary it was to get lost in the swamp of constant questions and just pick what sounded most badass. What is life without a bit of levity, humor, and planetary warfare?
Beethoven & Dinosaur’s writing is heralded by an equally vast and strange imagining of the universe beyond concept. I think it speaks volumes to the game that each world and location visited possesses an immaculate intensity. Not only can I find virtually nothing wrong with the art style, it may be one of the best visions of alien and foreign worlds in any type of entertainment. There is a limited scope and time with most of these environments because it’s a 2.5D platformer. But these worlds also have depth and attention to detail in their flora and fauna.
Using the dedicated guitar button, players can shred and run and listen and watch as the music and the setting react and change with the instrument. Mountain-tall skulls, their spines stretching down below the fog will shoot beams of light out their multiple eyes and crumble. Herbs and fungi and crystals will suddenly illuminate in a dark blue cave. Slug-like beasts will take wing and float upwards while squat, furry beings will dance and sway.
Whether from an intimate distance or blown out to show an all-encompassing view, The Artful Escape is never not confident in how it looks. The game is saturated in style, beauty, expression, love, wonder, and several other adjectives a person may pluck from their brain to express an unfathomable sense of awesome. Think of the terrifying, unknown cosmic horror evoked by Lovecraft and flip it towards something nicer, then maybe you’ll have an idea of the visions this game offers.
As The Artful Escape moves along, there is a growing anticipation for how it will one-up itself and how the story will further mold Francis in whatever he will become. As bland as the gameplay ultimately was, it was thankfully cushioned by increasingly stellar moments and visual performances inside the architecture of the world. Yes, we’re playing pattern recognition. Yes, these patterns are fairly simple. Yes, there’s probably a better way to do this. But, yes, we are flying through snowy mountains during a sunset with a cosmic bird whose face glows with the button you should be pushing. This is a narrative adventure that only uses gameplay as a glue in the most necessary parts. If these moments didn’t look and sound so incredible, then we would definitely have a problem.
The Artful Escape is unquestionably one of the most vibrantly distinct games in the past several years. Gushing with confident, eccentric alien worlds and thoughtful dialog, Beethoven & Dinosaur managed to craft a narrative adventure that defies logic but manages to tell a deeply personal tale of growth and character development. Players who don’t get caught up on threadbare gameplay will find themselves caught up in molding the protagonist into a celestial prodigy. Often, The Artful Escape is so breathtaking it truly does feel like one of the rarest games out there, one that will be difficult to replicate.
