Game Review: Escape Academy

Escape Rooms are a fun excursion in my books. I appreciate they’re not for everyone but what draws me to them is that scenario-based puzzle you are presented in which you and a bunch of friends need to work together to figure out the room’s solution. It’s a great way to encourage critical thinking and give you and your friends something to work towards within the confines of the rooms limits.  It seems appropriate in this case that we eventually got a game based all around escape rooms, aptly titled Escape Academy. 

Developed by Coin Crew Games and co-published by iam8bit and Skybound Games, Escape Academy is a puzzle game in which you and a potential co-op buddy are presented with a collection of different escape rooms to conquer. Each escape room offers its own trials and the variety of each room you have to face is something the game takes great pride in. 

Narratively the game doesn’t waste its opportunity to give you a compelling premise either. You and your friend are new students at Escape Academy; a prestigious secret school for gifted escape room prospects.  As you work your way through the seasons of the first term you are introduced to the academy’s quirky faculty and given hints to a conspiracy that lingers at the heart of the school. It’s up to you to unravel this mystery as you progress through your school year, collecting tokens for your completion of all the escape rooms you solve along the way.

I think there’s a solid set up here when looking at the narratives core strength. It would have been all too easy to forego a storyline and just give the player a collection of rooms to tackle without much exposition. By making the gameplay tie around the narrative however it gives the player much more reason to embed themselves in the world presented to them. Escape Academy has some solid foundations for a really creative world, the idea of an escape room school is so unique and the way it’s presented though its characters is really charming. The overarching mystery is nicely paced too, it's a tad predicable though but I don’t think that ruins the novelty of it. One thing I will criticize though is the lack of students alongside you at the school. I appreciate you are presented with a rival student akin to Draco Malfoy, but apart from her the game’s cast only really consists of the academy’s teachers. It kind of took me out of the world a bit when I realised, I was essentially the only student there. I imagine this is something which can be addressed in a DLC or sequel hopefully.

On the gameplay front the game shines the brightest. Escape rooms in real life are layered with details and clues as you have to piece together the puzzle based on the confines of your surroundings. It says a lot that these developers capture the meticulous detail and scenario-based concepts across the entirety of the game’s escape rooms, all the while smartly tying it into the world and characters they’ve designed. The variety of the games rooms is honestly its strongest element too. Each room presented to you offers such a distinct difference in style and challenge compared to the previous and it reinforces the level of creativity the developers have on hand when making this game. All of the rooms are so smartly designed in terms of their challenge too, there’s so many clever and well-thought-out puzzles presented to you and the solutions never feel unfair. While I think these rooms may be fun to solve on a solo run, I must vocalise how much fun this game is to play with a co-op partner.  The ability to split your screens so you can see what your friend is looking at was pivotal to helping us co-operate and work out certain puzzles. It’s more than just that though as I feel the game benefits co-operative play quite a bit with how either player can be working out their own puzzle and share items with one another, it feels like the rooms are built to encourage playing with friends.  If you had to draw a few negatives from me on the gameplay I’d argue that the game feels a bit short? There’s a good variety of escape rooms on offer but it feels like the game could have had a longer runtime with a few more end-game escape rooms. The lack of a character creator or customisation options for your student character was a bit of a disappointment too, as you are kind of stuck with the character you’re given. 

Despite my small gripes with the game’s uncaptured potential though I can’t emphasise enough how worthwhile this game is as an investment. If you are looking for a new game to share with a friend or partner then Escape Academy feels like the perfect offering. Its interesting world serves as a primary foundation which presents you with a collection of really fun and interesting escape rooms to work through. It’s a solid and refreshing gaming experience to get lost in and I can only hope we get more DLC or games in this series in the far future.