Escape Academy is the 14th selection of the UUGCGP! Completion date is 8/8/2022! Spoilers are open

EDIT: Alright folks, spoil away! Go wild with spoilerific discussion!

PRIOR MESSAGE:

Welcome to the Unsanctioned Unofficial Game Pass Game Club. Our 14th game is Escape Academy. The target completion date is August 8, 2022.

We ask that until that date you use the forum software to mark any spoilers, either story based or mechanical, in the discussion below. Ideally the bulk of the discussion will occur after August 8, but if you want to comment before then you are welcome to so long as the spoilers are marked. We ask that if you leave a comment before that date you also come back to the thread after it to read other people’s comments and respond to them, though of course we cannot force you to do so.

All are welcome to participate regardless of whether you have stated a preference to or not and there is absolutely no commitment. You do not have to finish the game to participate but please let us know if you have not.

You can find out more about the Unsanctioned Unofficial Game Pass Game Club or suggest future games for it here.

What is Escape Academy?

Escape Academy is an escape room based puzzle game that can be played solo or in co-op.

How long is Escape Academy?

How long to beat lists it as 4.5 hours long

My wife and I played a couple hours of this tonight using the local multiplayer mode. I don’t think it’s necessarily a *good* game, but I am enjoying it so far. As Jess was saying in the Quick Look, it really helps to have a second person to fill in the gaps in my problem-solving. Do they give you extra time on each puzzle when you play solo?

Finished this last night with my partner. I thought the puzzles were pretty well designed. There was one that we didn't quite understand how to figure out but we were able to brute force it pretty easily. Other than that one puzzle, we found it pretty simple though. We play a lot of co-op/puzzle games together and I think this was a fun time that didn't overstay it's welcome. And the final level is pretty great. The story was whatever though and I skipped a fair amount of dialogue in the final third, but overall I think it's a solid 4/5 and I'll definitely boot it back up when the updates roll out later this year.

I think the puzzles were a lot more fun, varied and required a bit more mental fortitude than something like Escape Simulator (another PC escape room game), but I do like that Escape Simulator has a level editor and steam workshop support, so if you're looking for more rooms, I'd say maybe check that out. Just know that the controls aren't as tight as Escape Academy and the puzzles are more like standard video game puzzles (think Uncharted/Zelda style).

I had to come to terms with the online multiplayer being shown in split-screen. On the one hand, I understand that it helps to solve the puzzles, because you can just have one player look at the puzzle hint and the other can solve it while glancing over, but I think I would rather have it full screen for both players to and rely on voice communication to solve. We Were Here and its sequels do that to great effect.

But, that's that and this is this, so I'll come back with my thoughts based on what's actually in the game.

I liked most of the puzzles.

There was one later on that I struggled with because I literally missed the puzzle element.

I did it solo over a couple of evenings. The hint system was really good.

I think my favorite ones were the ones where there was a twist and the timer changed.

I also enjoyed how most of the levels did feel like they could be done as an escape room (with a very large budget).

Spoilers are now open. I haven't played this yet (though I will) so I won't be joining in for now.

Just in case people are wondering why I haven't played this game or Unpacking it has nothing to do with losing interest in the club or the particular games. My TV broke. It was a 6 year old Samsung and the panel blew. Getting it fixed would have cost almost as much as a new TV so I ended up buying a new one, which took a while to arrive. So from now on I should be back on schedule. I'm sure that's more than you wanted to know about my TV woes but I wanted to explain what's been going on with me and these games.

Now that spoilers are open: we got a little stuck on the puzzle in the courtyard where you have to recreate the face on the door to match the pictures of the face with a particular optical illusion on the base (dunno how else to describe this since I didn't even understand it while playing). I know the character said something like "where have I seen these faces before" when investigating the safe in the art supply room, but I legit had no clue what they were talking about. In the end, we just tried a bunch of different combinations to get the face to open. No harm, no foul.

@bigsocrates: Glad you'll be back in moving forward. Bummer the panel went out and you don't even have a cool story about throwing your joycon at the screen or something. Since TV talk is so big on these forums some times, what replacement did you end up purchasing?

My wife and I finished the game tonight. We enjoyed the puzzles but mostly razzed the characters and story. If we were in the middle of an escape “room”, there were almost no complaints. Movement and buttons were janky often enough to get me frustrated, but it was fine overall. The library puzzle had one lock that we had to pause and look up. Otherwise, we used hints on a handful of levels and managed without them on most. This is almost certainly because there were two of us; good luck beating it solo the first time through each level.

As for the story, it was just tough to care about anything going on or anyone’s fate. You get very brief visual novel-adjacent scenes that don’t really invest you at all in the academy or its staff, and as far as we could tell there was only one other student there at all. It was a strange conceit, and it never ends up going anywhere by the end. You can load into an “epilogue” after beating the final level, but the only thing there is one of the characters saying you can now replay any level you want (which I’m pretty sure you can do prior to beating the game). Since the puzzles don’t change, I’m not sure why you would do this. Overall, it’s written to be as expedient a conduit between levels as possible, and I feel nothing towards anyone in the story.

There’s probably a longer thing I could write comparing Power Wash Simulator and this game, but it’s pretty late already.

@allthedinos: I'm thinking the epilogue portion might tie into the announced dlc updates coming later this year and early next. But I agree whole heartedly about the story. Ended up just hammering the A button to skip all dialogue half way through.