Escape Academy Reviews
Escape Academy takes design inspiration from real-world escape rooms, for better and for worse.
Escape Academy captures the spirit of escape rooms in excellent fashion, wrapping up a string of thoroughly enjoyable puzzle-filled levels in a light and quirky story. Puzzle aficionados might find it a little easy, but it's a commendable first effort that left me wanting more.
As it is, Escape Academy is still one of the best cooperative gaming experiences I've had this year and a great start for both Coin Crew Games and new publisher iam8bit.
Escape Academy is a fun, addictive puzzler that captures the escape room magic with plenty of detail and variety, you'll just wish it lasted a little longer.
Despite its empty halls and predictable plot, it's a charming escape room sim that's filled with clever puzzles that reward and rarely frustrate. The entire thing can be played with a bud too, making this a brilliant co-op jaunt.
Escape Academy is a wholesome, family-friendly adventure film come to life. The bright colors and blocky shapes lend to the idea of Saturday morning cartoon fun. The puzzles are clever, often requiring the player to pause for a moment and take it in before spotting the solution. Some segments can be difficult for players, but Escape Academy offers a useful Help button to keep things moving. The game has an intriguing – if campy – narrative and cast of characters who make the experience a joy to play. The timer for each room is generous but applies the right amount of pressure to keep you moving. Escape Academy easily earns an A on the final.
Escape Academy is a worthy escape room game with a lot of strong puzzles. It's on the short side, but there's a lot of quality on display.
At the end of the day, Escape Academy achieves much of what it sets out to do. Giving players and whenever possible, their co-op partners, the authentic escape room experience, cutting away the frustrations of real-life escape attempts, and focusing our attention on finding connections and solving puzzles instead.
Escape Academy is filled with smart puzzles and unique mechanics that highlight the personalities of each character and the world they live in.
Escape Academy delivers lovingly crafted puzzles that shine in co-op play, but it can't fully replicate the thrills of a real-life escape room.
Escape Academy is an exceptionally well designed puzzle game, if not a flawlessly executed one. Developer Coin Crew Games has replicated the creativity and fine-tuned challenge of the best real-world escape rooms while amping up the fantasy and stakes in a way only video games can. But the studio's inexperience rears its head when it comes to polish, with stiff console controls being the most obvious knock on an otherwise great experience.
Puzzle games have to manage a delicate balancing act: If solutions are too simple, players lose interest; too difficult, and they feel cheated, like the answer was never decipherable to begin with. “Escape Academy” was opaque at times, but the answer always felt like it was within my grasp, if I just tried out this one idea, or thought about the puzzle from this other angle. Giving players that sense of empowerment is hard, and games don’t always get it right. But “Escape Academy” walks that tightrope with finesse, joining the pantheon of frantic-but-fun co-op greats.
A reasonable co-op experience for those seeking to do some puzzling with a friend, but not good for much else.
Escape Academy is a family-friendly puzzle game that will give you hours of fun at a very reasonable price point.
For those missing the good old fashioned escape rooms of the pre-covid era, Escape Academy delivers a top notch set of puzzles in an interesting setting, which unfortunately isn't explored any deeper.
With any luck, Escape Academy will be successful enough to warrant a sequel, as its uniquely quirky academic world and its cast deserve to be fleshed out even further with even more meticulously-crafted escape rooms to solve. As is, though, Escape Academy is a fun jolt of great puzzle designs guaranteed to fire up your cortex, topped off with impressive aesthetics that make for some memorable escapes. It may not be complicated breakout one might hope for, but it's still worth checking out.
An unusual and memorable puzzle game. After finishing it, some people will definitely have an urge to play a real-life escape room.
Review in Russian | Read full review
A very pleasant surprise in the current summer indie offer. The game brings relaxation, logical challenges and adds tension in one package. If you like puzzle games or escape room games, you should not miss it.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
Escape Academy may be a fairly brief experience for some, then, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that the puzzles here are thought-provoking and masterfully crafted. They test your ability to spot patterns and problem solve without ever being too obtuse. Throw in a surprisingly engaging story and co-op, and you have one of the most enjoyable experiences of the year so far. It might even make you want to do some real-life escape rooms – imagine that.
My gaming chum and I had a blast working through the intricate puzzle-filled stages of Escape Academy and I'm sure you will, too.