All this so far sounds pretty great, but The Escapists isn’t without out its faults. Functionally the game works as intended, but that doesn’t necessarily make it a whole lot of fun after playing for a little while. Very quickly while playing I found the core of the gameplay wearing thin on me with the amount of repetition involved. I get that this is a prison setting and things run on a clock, but when a full day plays around ten to fifteen minutes, you’ll be seeing a lot of the same thing over and over.
Another issue is the lack of punishment, which is strange as you’d figure a prison would be a stickler for that sort of thing. If you attack a fellow inmate in the line of sight of a guard, you’ll get a beat-down that will land you in the infirmary in a Grand Theft Auto manner. The problem with this is that you don’t lose out on anything other than losing the weapon you used and any contraband you had on your person. Even this loss isn’t a big deal as you’ll be able to get everything back in short order by taking in an assignment or two.
Inmate A might want inmate B beat up for some perceived infraction, if you go and knockout whoever this may be and win, you’ll be rewarded with some money. The inmate you beat up won’t even question what happened and go about their lives. The problem with the random nature of assignments from inmates is that there won’t be any tension built between prisoners.
The Escapists also puts a heavy focus on crafting (oh boy!), but does little in the way of teaching you who things work. Other than the soap in sock tool that I learned to make from playing the tutorial (that I couldn’t build until my intellect was high enough because me dumb guy) I rarely found other options that worked. When combining things you will more often than not find that nothing works, even when they would in the real world, or that your intellect isn’t high enough to put said bar of soap in sock. You’ll be better off just taking jobs and buying your gear instead of doing much of any crafting.
Combat is also as basic as it gets no matter the weapon you have on you. Just hit the space bar to prep your weapon and then click ala Diablo to dispatch your enemy. The 8bit style doesn’t offer a lot of detail, so this fighting will just look like two people bumping into each other. Sure, you can increase your speed and strength to make these encounters easier, but those stats will likewise be having you mash buttons to increase in rank. It’s so utterly basic that the entire game is built around a single action button(s).
Lastly, The Escapists, while giving you a number of ways to escape, will auto-fail you if you don’t play within the games rules. Steal a guards uniform and you can be guaranteed to be greeted with the games kill screen that sends you into solitary confinement. The things that you want to do to escape will often not be what the games wants you to do and lead to an automatic fail.
The Escapists is technically sound, but just doesn’t offer much in the way of fun. It’s a blast during the first few in-game days of play, but the game quickly becomes far too repetitive to keep many players entertained. Also, all the prisons are locked, so you are going to have to put up with the starter prison until you find a way out. While many will no doubt love this game (the reviews are incredibly positive) I just couldn’t find the lasting fun in the experience.
J. Luis
@_ShadowGallery
“Combat is also as basic it gets no matter the weapon you on you. Just hit space bar to prep your weapon and then click.”