Many veteran gamers in the U.K. have a soft spot for the 1984 ZX Spectrum title Skool Daze. Its melding of the regimented routine of everyday school life and ways to push back against that routine to create chaos was an affectionate and funny love letter to the days of being a kid, and for that reason is rightfully revered as a true classic. It certainly had an influence on Chris Davis, the one man development team behind the Mouldy Toof studio; whose second ever release, The Escapists, is indebted to the quirky education sim in many ways. Davis himself has stated he was a huge fan of Skool Daze and it shows in The Escapists; a prison escape simulation game that offers quite a challenge despite what its adorable pixelated inmates and comical take on life in the slammer would have you believe.
The goal of The Escapists is simple (and sort of in the title). You must escape from prison. Well, several prisons actually, each increasingly tougher to break out of. The execution however is where things get a little more complex. You see, the prisons have routines. The guards patrol certain areas at certain times and you are expected to attend roll call, meals, exercise and menial labour at the given times.On top of that you are planning your escape and interacting with your fellow prisoners, mainly for favours and items needed for your daring departure. The 2D top down view allows you to keep a good eye on the comings and goings of prison life and find weaknesses to exploit. This is what will determine your enjoyment with The Escapists, because there may be several ways to escape any given prison, but the game isn’t giving up the information to do so lightly.
Hints are minimal, encouraging you to experiment with not only how you leave the prison, but also in creating the tools you need for the job. There’s a basic crafting system (again, without much explanation) that is used to combine the various innocuous items such as wire, toilet paper, chocolate, cutlery and bed sheets to create less legal paraphernalia, including melee weapons, shovels, wire cutters and fake panels to hide your tunnelling progress. Being caught doing anything against prison rules will result in a clobbering, confiscation and sometimes, a trip to solitary for your troubles. So you are constantly having to remember guard patterns, assembling the correct tools, the right time to work on escaping and generally trying to appear like a model prisoner so you don’t rile the wrong guy at the wrong moment and lose everything you’ve worked for. As a result, The Escapists is a genuinely taxing game.
With little guidance you are expected to figure out your plan with logic and patience alone. It’ll be incredibly frustrating for those who want to bop everyone on the head and sprint out the front door within five minutes; you need to play the long game however you decide to break out because these are prisons after all, not Butlins. Also, for those a little too comfortable with being prompted for every action -as many games do these days- the sparse instructions will probably leave you perplexed about what exactly you should be doing. My first few attempts at escape were littered with mistakes, but I learned through them and restarted once again, hoping to do it right this time. The reward is ultimately satisfying, like pulling off a heist in GTA V or Payday, The Escapists is all about the payoff from well-executed planning. The thrill and frustration of knowing one wrong move could send the tower of informed choices tumbling. For some, repeating the initial days of your prison term over and over in order to get it right are going to prove overly tedious, there’s no denying that is a stumbling block for The Escapists in terms of its audience. Impatience is commonplace in a time where there are countless other games to be getting on with and the desire to just try and beat the snot out of all the guards, nick a key and peg it out the gate comes bubbling up to the surface after a failed escape sets you back massively. As I said before, if you aren’t one for patience, slow-paced methodical logic or planning then The Escapists is likely not for you Sir or Madam, please move along.
Otherwise, there is plenty to like about The Escapists. The pixel-based graphical style and cracking retro soundtrack lends a brighter, softer edge to a subject and location that in most developer’s hands would be gruff, dark and ultra-violent. It wears its influences on its orange sleeves, not just Skool Daze, but other similar games of that era; and, of course, anything prison-related in media such as one season wonder Prison Break and seminal feelgood (well, as much as could be expected in a movie that alludes to male rape and severe beatings) movie The Shawshank Redemption. These influences shape aspects of The Escapists, be it the mechanics or the ideas but don’t take away from the game’s own personality. There is a sheen of silliness to proceedings that helps prevent the tough centre of the game from rendering the whole experience as dreary and routine as the subject matter can be.