Escape Academy captures the fun of escape puzzles, without the cramped rooms

theverge.com:

Friends, it’s been exceedingly difficult to naturally produce enough feel good brain juice to function as a normal person. Even the things that I normally take so much joy in, like video games, are just not hitting like they used to for so many reasons. But after spending some time with Escape Academy by playing a little and talking to the developers, I think I have the serotonin delivery system I’ve sorely needed.

Escape Academy by Coin Crew Games is a narrative puzzle game formatted to look and feel like real-life escape rooms. You play as an escape room enthusiast invited to a secretive academy where students can train to become the best Escapist. The people at Coin Crew games actually worked on real in-person escape rooms and, during a bout of pandemic-induced cabin fever, went looking for games that recreated that experience. But, they didn’t really find the kind of games that scratched that particular itch, so they decided to make their own back scratcher.

It can be difficult to take something originally designed for a physical space into a digital one. There will always be some part that can’t really be faithfully translated from real to not-real and it’s our brain’s job to suspend disbelief enough to bridge that gap. One of the most attractive things about Escape Academy is that it feels like an almost lossless translation of the escape room experience. I didn’t feel like I was missing something or was constrained by the fact that I wasn’t in a physical space. I remember feeling the same deeply thrilling anxiety glancing at the running timer every so often while I was wending my way through an imposing-looking room as I once had in real rooms with real people.

The Ace Attorney series of puzzle games I’ve