Escape Academy Preview - Locked Down, Freed Up

thegamer.com:

With Escape Academy, developer Coin Crew Games has a simple goal: to replicate the gameplay that escape room fans seek out in cramped strip mall quarters in the comfort of their own home. After all, being in close proximity to other people was something we’ve all had to avoid recently. In fact, the Covid-era loss of the escape room experience was a big part of what inspired the developers at Coin Crew — until now known for their work on arcade games like Hot Wheels: King of the Road — to start developing their first at-home release which will be co-published by Skybound Games and via iam8bit's new label, iam8bit Presents.

"We made this game because we were locked down and we wanted to play escape rooms," Wyatt Bushnell, co-founder of Coin Crew, tells me.

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The team was specifically interested in the gameplay rhythms of the escape room genre — mechanics they didn't see replicated often in video games. They didn’t just want to make a puzzle game, they wanted to specifically make an "escape room game." In the process, they made a first-person game that isn't overly detailed but impresses with bright colors, comic book-style lines, and moody lighting that is equally convincing at evoking a headmaster's secret den warmly revealed by firelight as it is a hidden control room lit by power buttons and exposed violet light bulbs.

Coin Crew brought over the constantly ticking clock, too, that you — and a teammate if you opt for local multiplayer — must race against. There's an inventory system and, to facilitate teamwork, you can pass items around to a teammate by approaching them. There are the familiar objects that escape room obsessives will recognize; padlocks in need