Whether you’re a law abiding citizen or not, we’ve all been exposed to prison life. It doesn’t matter if you’ve experienced a prisoner using magic powers to bring animals back from the dead, a TV drama in which a prisoner has an entire map of a prison tattooed on his body or a bunch of hilarious women causing mayhem which have you in fits of laughter, prison life seems to be a normal entertainment for our modern society.
The Escapists, developed by Mouldy Toof and published by Team17, was released late last year via Steam Early Access and after some playtesting and feedback, a final version is due to be released on Steam and Xbox One on February 13th. Having played the Early Access version on PC, this finished version seems to have solved some of the existing problems, but not all of them.
For those who aren’t familiar with this game, the objective is simple: escape the prison. And in order to do so, you will have to learn the day-to-day routines of the prison; separate your friends from your enemies, perform favours and requests, and use everything at your disposal to find your way out of prison. Sounds simple, doesn’t it?
The beginning of the game features a small tutorial section where you use a screwdriver to get into the air vents of your cell, before you then proceed to a merchant’s cell. Here you buy a sock and soap, which combine to create a weapon. You then perform various actions which leads you to stealing an officer’s uniform and simply sliding into a pre-dug tunnel in the outskirts of the facility. While it does show what you can do if you have the correct tools and a huge amount of luck, The Escapists also requires a lot of patience and to quite a high degree.
Gathering money and stealing items does take time and is quite risky, because if you start a fight with someone, the officers will chase you down and beat you senseless. In fact, so much sense will be lost; you’ll end up in a sick bed with all of your ‘illegal’ items missing from your inventory. Obviously in games you have to have setbacks when you step out of line or are naive in your approach, but The Escapists definitely has a steep learning curve. Having only escaped 2 prisons in my time with the game, I found that the best way to approach it is to learn every single routine the prison provides you with, before you attempt to break out.
You wake at 8am. Roll call at 8:30am. Breakfast at 9am… so on and so forth. Time completely passes you by and you can occasionally forget that you’re meant to be escaping from here, as you are so focused on completing your work, exercising or stealing items from your “friends“. The great thing about The Escapists is that you can play the game in any way you wish. If you want to serve your time honestly and just get on with the task at hand, then you can do that, or if you want to create a devious plan to escape confinement, then you can do that too.
One of the major problems I found, on several occasions, was that the controls for ‘picking up’ items and punch were located on the exact same buttons. I lost count how many times I would accidentally hit one of my cellmates or prison officers at meal times, all because I was trying to pick up the trays. It’s not the ideal thing to do, but if you do make enemies in these prisons, they’ll make your life a living hell.
Much like the good old school days, your enemies know your routines and know where you are. The main problem with accidentally making an enemy is that when they regain consciousness (if you do manage to knock them out), is that they’ll come looking for you time and time again. Every time I would defend myself and go about my business, only for it to be interrupted by one or more inmates that want to see me hurt. I never experienced anything like that in the Early Access version, so this must have slipped through the net. However, as long as you wait until the end of the line at meal times, you shouldn’t have this problem.
As I mentioned previously, the crafting system can be used effectively once you know what you’re doing, but is a nightmare when you don’t know which items can be mixed. There are so many items to pick up and so little inventory spaces, that you have to choose effectively. Much like the classic games, you won’t be able to find an in-game assistance for which items you can craft in the game, you will have to leave that up to your old friend, the internet (unless I missed something whilst playing).
The Escapists is an enjoyable action RPG game and is almost similar to The Sims …but you play as the Sim. You can find yourself getting lost in the madness of everything, but once you find your feet, much like the prisoner, you’ll soon find cracks in the system and opportunities to seize your moment. Despite being constantly filled with action, to some degree, I find the introduction to the game rather slow and it doesn’t feel as though things are explained well enough. There is so much content in here that is integral to the main aim of the game which is left behind. Some games benefit ignoring the small details, but I feel The Escapists suffers in this regard. It’s very enjoyable at times, but it can also be a very frustrating experience, even in prison terms!
The Escapists will be available on Xbox One and Steam from February 13th.