Escape Academy review – Stress test your wits, and relationship

I will be the first to admit that I am bad at escape rooms, both real-life and digital. I perform terribly under time pressure, my communication skills go to hell, and when the puzzles are beyond me, I take it personally. So, I will also be the first to admit that Escape Academy, the first-person escape-room themed puzzle adventure from Coin Crew Games, did not sound like my cup of tea. What surprised me, though, was just how quickly and completely engrossed I got once I started playing.

Starting out as a visitor to a “real-world” escape room, your puzzle solving skills are noticed by the headmaster of Escape Academy, an institution dedicated to refining the skills of young escapists. All the best elements of fantasy academia (à la Hogwarts) are present: quirky teachers, snobbish rival students, the high chance of sudden death, and a dorm room that slowly fills up with mementos of your journey through three semesters.

Driven by infrequent dialogue interactions with the teachers and fellow students at the school, the story is only there to give you a reason to progress through the increasingly bizarre escape environmentss you find yourself in. The whole concept of having a learning institution dedicated to escape rooms, with rival factions of “anti-escapists”, is both extremely silly and somewhat charming; the latter thanks to the colourful characters themselves. A particular standout is an explosives expert turned cheerful, tea-obsessed botanist, who says things like “We didn’t blow up, I love that for us.”

Story elements aside, what we came here for are the puzzles. Ranging in difficulty from one key to five (according to Escape Academy’s classification system), the dozen-plus escape rooms take the form of in-class lessons with the faculty, field tests, and “pop quizzes”, like being trapped in an advanced, deadly obstacle course that shouldn’t be active. The pressure to solve the puzzles is very real, with most of the scenarios promising death or disaster if not completed in the prescribed time limit – which is typically between 10 and 25 minutes. At least if you run out of time, it’s not game over. You’re given the option to continue with an extra five or ten minutes tacked on, but this will affect your grade. The same goes for using the game’s hint system, which may or may not be useful, depending on how close you are to solving that particular puzzle.

The official run time of Escape Academy is 4 hours, but given the variety of challenges, and depending on how often you extend the time limit, the experience could easily exceed the 6-hour mark. Playing solo could take even longer, and you are encouraged to have a pen and paper handy to make notes and jot down solutions for puzzles on the other side of the level.

Much like real-life escape rooms though, Escape Academy is better with friends. The game features both local couch co-op and online co-op for two players, using a split-screen approach in each case. This comes in handy for tricky puzzles where it helps to have a set of eyes fixed on the solution key, though a pen and paper is still a must. You can also drop in and out of the co-op mode with relative ease, which is useful for when you need fresh brain power, or when your escapist partner is sick of you yelling instructions. Did we mention that co-op is a great way to ramp up the tension of the game? Because it definitely is!

The difficulty of the puzzles in Escape Academy is fair, and the aforementioned difficulty indicator is quite accurate, with most of the scenarios coming in around 2-3 keys. Each escape environment has its own unique flavour, and, with design input from real-life escape game experts, you’ll find yourself doing everything from decrypting cyphers, and matching patterns, to puzzling through math and logic problems. The challenges rarely repeat, and all are themed around a variety of locations that range from the Academy’s cafeteria and quad, to a greenhouse and the imposing library.

While the majority of the scenarios are artfully complex and immensely satisfying, a couple of puzzles require significant leaps of logic to solve, and some can be accidentally overcome through trial-and-error instead of seeing the actual solution. This said, if you’re playing with a partner, you’ll likely find yourself in a situation where what’s obtuse for one player will be obvious for the other, which makes playing in co-op all the more rewarding.

Speaking of co-op gaming in general, barring a few exceptions, to date players have been limited to shooters, platformers and party games, especially in terms of couch co-op options. Titles that combine puzzle-solving and teamwork are exceptionally rare, which makes Escape Academy an especial treat, and welcome addition to a game library as something different to play with others – replicating the comradery (and anxiety) you get from a real-life escape room experience.

As for the things that don’t work as well, we’ve already mentioned the smattering of opaque challenges. In addition, Escape Academy has low replayability value, unless you want to see how quickly you can sprint through the puzzles that you can remember the answers to, and rack up some speed-running achievements. The puzzles themselves don’t randomize, so a second playthrough is exactly the same as the first. For the record, once an escape room is complete, you can access and replay it at any time though the bulletin board in your dorm room.

Finally, there’s a frustrating “stickiness” and lack of responsiveness at times when playing on console with a controller. With a traditional puzzle game you could overlook the clumsiness, but given how tense Escape Academy is, when you’re on the clock and can’t spin a dial smoothly, it’s doubly annoying.

These minor gripes aside, I had a really fun time with Escape Academy. It nails what it’s set out to do, and has immediately seized a spot among escape (video) game greats. With work under way on new levels, and the door open for Escape Academy year two, I’d happily enroll for another term.

Play Escape Academy right now on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Steam, and Epic Games Store. It’s also currently available for members of Xbox Game Pass.