It’s been interesting to watch the rise of escape room games, which were born out of the virtual escape room experiences concocted during the pandemic to keep the popular corporate team-building activity alive. Co-op puzzlers are some of my favorite games, and while it will take some monumental effort to dethrone the We Were Here series as my all-time favorite, I still have a lot of admiration for Escape Academy. Its focus on narrative elevates each level and gives the puzzles a purpose rather than a theme, which often makes them more memorable than the puzzles in other escape games. Often laugh-out-loud funny, Escape Academy sets a high bar for approachable and entertaining escape room games.
The only thing that really sours the experience is how hard it stumbles in the final act. Both the base game and the first DLC, Escape From Anti-Escape Island, have this same problem. Right at the end of both stories, the game wants to raise the stakes by putting you in a life-threatening situation and leaving you mere minutes to solve a puzzle.
The problem is that it’s almost impossible to design a compelling or rewarding puzzle that only takes a minute or two to figure out, so both campaigns end with you trying to quickly solve some esoteric word or math problem. It doesn’t fit in with the style of any of the other puzzles of the game, and though it brings me great shame, I have to admit that these final puzzles were the only ones I’ve ever failed to solve before time ran out. The ending of both the main game and the first DLC left a bad taste in my mouth, and I expected the second DLC would do the same.
Thankfully, the Escape From The Past DLC doesn’t have this problem. In fact, it might be the strongest ending I can think of in any escape room game. Escape From The Past is a murder mystery-themed expansion that takes place in Escape Academy’s past (hence the name), in which you must figure out who is trying to kill Headmaster Horatio Windsor. The story has a clever framing device for the five puzzles it includes. You and your partner play as professors Sandra Solange and Eel Barnes back when they were students at the Academy, and while training to become master escapers across the first four levels, they get wrapped up in a series of assassination attempts on the headmaster. The fifth and final level brings all the suspects together and tasks you with conducting an investigation to sort out who the would-be murder is, putting a courtroom-like spin on the game’s traditional puzzles.
There are some great puzzles in this expansion, which takes you back through familiar locations from the base game to present them in new (or old, since it’s set in the past) ways, but the final mission is Escape From The Past’s real stroke of genius. It begins with all the suspects in the Headmaster’s office and you can choose to accuse any of them of being the assassin. You’ll then listen to their story and need to pick through evidence to interrogate their version of events and cast doubt on their alibis. There’s definitely some Ace Attorney influence here, up until the point the whole thing inevitably shifts into a more traditional escape room scenario. At this point, you’re free to move around to all the puzzle locations from the previous levels to look for the evidence you need to finger the real killer.
Part of what makes this level so brilliant is that it’s actually three levels. Depending on which of the suspects you accuse, you’ll have a completely different courtroom sequence. Each of them has their own story with their own evidence to sort through, and you’ll only get to see these scenes play out if you replay the level three times. The second half is always the same, unfortunately, and it’s always the same killer in the end, but being able to steer the story through the first part is still a unique way to tie the narrative and the puzzles together.
Of course, there’s still a buzzer-beater moment at the very end, but it isn’t nearly as frustrating as the other versions of this. You only have a couple minutes to disable the murder weapon before it blows up, but each step of dismantling the weapon involves solving logic puzzles, matching patterns, and decoding symbols - not trying to do quick math or word games while the clock counts down. It’s a natural conclusion to both the story and the level that adds just enough tension without trying to do too much. The final level is a giant three-act story with each act taking a unique form - but they all feel cohesive to each other and the larger game. This is the best narrative experience I’ve had with an escape room game, and I’m thrilled to see Coin Crew Games upping the ante with the expansion. I also managed to disarm the bomb before time ran out, so clearly this is the best Escape Academy yet.