Videos
Reviews:
-
Though the game’s mix of puzzle and strategy is novel, the mix of dumb frustrations and sameness sets in pretty quickly
Credit where it is due when developers come up with some new take or angle on gameplay, and Escape String at least accomplishes that. The goal is to load your robot up with the commands it will need to get through the room successfully. At first this is merely a matter of understanding its basic moves and determining when to move, jump, and duck to get through. Pretty quickly added complexity gets thrown in though, with threats that move as well others that will pile on the considerations and challenges to being successful. The thing is, pretty quickly the tendency is for each level to feel like a matter of working out solutions more through trial and error than clever deduction, chipping away from the experience. Annoyances like essentially being penalized for things like having one extra step forward that isn’t needed when the stage is over and it is figuring out which bonuses you got may be easy to get by, just running the same level again with one or more less moves, but that also makes taking that extra step feel like a pointless waste of time. If you’re looking for something different, it certainly fits that bill, but it also struggles to make itself feel rewarding as you progress.
Justin Nation, Score:Fair [6.6]