Escape Quest – Android Review

 Escape Quest looks and feels like a typical escape room game. If you are a fan of the genre, this game might be of interest to you; otherwise, look away. Escape room games are often best suited to be played casually while waiting for a train or during a bathroom break. Who needs Clash of Clans when you can play a game like this and exercise your brains at the same time?

I know, cynics will probably shout at me, “I use my brain enough during work, I don’t want or need to exercise it at other times too”, or the popular, “Too much brain exercise gives me a major headache/migraine”. But hey, I’m sure there are times when you feel so bored and tedious tapping away at building timers or mindlessly decorating your farm, that you need a fresh challenge to boost your brain before an exam or an important meeting. Well, Escape Quest fills that role to a certain extent, but ultimately fails at creating an enjoyable experience at later levels.
Just like any other escape room game, your main goal is to find the key or code to the door to escape the room. This premise is made more complex by adding layers and layers of puzzles on top of the solution. Finding a key will lead to another key that will lead to a puzzle that will lead to a secret code that you have to use in a secret box to get another key to open the door. Yes, just when you think that you have obtained the key to the door, it turns out to be just the key to a drawer.

I guess that is also the main reason why people play these games. The sense of achievement in getting through a difficult level outweighs the frustration of getting there. At least, that is the balancing act that each puzzle game has to get right in order to not piss their players off. Escape Quest juggles this balance well in the beginning but veers more towards frustrating and borderline impossible towards the later levels. These levels require an impossible amount of nonsensical foresight and relentless tapping around to figure out what to do. For example, who would have thought that there would be a screwdriver inside a cake?? That’s just ridiculous!
There isn’t much else to say about the game. It sports real life images of rooms and the interface isn’t obstructive or crowded. The controls are simply tapping to interact with objects. One thing I didn’t like is that it only has 15 levels. That is just sad. More levels might be added later on but at the moment, it’s just too little and too short for my taste.
Go ahead, give it a try. It’s free anyway.