Escape Goat Review

A magical, purple goat may not seem like a natural for the role of heroic savior, but that's just one of the many pleasant surprises you'll come across in MagicalTimeBean's latest puzzler, Escape Goat. Set in a mysterious "prison," filled with traps, flame-spouting enemies, and a whole bunch of switches and buttons, Escape Goat walks the line between a dexterity-challenging platformer and a brain-busting puzzle game. Think Super Meat Boy, but with less viscera.

To wit: the titular goat will face a series of areas, each with five separate rooms, that he can reach from a central hub. All of the puzzle rooms in an area focus on a gameplay-related theme. For example, one area's levels might force you to deal with multiple moving platforms and switches, while another might require you to use your companion (a magical mouse) to fit through small spaces and distract enemies. While it's certainly possible to die (a lot), Escape Goat won't punish you for this, instantly respawning you and giving you unlimited chances to get it right. Which, eventually, you will.

That's because the strongest thing about Escape Goat is the way it carefully manages the learning curve to keep you interested without frustrating. Even the main campaign's hardest maps rarely reach the point of "screw this crap, I'm playing something else," because you've been trained in how to approach the challenges by earlier levels. With what you learn, you just have to extrapolate to a somewhat more complex set of circumstances. That said, Escape Goat is at its best when it emphasizes puzzles that challenge your mind, rather than your finger speed, and some of the sections requiring specifically timed platforming motions feel outright unfair.

Thankfully, these are few and far between. For the most part, you'll be treated to Escape Goat's clever puzzles, and you'll also likely note that, for what's very much an indie title, the production values are surprisingly high. Sure, the graphics aren't going to compete with Crysis 3, but the soundtrack is surprisingly catchy, the controls are smooth and responsive (whether you use a keyboard or a gamepad), and it avoids the instability issues that plague many other indie hits. Above all, though, Escape Goat does a bang-up job of providing those all-important "a-ha!" moments of satisfaction, when you solve a puzzle, or get the timing of some jumps just right, and manage finally to complete an area. That's what keeps you playing right through to the end.

An end, unfortunately, that comes all too quickly. I was able to complete Escape Goat in less than 4 hours (although this doesn't include the optional, unlockable area "All Intensive Purposes," which is just ridiculously difficult). Keep in mind that each level is only a single room, and each area only has five rooms, so once you figure out an area's "hook," it's not a long process to finish the whole shebang. The story, such as it is, hints at a much larger and more robust world, and it would've been nice to get more of that to chew on while cogitating through some of the tougher levels. Sure, this is an indie game that retails for just five bucks, but the when it ends the unmistakable feeling is that it's over far too quickly.



Source : ign[dot]com