Hi everyone, I’m Wyatt Bushnell, co-founder of Coin Crew Games, the company that was just revealed Escape Academy during the super duper fun /[email protected] Gaming Showcase! For those of you looking for a co-op escape room puzzle game, look no further because Escape Academy is a co-op escape room puzzle game.
You’ve probably never heard of us, and that’s because Coin Crew Games hasn’t always made video games. We started building IRL escape rooms and arcade games. When the pandemic hit, we happened to be between projects. Arcades aren’t pandemic proof, so we decided to turn our out-of-home learning and translate it into a digital game. The result is Escape Academy.
in the Escape Academy, you play as a student enrolled at the titular school and study to become the ultimate escapist! Solve riddles. Get to know the faculty. Prepare the perfect cup of tea. The game features over a dozen handcrafted rooms and can be played entirely in single player or co-op with a friend – locally or online!
Escape Academy is our ideal escape game: it combines the physical aspects of escape rooms and the wild scenarios of video games. Our history with IRL games influenced a lot of the design: how will players navigate these rooms? What props will they wear? How do two players work together? Each space is designed to be solved as it would be in real life: with nothing but your noggin.
We’re also super excited about how the theme of Escape Academy came together, the “Academy” concept paid off creatively for us. The variety of school subjects allows us to tie interesting escape room scenarios and wacky city characters into a coherent story. Also, I was watching a certain school superhero anime, so I’d be lying if I said it didn’t matter.
The jump from physical to digital games was daunting at first, but we had the help of some great publishing partners: iam8bit and Skybound Games. Her experience in both worlds was crucial to make our crazy escape room ideas a reality.
We can’t wait to show you more Escape Academy later this year. We’re working hard to put the finishing touches on the game, which will be released on Day One in 2022 with Game Pass for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and Windows 10. Thank you for reading!
