Hello, PlayStation puzzler!
My name is Blair Lachlan Scott, writer and producer at Coin Crew Games. I’m excited to tell you how our design approach has evolved to bring you an exciting new experience in our first DLC: Escape Academy: Escape from Anti-Escape Island!
Evolve our design
After completing the base game, we looked at our processes to set goals for how we wanted to grow as a studio for our first DLC. It had to be bigger, better and unexpected. After team-wide soul-searching, we’ve defined three core principles with the goal of outperforming our latest offering.
Avoid repetitions
The last thing we wanted after players experienced twelve school-themed levels was for the DLC to feel like a revamped Escape Academy. We wanted to see how far we could push our universe by taking players away from campus while keeping the world connected to our college context. By threading the needle between these two objectives, we came across a single theme: summer vacation.
Taking the Escapists on vacation unlocked a whole new set of environments and opened the door to spectacular new locations. Landing our players on “Anti-Escape Island” also introduced a juicy dichotomy between “local tropical island” and “mysterious science facility”. Combining these elements in both art design and level concepts has resulted in some of our most exciting and wacky rooms yet.
Deepen the story
In Escape Academy, we were very careful that the narrative didn’t get in the way of the puzzles. We designed the story in such a way that it can be approached at different levels of depth, without missing any context for level elements. What we discovered upon release was that players were looking for a narrative more tied to gameplay and puzzles.
This response led us to build the DLC around a linear and content story arc where the level premise and the story were more integrally tied together. While our rooms will still be playable from start to finish with no narrative context to keep the game accessible, we hope that marrying level design and storytelling more closely will result in more palpable stakes and a deeper investment in our story, our characters and our world. .
Raise the difficulty
Prior to Escape Academy directors Wyatt Bushnell and Mike Salyh designed real-world escape rooms and arcade cabinets. There, an essential part of the development process was rigorous play-testing, something we carried over to the development of Escape Academy. This process was invaluable in streamlining gameplay details and refining the user experience, but it left a critical element exposed. As people progressed through the entirety of the game, they got very good
There are a lot of levers to pull to adjust the difficulty in a puzzle game. We had to be tactical about which ones we chose to maintain a satisfying experience for our players.
Complexity: How many steps does it take to complete the puzzle itself? There is a fine line between rewarding complexity and having a puzzle or puzzle sequence lose its thread.
Amount: Another “easy” lever to pull in theory, but which requires finesse. Our designers are very intentional with how the puzzles are sequenced and take people through the environment. Injecting too many puzzles into a level can be disruptive.
Stupidity: How difficult is it to figure out what you’re supposed to do with a given puzzle? This is the trickiest to pin down as it involves grappling with the immense difference in thought processes within the player base. For some people a certain puzzle clicks instantly while for others it may be the hardest part of the game.
So… What lever did we decide to pull?
All!
The levels in Escape From Anti-Escape Island are filled to the brim with intricate puzzles and intricate room flows that are a natural step forward in the evolution of our game design. Consistent playtesting was instrumental in balancing the DLC. Our hope is that this results in a challenging, satisfying and surprising experience for players.
More soon
And again, at Coin Crew Games, we find ourselves trying to figure out ways to push things further as we aim for our next major update. We can’t wait for you to play Escape From Anti-Escape Island, and we’re all looking forward to keeping you hooked with all-new puzzles.
Escape Academy: Escape from Anti-Escape Island is available on PS4 & PS5 on November 10, 2022.
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