The Escapists

 PC
User Score
6.9

Mixed or average reviews- based on 125 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 67 out of 125
  2. Mixed: 31 out of 125
  3. Negative: 27 out of 125

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  1. ShawnDTD
    Feb 18, 2015
    8
    A fun game with some cool mechanics. Definitely some small bugs but those can be worked out in a small patch.
    Very repayable, a few levels that offer an array of challenges, based on situational, realistic difficulty, nothing artificial.
  2. Underpants158
    Mar 11, 2015
    8
    What is this game?!: You are a prisoner and you have to craft items, hoard contraband, and devise a plan to escape.

    Pros: -The game does not hold your hand. You need to figure out how to escape on your own and you also need to figure out what you will need to complete your plan and where you'll hide those items while you bid your time. -Sims-esque as you have a routine of eating,    What is this game?!: You are a prisoner and you have to craft items, hoard contraband, and devise a plan to escape.

    Pros:
    -The game does not hold your hand. You need to figure out how to escape on your own and you also need to figure out what you will need to complete your plan and where you'll hide those items while you bid your time.
    -Sims-esque as you have a routine of eating, showering, working out, reading, working, spending money, all while coming up with a master plan behind the guards backs.
    -Money management, crafting, and limited resources help build tension as you pray your plan works. Some of the most satisfying moments to be had in gaming is seeing your plans come to fruition and finally escaping.
    -Inmates say funny little one liners as they walk by. I got a few chuckles and one hardy laugh out of it.

    Cons:
    -Graphics could bother some. It didn't bother me stylistically however I did feel more eye strain than normal.
    -Realistically if you want to save time and frustration you should consult a wiki for all the items you can craft. Collecting blueprints in game and randomly trying to mash items together to see what fits takes too long and wastes valuable resources. Some crafted items also don't seem very realistic. Did you know paper mache and ink will build you a fake wall? I did not.
    -While it is cool to be able to name all your prisonmates and guards I think it would be a lot cooler if your inmate pals had any real personality and background.

    Conclusion: A game with a great premise and a good execution that I pray is harbinger for a bigger better sequel with a great premise and an even greater execution.    … Expand
  3. TenchuuKhan
    Oct 17, 2015
    3
    The game is pretty much what you would expect, I just didn't expect it to be this boring.

    Basically you have your prison routine, and in the meantime you try to escape. It's just that the prison routine is the biggest part here and you have little time to go around exploring really.
  4. OliverAfton
    Nov 20, 2021
    7
    It's ok, but it's more fun to see a gameplay than to play the game itself.;
  5. Gandpug
    Feb 16, 2015
    9
    This game is one of those games that get's your mind thinking......
    "So how should I escape?.... this way..... or this way.......
    it's a great challenge to try and build up all the items you need to make your escape and head home...... and the best part is that there is like 6 prisons which get harder and they change all the time..... Like I said before, this game get's your mind    This game is one of those games that get's your mind thinking......
    "So how should I escape?.... this way..... or this way.......
    it's a great challenge to try and build up all the items you need to make your escape and head home...... and the best part is that there is like 6 prisons which get harder and they change all the time.....

    Like I said before, this game get's your mind thinking of how to do this and how to do that....... nowadays you would never find a prison escape game like this.......

    Pros:
    Great Concept
    Brilliant Gameplay
    LOADS OF ITEMS TO USE AND ESCAPE WITH!
    The AI is really good
    Nice 8bit graphics
    Groovy Soundtrack
    Friendly Developers and Community on Steam
    Alot of stuff already on the game and coming to the game
    And just a brilliant and awesome game overall

    Cons:
    Does get a bit repetitive
    YOU NEED ALOT OF PATIENCE (which I do have) but seriously.... you will need as much patience as you can.

    I've had this game since December and i've put in about 31 hours and yes you may think of that's like nothing... well while your playing you will probably only play the game for about 3-4 hours daily or 1 every two days..... but TOTALLY WORTH IT!    … Expand
  6. The-idiots114
    Feb 13, 2015
    9
    Very good prison escaping game.

    Pros: Its open ended you can escape how you want Replay value is super high Is sound track is nice Graphics are 8bit and charming Gameplay is fun but repetitive It had a great Early access. Active devs: The devs stuck in for the entire early access and still plan on more content after the game is out cons: it gets repetitive sometimes    Very good prison escaping game.

    Pros: Its open ended you can escape how you want
    Replay value is super high
    Is sound track is nice
    Graphics are 8bit and charming
    Gameplay is fun but repetitive
    It had a great Early access.

    Active devs: The devs stuck in for the entire early access and still plan on more content after the game is out

    cons: it gets repetitive sometimes

    VERDICT: thats why my score for the escapists is a 9.5/10 its amazing, its fun, and the devs are very nice    … Expand
  7. Acidsoe
    Feb 28, 2015
    0
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. This Game is very bad indeed, the concept is great and all but if you don't actually TRY to develop the game like is should be well then screw it. this game is repetitive, horrible art style its retro/pixelated and you know what I wonder about the art style and the game? well this, the amount of effort needed to make a pix-elated art style is poor, so what about the game it self? well its repetitive, has no tutorial (even though u can just go to the wiki) and the game is poorly thought of, like there needs to be MORE ways to escape a prison, more items, MORE bug fixes and add new mechanics to the game. until then I'm not considering to tell people to play this "Game".

    Besides when you try to escape through the vents at night sometimes it just shows up with "They noticed you left your cell and flushed you out", Why cant that actually be a thing instead of a box with text telling you this with a button "Okay", Seriously.

    During roll call you can just go there and leave in a instant without them knowing, because of this if they say you need a cell search you can just go over to you're cell and grab your illegal items, then they don't search you're cell at all.

    and now you're putting up a dlc for 99 cents AKA $1, why not just put it up there for free because people that own the game are just waiting for more content to be added, because of there poor efforts.

    What a bout selling things? you can buy but not sell?

    Whys the game $17 ... there is honestly no legit answer.    … Expand
  8. Carter81
    Apr 29, 2015
    0
    One of the worst game designs in all of gaming.

    This game has a great concept, interesting components for gameplay, and a good enough art style. However, the positives end after the idea of the game. Once the novelty wears off, this game is not just repetitive, but full of incredible bugs, horrible game mechanics, and utterly frustrating time sinks. One example is that a guard    One of the worst game designs in all of gaming.

    This game has a great concept, interesting components for gameplay, and a good enough art style. However, the positives end after the idea of the game.

    Once the novelty wears off, this game is not just repetitive, but full of incredible bugs, horrible game mechanics, and utterly frustrating time sinks.

    One example is that a guard will see through two layers of walls, find your hole, and then confiscate 10+ items. Items which took you forever to find because of a massive waste of time grinding away trying to find very few items. Items which are only sold on 1-2 characters, and only change a few times each day. All randomly generated, with no intelligence by the developer (No procedural generation to lessen the grind). So you may go through a day and see 12 chocolate bars, never finding any duct tape, and on some maps it is as if a crowbar is impossible to find. Have the crowbar? Too bad, you can now never find any magazines, even though you found them plentiful for the past 7 days.

    Once the guard makes an irrational or totally unrealistic "caught you!", no matter the reason it is always the same punishment. So even if you get caught for something entirely different, they close all your holes and take all you stored in walls, holes, everything.

    The developer is incredibly lazy. From making it just take all items to simple popups "You were caught! Haha!" to the irrational design decisions (clearly he has no idea what good game design even is), this game was rushed together by an amateur trying to cut as many corners as possible. Screw a quality game, screw game design or good ideas, rush ASAP for profits!

    The worst part though are the levels. Horrible level design. The game's core design encourages you to choose a multitude of ways to escape. Many of the levels literally force you to only escape ONE, maybe two ways out of that multitude. This is just pure idiocy on the part of the game designer. The game forces something contrary to what it encourages. Not all the maps are like this, but most are. Even worse, you won't know it sometimes until you spent days trying to escape, only to find out that your method is literally impossible (ex. CANNOT dig out, ever.) resulting in you wasting all that valuable duct tape you grinded for hours on shovels you can't use to win.

    Wouldn't be surprised if the developer was either very very amateur (barely knew how to program or make games), very incompetent (knows about all this stuff, but is extremely lazy or a HORRIBLE game designer) or very greedy (rush to profit; fast release for money at the sacrifice of everything and anything).

    Overall, the game is fun for the few few missions (before novelty wears off and things get repetitive / frustrating time sinks) and it's addicting because of the challenge. Unfortunately, too many bugs and flaws make it feasible to enjoy.    … Expand
  9. Koperjanek
    Feb 15, 2015
    7
    So the game is good but for me it was false advertising. Why can`t I play as Yahtzee or Critical Miss, bu the replay value is grate and the game is different every time. I would recommend it to almost everyone.
  10. WhiteNoisetrash
    Mar 13, 2015
    6
    This game is great, it had the potential to be so much more.
    The art style and the simple, yet challenging, gameplay is a little annoying at times.

    I would rather want to see this in a different kind of sandbox and with proper controls. Different art style.
  11. ElnikoPerro
    Sep 24, 2021
    0
    Bad game, dont have online mode............................................
  12. Izoeros
    Jun 20, 2022
    4
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  13. Fandan
    Oct 9, 2015
    10
    Escaping the prisons involves so much planning, time juggling, and tension, exactly what a prison break game needs!

    The people complaining about not liking the pixel graphics below, do they buy games without looking at screenshots?
  14. dohgeh
    Mar 12, 2015
    6
    The Escapists isn't a horrible game, but it's far from perfect. It being so repetitive, sometimes flat out boring, and difficult mechanics, it falls short.

    Yes, when you first start this game you will most likely say: "Woah! This is awesome!", but you will realize that this is the absolute same thing over and over again. You dig holes to escape, craw through vents, and thats about it..    The Escapists isn't a horrible game, but it's far from perfect. It being so repetitive, sometimes flat out boring, and difficult mechanics, it falls short.

    Yes, when you first start this game you will most likely say: "Woah! This is awesome!", but you will realize that this is the absolute same thing over and over again. You dig holes to escape, craw through vents, and thats about it..

    The idea of this game is awesome, but it doesn't pull it off very well. It's worth to pick up at 5 or 10 dollars max. Fun for the first time, but then it's repetitive and boring.    … Expand
  15. ShadowVoid
    Feb 24, 2015
    10
    This game is AMAZING its unique as there is not many prison break games
    lots of items plenty of prisons to offer a challenge

    also ALOT of future updates like multiplayer prison editor more prisons and more items!

    Get it I recommend it to everyone!
  16. Neuyasha
    Mar 11, 2015
    9
    This game was different than your regular break out games. Slight minecraft feel, survival and pixel graphics are a plus to me. Every mission is to get out as quickly as possible while making allies and maybe pissing off a few guards. The best part of the game is taking everyone's clothes.

    9/10 would steal everyone's clothes again
  17. TheSpongeSir
    Mar 31, 2015
    10
    An incredibly intriguing game with a great replay value. The mechanics and idea of the game is remarkable, with great game-play and great challenges. What's there not to like?
  18. Dinixovergover
    May 24, 2015
    10
    I played this game and I was amazed with the in-game freedom. A friend wanted me to play it and I was not sure if I want too, but I love it. My prefered Game.
  19. p_t_c_
    Oct 10, 2015
    8
    Great game with some flaws. Overall a great experience, a little overpriced and maybe a bit stale at times but it has a great idea with a great crafting system. One major problem, ITS NOT ON MAC
  20. hassall
    Dec 22, 2016
    7
    This game is good i played a solid 23 hours on this game it was fun and intense. The problem with this game is if you make one mistake you will be sent back to the beginning, it is really annoying i have only made it to the third map.
  21. JimmyJams
    Apr 26, 2018
    5
    A word to summarize my experience with this game? "Meh". Concept sounds interesting, Prison Architect from the prisoner's point of view more than the Architect's, but man does it get boring fast. Having just finished the 3rd level, I feel like each level prior was the same. Follow routine, build stats (int + strength), loot cells, do job, repeat until abot day 6-8 when you make yourA word to summarize my experience with this game? "Meh". Concept sounds interesting, Prison Architect from the prisoner's point of view more than the Architect's, but man does it get boring fast. Having just finished the 3rd level, I feel like each level prior was the same. Follow routine, build stats (int + strength), loot cells, do job, repeat until abot day 6-8 when you make your breakout attempt, and you're done. It's not much of a simulation either, other prisoners are just there to sell you items and give out random simple quests.

    Each day feels a bit grindy and each breakout attempt is pretty much the same with the harder levels being more narrow in what you can do. You can only break out at night and the guard routines are more or less a crapshoot. There's nothing more annoying than having to replay an entire day because some guard that was never there before suddenly decides to explore some remote corner of the map that you were tunneling out of.

    Everyone moves at lightspeed which is semi-bothersome and the game mechanics don't have much depth or complexity. It also weirdly withholds crafting recipies from you as if part of the fun of the game was just randomly guessing combinations of items until you make something of some unknown function and value. Basically you're forced to wiki everything which is a design flaw. Unless your idea of fun is running around for 20 game days collecting important recipes which are given out at complete random and in a random order. You might get something useful you might not, more likely not.

    When you get down to the experience, it's not bad and it's not good. Wouldn't really recommend it.    … Expand
  22. md5fungi
    Apr 28, 2020
    5
    The Escapists is a prison-break game with a lot of potential.

    The idea is simple: escape from prison. Achieving this is not-so-simple: you’ll need to perform tasks for the other inmates to earn $$$, craft items that will help you plot and execute your escape, and dupe the guards using stealth, tactics, and some RNG. At first, the game seemed like a playground. It begged me to try    The Escapists is a prison-break game with a lot of potential.

    The idea is simple: escape from prison. Achieving this is not-so-simple: you’ll need to perform tasks for the other inmates to earn $$$, craft items that will help you plot and execute your escape, and dupe the guards using stealth, tactics, and some RNG.

    At first, the game seemed like a playground. It begged me to try different things in an effort to escape. Unfortunately, most of them didn’t really work the way I expected. The game uses trial-and-error to teach the player what works and what doesn’t, and approaches should intuitively work sometimes don’t work. For example, putting a guard uniform on that you swipe from the laundry quite rapidly increases their suspicion of you, when I would expect it realistically to increase a little slower. The guards in general are pretty trigger-haired, so making mistakes is punished quickly.

    You’ll often end up in the infirmary or even solitary confinement, the latter which will result in you losing all of your hard-earned items. I’m a fan of brutally challenging games, but no matter how challenging a game is, good game design rewards the player at a regular cadence. The Escapists instead opts to require you to slowly plot a plan of escape over a number of days, and it then dispirits you when you fail.

    An easy way to fix this problem would be to make the first prison a poorly designed facility with ignorant guards, resulting in a trivial escape. The next would be a bit harder and require you to be more clever. This is how games generally teach players how to succeed. Another option would be for the game to allow the player to reload and try another approach without having to start the next day with literally nothing.

    Unfortunately, The Escapists seems content to be a slog. While I don’t doubt that the game will eventually teach you what is useful and what isn’t, the trial-and-error approach of the game was not fun enough to get me there. The humor and flavor of the game grows old remarkably quickly, and I kept awaiting the first real dopamine rush the game had to offer: escape.    … Expand
  23. atomlord
    Apr 3, 2020
    3
    Не понимаю восторга по поводу этой игры. Скудная и не логичная во всем.
  24. GamePlayer77
    Sep 19, 2020
    7
    An experience that wouldn't have been as bad if it weren't for the mass amount of bugs, the few official prisons, and much more. It has one small saving factor, however. The prison editor. With this PC-exclusive feature, you can create and play countless prisons. This turns the not-too-good version of a game to something alright.
  25. MetaKain
    Sep 20, 2020
    5
    Resulta difícil escapar hasta de la cárcel mas fácil. Cosa que me gusta, ya que te entretiene para que puedas conseguir dinero o caerle bien a tus compañeros, los chistes de éstos también son una de las mejores cosas del juego.
    Un defecto que le encuentro es que te cansa al toque. A veces ni ganas de jugarlo tenía y sentía que desperdicié dinero comprándolo y pedí un reembolso. Luego    Resulta difícil escapar hasta de la cárcel mas fácil. Cosa que me gusta, ya que te entretiene para que puedas conseguir dinero o caerle bien a tus compañeros, los chistes de éstos también son una de las mejores cosas del juego.
    Un defecto que le encuentro es que te cansa al toque. A veces ni ganas de jugarlo tenía y sentía que desperdicié dinero comprándolo y pedí un reembolso. Luego volví a darle otra oportunidad y me paso lo mismo, entretiene unas horas, después es aburridísimo.    … Expand
  26. GreenPufferFish
    Jan 12, 2021
    8
    fun and origanal game worth the money available on epic and steam it was free on epic for some time
  27. DAMONPROGAMES
    Dec 21, 2021
    8
    this game is so much fun i had i while a love prison themed games (or something like that) good and orginal gameplay and i love pixel graphics.
  28. Animus_V0x
    Jul 25, 2022
    5
    Funny game but became quite frustrating and boring with the time. The fact that you can sometime just get caught without really understand the reason is also a part of that, I guess.
  29. Pizi
    Feb 9, 2023
    7
    A gmae about being a prisoner which is tring to escape. All prisones are build unique with a little plot added to each of them. In all prisones u have a few ways to escpae.

Awards & Rankings

67
#67 Most Shared PC Game of 2014

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
71

Mixed or average reviews - based on 24 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 13 out of 24
  2. Mixed: 10 out of 24
  3. Negative: 1 out of 24
  1. Riot Pixels
    Jun 15, 2015
    40
    By removing all the appealing elements of prison stories (colorful characters, daring escape plans as well as dangers and hardships of incarceration), the developers turned this virtual prison into its real-life equivalent — a punishment.
    Read full review
  2. Gamer.nl
    Jun 13, 2015
    75
    Ironically enough this prison game convinces with its freedom. Every element is present for a satisfying escape. It does take some patience though.
    Read full review
  3. Games Master UK
    Apr 11, 2015
    82
    Fiendish and dependent on your own crafting legwork, this is time you'll never regret doing. [Apr 2015, p.76]
See all critic reviews »