It’s been a while since we were enrolled in Escape Academy, Coin Crew Games’ newest game. Imagine Harry Potter, but instead of sorcery you learn to master puzzles, and you’re on your way to understanding this pocket classic. It’s proved to be a tricky distraction for co-op and Game Pass players, and we personally like the Season Pass to start delivering new cards to stick around.
We had a lot of affection for Escape Academy, hand it a 4/5 in ratingso we jumped at the chance to get locked in a room with its creators, Coin Crew Games.
Hi, could you introduce yourself and your role on Escape Academy?
MIKE – I’m Mike Salyh. I am one of the co-founders of Coin Crew Games.
WYATT- I’m Wyatt Bushnell, I’m the other co-founder of Coin Crew Games.
Can you give us a brief overview of the game?
WYATT- Escape Academy is an escape room adventure game, in which players play as a student of the titular Escape Academy, an academic institution where the curriculum is composed entirely of escape rooms.
Everywhere you look in our shopping streets you will find escape rooms. What do you think it is that makes her so popular right now?
MIKE – Escape Rooms are a great way to spend quality time with friends, family and colleagues. It’s also a very active, hands-on form of entertainment. Plus, you end up feeling smart! That is a very attractive combination of factors.
We love the idea of bringing escape rooms to an academy, making it a curriculum to complete. Where did the idea come from?
WYATT- We were trying to find a way to have a lot of different environments while also having a consistent continuous line for the story. A greater variety of environments allows for a greater variety of puzzles when it comes to escape rooms. Escape room puzzle design is making great use of environment and environment theme in the puzzles. So at our computer lab level you can navigate computers and read binaries to solve the puzzles.
A big part of the joy of a physical escape room is rummaging through stuff to find important clues. In a video game, we have a habit of highlighting important things for a player. How did you find the right place to help the player but not give too much away?
MIKE – It’s a delicate balance: if you don’t have enough props to work with, the puzzle solutions are obvious. But if you add too many, you risk burying the red herring player. We used a lot of trial and error to find the right place. This “goldilocks” method was a big part of our development process, as you can’t play your own puzzles – we relied on feedback from our playtesters.
How much from one escape room is carried over to the next? Things like items and clues. Or is it important that a player comes in fresh?
MIKE – The story moves from room to room, but the puzzles in each Escape Room are completely self-contained. We didn’t want players to ever have to google information they’d previously forgotten. Everything you need to solve the puzzles is locked in there with you!
One of the most important elements of an escape room is the time limit – the possibility that you could fail. But that can be frustrating in a video game where you have to keep making progress. How have you dealt with failure?
WYATT- We felt time pressure was a core part of the escape room experience, but if you run out of time you can just keep going and it will affect your score (and your pride).
Have you played many escape rooms for inspiration? Have any puzzles been stolen from them?
MIKE – We started building Escape Academy during the peak of the pandemic in 2020. At that time, all real escape rooms in Los Angeles were closed. In a way, our inability to play IRL breakouts was a big motivator for creating this title. However, we played a lot of digital puzzle games: three of my biggest inspirations were 999, The Room and Phoenix Wright.
Online and local co-op is a great addition. Escape rooms are definitely meant to be played together. What were the hurdles in adding this feature?
MIKE – We knew from the start that Escape Academy was going to support co-op because real Escape Rooms are such social experiences. Building for local multiplayer came naturally to us too – our background is in building arcade machines.
Getting online multiplayer working was certainly a big challenge though. That was something our studio had never done before, and it hit the mark. But it worked and we are very proud of the result!
How do players work together in online coo-p? How much can a player see of his partner’s puzzle?
WYATT- There is no hidden information between co-op players in Escape Academy. Co-op for this game is purely about two heads being better than one, working through the puzzles together.
What was it like working with doseone on the soundtrack?
WYATT- He’s the damn best. Adam is great to work with and is one of the most genuine and cool guys I’ve had the pleasure of meeting. It’s really nice to have a soundtrack that really puts you in the background while you work on the game because it SLAPs so loudly.
What is the key to building a great escape room? Where do you actually start?
MIKE – A great Escape Room starts from the scenario. You need a convincing and clear goal for the players to achieve (say, “Disarm the bomb”). You can then work on creating puzzles that prevent the player from completing that mission (“The bomb is locked, you don’t know which wire to cut, etc.”). It is so important for the player to understand what he is trying to do otherwise the puzzles will feel random. And there’s nothing worse than random puzzles!
And finally, what grade would you get at Escape Academy?
MIKE – I would be a solid B student. Not sure I’d want to take the extra deadly courses that the A+ students seem to be dealing with!
Many thanks to Mike and Wyatt from Coin Crew Games for taking a break from creating Season Pass levels for Escape Academy to chat with us. Escape Academy is out now on Xbox (the Xbox Store link is here to save you the trouble) and other consoles, and is available on Game Pass.
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