Escape Academy News

[p] [/p][p]Hey Escapists![/p][p]We hope you enjoyed our first longform devlog on YouTube; expect another one soon! 👀[/p][p][/p][p]One of our favourite staples of Escape Academy 1 was the multiplayer interactions that led to silly moments, or gave way to fun conversations with players. Bringing people together is fun! I mean, it’s even in our motto.[/p][p] [/p][p]So far, we’ve had a few questions on the topic of multiplayer interactions:[/p]

• [p]Will there be online multiplayer?[/p]
• [p]Splitscreen couch co-op? 🥺[/p]
• [p]Toggleable splitscreen?[/p]

[p] [/p][p]To put the answers shortly:[/p][p]There’s also a couple of things we’re adding to change up the way duos will explore the Academy - both to help with interacting in an open world, and to make the multiplayer experience that much more interesting.[/p][p] [/p][p]Let’s take a look 🧐[/p][p]It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a….ping?[/p][p][/p][p]When it comes to an escape room, things are a lot more localized. You can say “Hey, come check this out!” and walk a few feet over to your partner. Maybe your duo will point out something “over there, by that desk.” But when you’re exploring a giant sprawling campus, “over there” becomes a bit….confusing. Pings have quickly become a staple in many multiplayer experiences, and we think that bringing them into the world of Escape Academy will help make solving puzzles together less frustrating, while also leading to some silly interactions.[/p][p][/p][p]That’s a fair argument. If you’ve been keeping up with our devlogs and short-form content, it’s a very real concern. Escape Academy is the leading academy in the art of Escape, after all![/p][p] [/p][p]While many multiplayer games might opt to leash you within a certain range of the first player, we don’t want players to be limited to any single area - that can take away from the open world experience. So instead, cutting-edge Academy technology will allow you to see where your partner is on campus at any given point![/p][p][/p][p]Still struggling to find eachother? That’s okay. The gazebo in the middle of campus is an excellent place to relax and meet up before planning your next escape.[/p][p][/p][p]Every good Escapist needs a way to express themselves. We’re bringing emotes to Escape Academy as a way to help players communicate, for the better or for the worse. Solved that difficult puzzle? That deserves a thumbs up! Struggling with a spinner lock? Seems like the perfect opportunity for a sarcastic clap.[/p][p]One of the complaints from playtesters we’ve gotten is that splitscreen modes in online gameplay can be a little disorienting. So, just like in Escape Academy 1, you’ll have the option to switch between the splitscreen and widescreen views if motion sickness is something that affects you.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Partner taking a little too long to unpause in couch co-op? Time to take things into your own hands.[/p][p][/p][p]Lastly, to keep things from being a little too janky (or asking for a little too much out of your computer), players will have to enter escape rooms together. Always remember that two minds are better than one! Usually.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]We’re hoping multiplayer features will give just the right amount of sass to multiplayer interactions, and help to immerse you in the world of Escape Academy a little bit. If you have anything on your wishlist for Escape Academy 2 features, just let us know in the comments![/p][p][/p][p]That’s all from us - for now. Stay tuned for another longform devlog coming soon, and don’t forget to…[/p][p][/p][p]With Love,[/p][p]Coin Crew Games💛💜[/p]

[p]This devlog will be a little different! Instead of our standard Steam blogs, we decided to record a video devlog stepping into just what we’ve been up to for the last year. We don’t think that everything we wanted to talk about here could fit into a single blog post - A LOT has happened, so get comfy and we’ll let you get straight into it. Video below 👇[/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]
Because things are a little different this time around, we want to hear your thoughts! If there’s anything different you’d like to see about this format, or anything you feel we could’ve touched on better, just let us know. And as always…[/p][p] [/p][p] [/p][p]With Love,[/p][p]Coin Crew Games 💛💜[/p]

[p]Welcome back, Escapists![/p][p] [/p][p]We’re here again this week with another devlog, this time digging deeper at some stuff from behind the scenes - despite some sneak peeks at our quests system here and some short-form content there, you might catch yourself wondering:[/p][p]Let’s go back. Waaaay back. Our studio, Coin Crew Games, was founded in 2018 with one simple goal in mind: to bring people together through play. It started with arcade cabinets, and over time as we grew as a team, we started to branch out with some other goals in mind. With the ongoing pandemic in 2020, we were led to Escape Academy’s conception - our first full-fledged puzzle video game that could be played by anyone, anywhere, in your own home.[/p][p] [/p][p]Staring at the Steam store, our co-founder Wyatt recounts: “…We didn't see any local co-op escape room games on the store pages. As a team, we love local co-op games like Towerfall, Speedrunners, and Overcooked are all games that we really enjoy playing, so there not being a solid escape room version felt like a gap in the market.” It was a daunting project, and the co-op elements meant you could play with your friends and family from a distance. Given that arcade games were supposed to last a few minutes before being replayed, which was challenging enough to make, a gameplay experience for Escape Academy that would last 4-6 hours was an exciting and intimidating task.[/p][p] [/p][p]Over the next couple years, we would put thousands of hours into the creation of Escape Academy. After mountains of effort and learning, we could finally put down our pencils and say that it was finished. However, at this point it was time to take our vision a step further.[/p][p]Escape Academy 2: Back 2 School has been in development for nearly a year now. In that time we’ve been using all the lessons that Escape Academy 1 gave us - one of the most important of those lessons being that we made just about every mistake you can make in the design of our original game engine.[/p][p] [/p][p]Given our ambitions going into the sequel, and wanting to avoid inheriting the bugs from the first engine, we had to make a difficult decision. That’s why before we could even get started with 2, it was time to burn down the first engine and start completely over. So, we were here:[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]It was a blessing and a curse, in many different ways. Starting over meant, well, starting from nothing. But starting over also meant we could use those lessons we learned from the first game to build bigger and even better.[/p][p] [/p][p]Escape Academy 2 started as two pictures:[/p][p][/p][p]It would be an open world experience where you could talk to NPCs and be taken through quests and puzzle rooms while exploring a whimsical academy that teaches the art of escape. It evolved to a collection of questions, that went something like this:[/p][p] [/p]

• [p]How do we make a sequel?[/p]
  • [p]We know that we don’t want Escape Academy 1.5. We want Escape Academy 2. A sequel shouldn’t feel like a bunch of extra level packs, but rather be a completely transformative take on the world of Escape Academy.[/p]
• [p]Is this possible?[/p]
  • [p]There’s open-world games, and there’s escape room games. But this time, we’re doing both - how does one accomplish that?[/p]
• [p]How do open-world mechanics change a puzzle game?[/p]
• [p]How can we learn from the mistakes we made in the past?[/p]

[p]Don’t let these questions fool you - every answer would have a counterargument, and every point has its own counterpoint. Plenty of ideas would be thrown around, some kept, some scrapped, and we watched as the world of Escape Academy itself evolved with our ideas.[/p][p] [/p][p]Now, it was time to begin prototyping.[/p][p]The first (and completely, totally sane) version of our game looked something like this:[/p][p]
[/p][p][/p][p]We had this idea for a first escape room where you have to escape from detention, and so we assembled a super basic test environment that allowed us to see what that might be like. We were pretty much trying to get an idea of how our new engine was working, because in these early stages there’s always bugs and problems you need to look out for. In these polished devlogs, you don’t always get to see the trials and tribulations that game development really can be - but trust me - the team has had our fair share of late night troubleshooting, even back then.[/p][p] [/p][p]This also happened to be the point in our development process where we introduced the quests system - If you’ve read our last blog post (which you definitely should, by the way) you’ll notice it looks a lot different here![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p] [/p][p]Now that we’d nailed down a prototype and had our game engine in a spot we were happy with, we could start thinking about what an open-world escape room experience would truly look like.[/p][p] [/p][p]3 weeks of combined engineering, design, narrative, and art efforts led us here! This is one of the earliest stages of the campus you’ll see, and this foundation was a glorious first step.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Past this point, we started to think of the first areas that could be interesting to design escape rooms in, especially now that we could start visualizing how quests would function - maybe you run from that tower overlooking everything to the dome over on the right. We set our sights on Humanities - the section of the Academy where you’d learn about the history and culture of Escape.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]This area was incredibly impactful to the team, because we were finally getting into the big chunks of open-world gameplay that players would experience. We designed our first big puzzles for Escape Academy 2 here, and if you’ve seen our viral Aztec Lock video, this area will end up being very familiar👀
[/p][p]The Humanities area also marked the point where research began to play a major part in our process. When designing puzzles, we would often find ourselves miles-deep in research rabbitholes trying to find interesting ways to tie puzzles in to other cultures, and fun ways to tie the Escape Academy lore/history into our puzzles as well. It was a very educational process for the entire team, especially because we were getting back into the swing of things with game development after Escape Academy. Humanities got to stretch beyond just a campus area - it became a massive milestone marker of what our hard work had become![/p][p][/p][p] I don’t think I remember Escape Bucks looking like that…[/p][p][/p][p]At this time in our development process, we began to swap between escape room design and open-world design because often times, an escape room would demand something from our open-world environment or vice versa. Sometimes we’d go back and change things because narrative would change, or maybe something wouldn’t play how we wanted. Months and months of work later, our process would lead us here: we created the Headmaster’s Tower as you know it, in all its glory![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Don’t let these quick snapshots into our development process make you think it was easy - game design is hard, and what you’re seeing is nearly a year of combined efforts from a team of around ten people. We’re incredibly grateful for those of you who have been following us, because keeping this exciting project secret for almost a year was not easy.[/p][p] [/p][p]Next week, we plan to dive a little deeper into all of this on our YouTube channel and really give you a thorough look at what the timeline up to Humanities was like for us - but we hope this teaser has satiated your curiosity for now😉[/p][p] [/p][p]What are you dying to know in the development process? When it comes to these devlogs, what speaks most to you? Let us know in the comments![/p][p]And as always, don’t forget to:[/p][p]and we’ll see you in the next one.[/p][p] [/p][p]With Love,[/p][p]Coin Crew Games💛💜[/p]

[p]Dear Escapists,[/p][p]You read that right. Welcome to our first devlog; a series where we’ll be taking a dive into some of the things we’re dreaming up for Escape Academy 2: Back 2 School. Our work-in-progress quest system is the first system (of many!) we’re excited to show you.[/p][p][/p][p]From a top-down perspective, critical quests and escape rooms advance you through the story and important narrative events, while side quests allow for a natural way to interact with the campus environment and other students. That’s not to say side quests won’t reward you for your hard work, though![/p][p][/p][p]When it comes to quests, there are two types: critical path and side quests, and it’s taken a lot of trial-and-error to reach that point.[/p][p]We want the side quests to be obvious enough that you don’t miss them, secret enough that you feel rewarded when you encounter them, and clear enough that you don’t end up doing a side quest on accident when you want to progress the story. So, we’ve found ourselves tweaking things as small as wording in text, lighting, etc. to draw the player’s attention in just the right way without being too obvious or intrusive.[/p][p] [/p][p] These are just a few of the quest-givers you’ll find throughout the Academy…🔒[/p][p] Blue Icon = Critical Path | Red Icon = Extra Credit! 🔥[/p][p][/p][p]One of my personal favorite things about quests is that they let the entire world be littered with puzzles instead of rooms, which in my opinion gives so much more life and personality to the campus. Here are some of the questions you might have about the upcoming quests system (feel free to drop your own in the comments!):[/p][p] [/p][p]Currently, we have quests that progress the main story, and some quests that are optional. (In our demo build, you can go on a quest to bring food to the cat in your dorm, and have a furry friend that follows you around!)[/p][p] Maybe having a cat isn't required, but it's definitely a gameplay-enhancer on all fronts.[/p][p][/p][p]Unlike Escape Academy 1, Escape Academy 2 will have a fully-fleshed out campus that you can explore to your heart’s content. One of the benefits of an open-world campus is that there’s many more opportunities for narrative.[/p][p]That’s one of the biggest reasons we chose to implement this system, and we know you’ll love to explore the world at your own pace while uncovering the secrets of Escape Academy in a rewarding, fully-immersive environment. Quests help so much with this effort, because you end up with a nudge forward, without feeling like you’re solving puzzles “just because”.[/p][p] [/p][p]For quests that don’t directly contribute to the main story, we still want quests to be rewarding and meaningful, which is why a lot of these side quests will be tied to a system called…[/p][p]Escape Bucks are a currency (don’t worry, no microtransactions here) that enables you to travel around campus in various ways. Maybe you spend 3 Escape Bucks to bribe the librarian, or drop 1 Escape Buck into the vending machine for a can of ESCAPIST’S EDGE![/p][p]From a game-design perspective, we love the Escape Bucks system, because it introduces a fictional currency that makes side quests feel more rewarding. Sometimes during the main story you’ll need to buy items (such as books or school supplies) to advance, and Escape Bucks are the perfect system for that. This also ensures side quests become a more important part of the game, because we don’t care where the money comes from but we can require that you engage with some of the optional content, which gives the player a little more agency and further immersion at the Academy.[/p][p] [/p][p]Lastly, Escape Bucks can also be found in hidden nooks and crannies around the campus. So don’t be afraid to talk with every NPC and look underneath every stone, locker and toilet stall - just don’t go digging in other people’s pockets. That’s rude.[/p][p][/p][p]It’s required a different look at the game design. Escape rooms want you to solve everything very quickly, because it’s absolutely not fun to lose just because you went down a 10-minute rabbit hole exploring what would end up being a red herring.[/p][p]Quests, on the other hand, will allow a bit more freedom in the experience. This freedom can be a blessing and a curse - it’s definitely easier to design an escape room with some story inbetween, but quests require you to think out of the box in a way that might otherwise be limited with a linear room, and that’s just one of the many reasons we’re excited to continue fleshing out the quests system.[/p][p][/p][p]We’re SUPER excited about this system because it fundamentally changes how you escape and lets the player deepen the bond they’ll feel with the Academy itself while playing.[/p][p] [/p][p]However, we want to hear your thoughts too! When it comes to quests, what are your expectations? Is there anything more you want to know? Drop your answers below, and don’t forget to…[/p][p] [/p][p]With love,[/p][p]Coin Crew Games 💛💜[/p]

[p]We know you’re just as excited as we are to get your hands on the next playtest build of Escape Acadmey 2: Back 2 School, so we’re bringing you an update with some of your most-asked questions, and a few peeks at what’s been going on at the Academy![/p][p] [/p][p]We’re SO excited to start playtests (and on a personal note, community manager to community - I am very excited to watch you all playtest the next build!) That’s why with much excitement, I’m here to tell you:[/p][p][/p][p] [/p][p]Keep your eyes peeled in our Discord, where you’ll be able to claim a spot for playtesting, and over there we’ll have more information on what you can expect out of the playtesting process.[/p][p] [/p][p]While you can’t playtest right now, there are a few other things you can do to satisfy your curiosity:[/p]

1. [p]Check out our socials! We’re constantly looking for new content to post, and with playtests starting back up, you’ll be able to expect some sneak peeks, funny bugs, and more![/p]
2. [p]Join the Discord. There’s plenty of fun to be had, and you can say hi to your beloved Coin Crew devs directly👋[/p]
3. [p]Check out our other posts! We’re always looking for stuff to post, but if there’s something you’re wanting to see, it’s possible we’ve already posted it. And if we haven’t….[/p]
4. [p]Ask questions! We’re just as excited to make this game as you are to play it, and hype keeps everyone motivated.[/p]

[p]Our art team has been cooking up some really sick concepts for some other campuses at The Academy - after all, it’s more than just a school. It’s a thriving campus![/p][p] [/p][p]Here’s some work-in-progress concept art for the upcoming Science Campus you’ll be able to attend at Escape Academy. 📚What you see first are the grayboxed versions, followed by some paintover 🎨 sketches showing off how we plan to truly give these grayboxed environments life!😍[/p][p] [/p][p]We hope you enjoy this early look into the design process as much as we enjoy making it![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p] ⚠️WIP! Expect this area to evolve and change in future iterations💛💜[/p][p][/p][p]What do YOU want out of Escape Academy 2? What are your wildest puzzle fantasies, or your weirdest escape-themed dreams? Is having the ability to pick up the Purfessor a requirement for your enjoyment? Or maybe you REALLY want Gillian to be a bit more yappy?🤔[/p][p][/p][p]Whatever your asks are, we want our game to be a love letter to escape room games, fun puzzles, and purpose-built for our community to bash their heads into. Let us know what you’d like to see, and we’ll let you know what we think! The best way to reach us is always through Discord, but feel free to drop your thoughts anywhere you see us lurking around on the internet…⬇️[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]With love,[/p][p]Coin Crew Games 💛💜[/p]