Escape Academy News

Hello Escapists!

We have some exciting news to share with everyone! Escape Academy has just won not one, but TWO Webby Awards in the "Puzzle, Strategy & Trivia" and "Family, Kids & Education" categories. We’re floored by everyone’s response to the game and couldn’t be more proud of the dev team for having their hard work recognized.



From the jump, our driving motivator at Coin Crew Games has been to create engaging and approachable experiences that bring all kinds of people together. We firmly believe that games have a unique ability to spark imagination, encourage teamwork, and create a sense of community so to see Escape Academy not only nominated, but selected as a Webby Winner, for achieving those heights is an honor.



And for those of you who haven’t played yet (or are trying to convince a friend to become your escape companion) we have some more good news: Escape Academy is on sale until May 1st as part of Steam’s Puzzle Fest! Now's the perfect time to jump in and solve your way through the award-winning experience.

As always, thank you for your unwavering support. We hope to see you at the Academy.

Cheers,
Coin Crew Games

Nintendo’s Indie World Showcase aired last night, showing off more than a dozen interesting, indie titles that’ll be coming to the Nintendo Switch during 2023. The clue is in the name when it comes to what was on display; indie titles.

So, if you’re looking for a morsel of hope that Hollow Knight: Silksong is happening this summer, I have to sadly break it to you that no, it did not show up at the showcase. That said, plenty of other games shown off might tide you over until we eventually, one day, receive an update on Silksong.

You can watch the Indie World Showcase over on Nintendo’s website, but for those who prefer to read a round-up, I’ve got you covered.

Read more

Hello Escapists!

Coin Crew Games has been hard at work testing The Tournament of Puzzles update and putting the finishing touches on our second DLC, Escape Academy: Escape from the Past. We wanted to take a moment to share some updates with everyone!

[h2]Updated Release Timing for The Tournament of Puzzles[/h2]

First off we wanted to thank everyone who partook in our Steam Playtest of The Tournament of Puzzles earlier this year. The feedback was immensely insightful and we were thrilled with the results and everyone’s thoughts. After ingesting feedback from the Steam Playtest, we made the decision to re-center the experience on PvP play. The dev team is in the process of building out new mechanics that lean into player on player interactions and maximize the frantic nature of trying to solve puzzles faster than your opponent.



As a result, The Tournament of Puzzles is going to be coming out later than we’d originally hoped. We are now targeting a Q4 2023 release across all platforms. But there IS good news as well, which is that we’re going to be running more tests in order to build an experience that we’re all happy with! We want your involvement to yield an update we’re all proud of and one that you’ll have a hard time putting down. Keep your eyes peeled for more Steam Playtests and take a look at this Digital Trends article to gain some more insight into our new design direction.

[h2]Learnings from the Escape from Anti-Escape Island Release[/h2]

We’d also like to take a moment to share our biggest learning from releasing our first DLC last fall: Escape from Anti-Escape Island released in a buggier state than we were happy with, and you all rightfully gave us that feedback. For Escape from the Past, we’ve spent extra polish and QA time to make for as smooth and frustration free of an experience as possible. This is also a part of the reason we’ve decided to give The Tournament of Puzzles more time in the oven. Not only do we want the design to wow everyone and fuel all sorts of puzzle rivalries, we want it to be a smooth, bug free experience.

Speaking of our upcoming DLC…

[h2]Introducing Escape Academy: Escape from the Past![/h2]

For those of you who caught the Nintendo Indie World stream this morning and watched our full Nintendo Switch, Complete Edition, Trailer you may have noticed some brand new footage from our upcoming DLC, Escape Academy: Escape from the Past. This DLC is included in the Season Pass and will be released late Spring 2023!



Escape from the Past, is a prequel that puts players in control of familiar faces Sandra Solange and Eel Barnes as they begin their journey from Academy students to the unstoppable team of master Escapists we meet in Escape Academy.

After an “accident” at an Academy sporting event, Headmaster Horatio Windsor believes that SOMEONE at the school wants him dead. He enlists Sandra and Eel to go undercover in order to investigate each of the suspected faculty members. As the "accidents" keep piling up, players must successfully navigate (and survive!) five, all new rooms while piecing together clues spread across each in order to deduce who the killer is. It's an Escape Academy whodunnit!

[h2]Thank You[/h2]

As always, thanks is owed to you, our awesome fanbase who give us awesome feedback (and have patience while we act on it). Coin Crew Games is working tirelessly to bring you exciting content with the quality as you deserve.

Keep your eyes peeled for upcoming content and playtests!

Cheers,
-Coin Crew Games

Hey there Escapists!

Thanks to all of you who participated in our first playtest for Escape Academy: Tournament of Puzzles. We're incredibly thankful for the fans who dedicated some of their weekend gaming hours to assist us in improving the work-in-progress content update for Escape Academy.

We take everyone's feedback very seriously and are always hungry for more! If you have a spare moment, we'd be eternally grateful if you could fill out a quick questionnaire if you haven't done so already.

And don't worry-- this is far from the last of these playtests! We're planning to reopen the playtest once a month, all the way up until the full release of Tournament of Puzzles.

Cheers,
Coin Crew Games

Hello and Happy New Year fellow Escapists!

Coin Crew Games has exciting news about our free major update: it’s titled Escape Academy: Tournament of Puzzles, it features procedurally generated escape rooms, and the best part? You can playtest it NOW using the Steam Playtest feature!

[h2]What is Escape Academy: Tournament of Puzzles?[/h2]

Escape Academy: Tournament of Puzzles is our free, major content update which introduces one of the community's most requested features: replayable levels!

Join Coach Yoach and his crack team of Puzzletes as they compete against other Escape schools to bring the championship cup back home to Escape Academy!

Tournament of Puzzles features procedurally generated escape rooms that take place in all new, massive arenas themed around each Escape school. Puzzle your way through the rainy, neon labyrinth at Hackademy’s “Phish Market” and do your best to survive the perils of History High’s “The Tomb of the First Escapist.”









Every time you compete in a heat of the tournament, you’ll encounter different puzzles and challenges, procedurally selected from our ever-growing depot of brain twisters. No two runs will be the same!

The Tournament of Puzzles Playtest can be played single player or in co-op!

A NOTE ABOUT MULTIPLAYER: While online play is accessible in this build, there are known desync issues that will make the completion of levels nearly impossible. We strongly urge players to stick to playing locally with friends for the best co-op experience. Steam remote play or other third party screensharing apps could function as an alternative. Enter online at your own risk!

[h2]How does the playtest work?[/h2]

Pay a visit to our Store Page and request access to the Steam Playtest! This playtest will run from today, Friday 1/27 to Monday 1/30 and everyone who requests access will be permitted to play.

On Monday morning, we’ll close access in order to take some time digesting your feedback, incorporate it back into the game, and get ready for another playtest!

You don’t even need to own the base game in order to access the playtest so if you don’t own the game, you can hop on in without spending a dime!


[h2]What is the purpose of this playtest?[/h2]

The purpose of this playtest is to gather feedback in order to improve and build out this new mode of play. As lots of its elements are experimental in nature, we wanted to hear what you’d like to see in a procedural escape room experience. Our hope is that by opening this up publicly, we can gather large amounts of player feedback and refine the update before its full release across all platforms.

We want to emphasize that this content is still in active development, and therefore players may experience issues that haven't been ironed out yet. So, while not the primary purpose of this playtest, we will also be making note of any major bugs discovered by players (and we appreciate the flagging of those when they occur).

Rigorous playtesting has always been a part of building Escape Academy, and Steam Playtests are a great chance to bring that to a significantly larger stage.


[h2]I’ve downloaded the build, how do I access Tournament of Puzzles?[/h2]

Once in build, start a new save and quickly play through the tutorial level and make your way to the map screen.



Once you arrive at the campus map, press TAB. Then, on the DLC select screen, select Tournament of Puzzles.



After selecting Tournament of Puzzles you will be placed into a 3D diorama. On the left is a TV screen labeled “Tournament Mode” that you can click to start your first heat in the tournament!



[h2]Where can we share our feedback?[/h2]

General feedback can be submitted on our Steam page or on the #feedback channel of our Discord, but we’ve also built a questionnaire for more pointed questions and player input!

Questionnaire Link

[h2]Will there be more playtests?[/h2]

Yes! Our goal is to run public playtests once a month until the full release of the Tournament of Puzzles across all platforms.

[h2]Thanks for helping us make our game better![/h2]

As mentioned, playtesting is a critical piece of development at Coin Crew Games and we’re thrilled to bring more of our playerbase into the development of our content.

Keep your eyes peeled on our Twitter, Discord, and Steam Page for future playtests and other Escape Academy announcements!

Cheers,
Coin Crew Games