Escape Academy News

Hello Escapists!

As the team wraps up the final polish on our upcoming DLC, Escape Academy: Escape from the Past, we’re thrilled to not only announce our release date of June 19th, 2023, but to also debut our trailer!

[previewyoutube]TRAILER[/previewyoutube]

Visit the Academy of yesteryear in Escape from the Past. This prequel DLC (included in the Escape Academy Season Pass) puts players in control of Sandra Solange and Eel Barnes all the way back when they began their journey as students at the Academy!




After a harrowing "accident" at an Academy sporting event nearly results in the death of Headmaster Horatio Windsor, he becomes certain that one of his faculty members is trying to MURDER HIM! Now, it’s up to Sandy and Eel to crack the case all the while balancing (and surviving) their lethal coursework.




Revisit familiar environments as they were in the past and explore the Academy of old. Before Quanty, the computer lab was utilized as the school archives and the cafeteria took the shape of a 1950s diner! Each class contains clues to the mystery that players will have to piece together in order to deduce the would-be killer’s identity.

It's an Escape Academy whodunnit!





[h2]What’s Next at the Academy?[/h2]

Now that the team has put all the finishing touches on Escape from the Past, next up for Coin Crew is continuing our Steam Playtests featuring our free update (coming Q4 2023), The Tournament of Puzzles! We’ve built some new mechanics we’re excited to share and gather feedback on so we’ll be administering further playtests for the PvP focused modes found in the update. Keep your eyes peeled for chances to check out the new content.




We’re ecstatic to have everyone play Escape from the Past and look forward to hearing our fans’ feedback on the PvP shenanigans we’re cooking up for The Tournament of Puzzles.

Cheers,
Coin Crew Games

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