In the curiosity of full disclosure, I’m listed within the Special Thanks space of the Escape Goat’s credit. I had nothing to do with its manufacturing and was listed by developer Ian Stocker out of gratitude for my efforts as an evangelist for Xbox Live Indie Games basically and Escape Goat particularly. He additionally caught Sweetie, my mascot, in Escape Goat 2 as an Easter Egg. If that sounds too lovey-dovey, I ought to word that I  *REALLY* needed Escape Goat for the Indie Gamer Chick Bundle for Indie Royale in 2013, which was a bundle I curated with them that was primarily based round the perfect PC conversions of Xbox Live Indie Games. Ian declined, and since that day I’ve needed to name him every day to inform him the place I’ve hidden the antidote to the deadly posion I put in his tea. Oh Ian, BTW, it’s behind the sofa cushion in the present day. NO, not that one. The love seat. On the left. There you go. Hey, don’t give me that look. YOU’RE the one who left me explaining with a straight face that Little Racers: Street was among the many finest video games on XBLIG, you heartless bastard. Okay, on with the assessment…….HEY, heartless bastard! I’ve an award for that!

Like OMG Zombies earlier than it, Escape Goat isn’t a You Heartless Bastards “winner” that no person performed. It did okay on varied platforms eleven years in the past. So, what’s fallacious with that? Wouldn’t most indie builders kill for “okay” gross sales and consciousness? Of course they might. But, most builders don’t have video games which can be this good. That really feel decidedly old-school, like a extra platforming-centric Solomon’s Key, but in addition quintessentially fashionable, like Celeste if it made mozzarella cheese. They don’t have razor-sharp play management, or the proper steadiness of testing your brains and uncooked response time, by no means placing one above the opposite. There’s hundreds of fine indie video games on the market. This very weblog has cataloged a whole bunch during the last eleven years. Escape Goat was one of many first I reviewed, and having simply performed its re-release on Nintendo Switch eleven years later, it’s nonetheless one of many perfect. So, forgive me for this predictable outburst, however..

YOU HEARTLESS BASTARDS!

How might you let a wonderful recreation like Escape Goat slip by the cracks of historical past?

Yea, a giant a part of it going to date beneath the overall radar is it acquired its begin on Xbox Live Indie Games. So did I, and like me, it’s been caught with a following that may be generously described as modest at finest. But, no less than I’ve a legitimate excuse: I ain’t everyone’s cup of tea. On the floor, Escape Goat doesn’t appear to be will probably be both. It’s a puzzler, and eleven years of observing my site visitors determine has given me an inkling that puzzlers are a tricky promote for many players. So, what if I advised you that Escape Goat is absolutely an motion recreation set in puzzles?

Solomon’s Key is the closest comparability. I’m not thrilled with the comparability on the bottom that it’s not precisely essentially the most well-known recreation of its period. Shame, as a result of Solomon’s Key is a rattling nice recreation. You may see me point out in in some unspecified time in the future this week on my Twitter timeline, trace trace.

Challenging individuals’s perceptions of genres is my go-to argument when I attempt to persuade any recreation’s apprehensive hold-outs to present it a shot. While I’m all the time honest, generally it might appear to be I’m greedy at straws. Like, for instance, making an attempt to persuade individuals that Shadow of the Colossus is definitely secretly a horror-suspense masterpiece. Thankfully, within the case of Escape Goat, the argument isn’t ambiguous. It is an motion recreation. What struck me most about my replay during the last couple weeks is how my platforming abilities carried me to victory much more than my puzzle fixing means. Of the over the fifty ranges, solely a pair made me actually cease to think-through the answer. Escape Goat’s puzzle design is easy to reverse-engineer, because it’s constructed round switches and buttons that change the room’s format, most one-time solely that trigger a everlasting change to the format, and it’s normally not exhausting to determine what order will take you to victory. If you mess up, restarting solely takes a couple of second (can’t stress sufficient that quick-resets are the key sauce for video games like this) so experimenting isn’t a sluggish, painful course of.

This seems like some form of difficult multi-faceted puzzle that can take some time to work out. In actuality, it is a precision-jumping degree with a self-evident answer that presents itself to even novice gamers rapidly. Escape Goat leans closely on considering in your ft. All 4 of them. Many puzzles go away you useless inside seconds if you happen to don’t begin transferring, and others, like this one, require you to dash from point-A to level B when the coast is obvious.

So, don’t assume Adventures of Lolo or Baba is You. Think Super Meat Boy if the degrees had been primarily based round mind teasers. You even get a double leap, together with a number of the most motion/leaping physics the style has. There’s actually just one enemy: a grim reaper that shoots fireballs at you while you cross in entrance of them. Oh, and their fireballs simply as usually issue right into a room’s answer as they do its problem. Mostly, you die by the hands of environmental hazards, like noticed blades or transferring platforms. You should press the precise buttons, BUT, you need to get to the buttons, and the keys that open the doorways. You get a mouse that may stroll up partitions, hit buttons for you, and undergo small gaps you may’t squeeze by. But, generally it additionally acts as your metronome, and you need to time your individual motion by the phases because it hits buttons or attracts hearth for you. Escape Goat has puzzles, and rattling good ones. But it’s about precision motion before everything. You know, like an motion recreation.

Super Meat Boy is a greater comparability than you’d assume. There are a number of completely nail-biting jumps and near-miss moments all through the sport. Not one-offs. Escape Goat and its later sequel, which hasn’t come to Switch.. but.. should be within the dialog for essentially the most white-knuckle puzzlers ever, which is why they stand up to the check of time.

Sigh. I wish to shoot straight with you, my readers. I’ve been sitting on this assessment all week. I’ve rewrote it a dozen occasions, no less than. I really feel like I already stated most of the whole lot again in 2011 and don’t have anything so as to add. Besides the brand new readers, I don’t assume I’m going to persuade many hold-outs to present Escape Goat an opportunity. Or, possibly you already purchased it and it’s sat on the underside of your queue for some time. I’m responsible of that with a whole bunch of video games. I get it. But, I do want individuals, even these not usually inclined, would give Escape Goat a shot. I do know this doesn’t sound just like the cocky, depraved Indie Gamer Chick of previous who recreation builders panic assaults simply by saying I used to be beginning their recreation. I don’t take it personally after I unearth a hidden gem and other people don’t line as much as chew. You can’t. But, when a recreation that’s nice doesn’t obtain the standing to the extent I really feel it deserves, it does harm my coronary heart. 

There’s a recreation on Steam known as Plug Me that’s such a intelligent motion recreation. Simple idea: the timer can also be a platform. So easy, but, it’s so sensible. I am keen on it. I’m charmed by it. I find it irresistible! And I’ve cried over it, as a result of no person is aware of about it. I reviewed it, however no person learn it. I identify drop it consistently, however no person can discover the time to play it. I’ve purchased a number of copies out of pocket for buddies, each identified recreation entities, together with executives of main AAA corporations, identified recreation journalists and personalities, and simply plain extraordinary private buddies. And all that did nothing for it. Not each recreation finds its viewers, and that shouldn’t be okay, ought to it?

That goat was me.

So, that is being posted 3,994 days after I first reviewed Escape Goat. Nearly eleven years later, and I’ve nonetheless not performed twenty-five indie video games higher than it. And but, eleven years later, and it nonetheless looks like this treasured hidden gem that I learn about and some individuals who take heed to me learn about, nevertheless it didn’t achieve any actual traction amongst normal gaming. Look, it did okay. If Steam person evaluations are the barometer, it has almost 400, so it’s not nothing. It’s not prefer it ate shit and misplaced cash. So, right here’s what I say: give it a shot. And then dig by your ever-growing backlog of video games you picked up on sale and provides a few of them a shot. And inform individuals about them, and do it from totally different angles. Look for methods to persuade folks that they actually need to present a recreation a shot. And if you happen to discover the silver bullet that really works, make sure that to let me know.

Escape Goat is Chick-Approved
IGC Leaderboard Ranking: #25 of 303*
Top 96.1 Percentile of All 637 Games Reviewed
Top 91.7 Percentile of All 303 IGC-Approved Indies
*Rankings primarily based on time of publication. Check the Leaderboard for up to date standings.

Escape Goat was developed by Magical Time Bean (Published on Switch by Adam Spragg)
Point of Sale: Nintendo Switch, Steam

$4.99 contemplated that GOAT now means “greatest of all-time” when it USED to imply “the person who cost their team the championship” and hey, each of these might apply to LeBron James so it really works within the making of this assessment. Now go play video games you’ve been sitting on you heartless bastards.