A bit torn on this one - POTENTIAL SPOILERS

[necrophonic]

I'll preface by saying I love escape room games, and especially those that don't force multiplayer on you (an option is nice, but it's nice also to puzzle these things yourself). I definitely welcome more games in this space.

Spoilers from here on down.

I've just played through the first Prison Escape story and my impressions are mixed.

The positives

For me I loved the more classic escape room puzzles - like working out the safe given the directions on the map. Or (albeit a bit frustrating), sorting the correct employee record by gathering info from around the room.

Was about the right length for a casual escape room experience.

The general atmosphere and presentation was well done too.

The downsides

Some of the hunting for items for annoying. The main example being the knife you need to cut the rope. It was pretty apparent from reading the noticeboard that there was going to be something, but actually finding it was too hard. It was like old-school point and click pixel hunting to root it out. I want to feel like I've solved a puzzle and been rewarded, not that I think I've solved it but then just not be able to find the thing.

In the same vein, although I appreciate a level of difficultly, some things were just, not so much "hard" has tedious. The electric board being the main culprit. Even having a single light at the end of each major block would have been a good indication you were making progress. The actual execution was simple to work out the rules of, but essentially bug tracking which connection wasn't set right when you've got literally no feedback started to get to the "I can't be bothered with this" point.

Too many sliding puzzles etc. Following on from the positive of classic escape room puzzles, my heart always sinks when I just get some sliding puzzle (or "rotate the thing" or similar) as they're just (to me) annoying. They're not a thing you can work out from solving clues etc, they're just something you're either good at or you're not (and a lot of people then just end up looking at a walk through to essentially skip them)

Interact-able items aren't obvious (there may be a setting in the menu for this?). Swinging the mouse over everything to try and find something that changed the cursor was a bit annoying. Also because there's a lot of "flavour" items around (like handcuffs / magnifying glass etc) it's hard to tell at a glance what's possible to interact with and what is just background.

Conclusions

I want to like this game as it feels like something I'd like to play more of, but I'd certainly prefer more of a swing towards "work out from clues" puzzles and away from "randomly move some blocks until you luck out and get it right" puzzles.

*Disclaimer: This is all just totally my opinion and you're free to disagree

Edit: Fixed (hopefully!) some formatting

[Ghoul Hunter]

Originally posted by necrophonic:

Some of the hunting for items for annoying. The main example being the knife you need to cut the rope. It was pretty apparent from reading the noticeboard that there was going to be something, but actually finding it was too hard. It was like old-school point and click pixel hunting to root it out. I want to feel like I've solved a puzzle and been rewarded, not that I think I've solved it but then just not be able to find the thing.

In the same vein, although I appreciate a level of difficultly, some things were just, not so much "hard" has tedious. The electric board being the main culprit. Even having a single light at the end of each major block would have been a good indication you were making progress. The actual execution was simple to work out the rules of, but essentially bug tracking which connection wasn't set right when you've got literally no feedback started to get to the "I can't be bothered with this" point.

Too many sliding puzzles etc. Following on from the positive of classic escape room puzzles, my heart always sinks when I just get some sliding puzzle (or "rotate the thing" or similar) as they're just (to me) annoying. They're not a thing you can work out from solving clues etc, they're just something you're either good at or you're not (and a lot of people then just end up looking at a walk through to essentially skip them)

So, you're saying he should have less tactile and ocular puzzles? What about the people that happen to like them? Saying there should be less types of puzzles in a puzzle game is silly, you know? It comes off as arrogance.

[necrophonic]

I feel you missed the part where I said "it's just my opinion, feel free to disagree".

I didn't say "less puzzles", I said I "prefer a type of puzzle".

I said the, "for me", I prefer more traditional logic based puzzles. If you like something different, cool. This game seems to have reviewed well so far so others obviously enjoy it and I hope it does well as (as I wrote) I'd love to see more games like this exist and do well.

Arrogance would be saying "only I am right", which I didn't.

You could have just said "hey that's cool, but for me I like those puzzle types" and we could have had a sensible and probably fun conversation about the game in general. Ah well.

[VonPumpkinson]

Having played a myriad of escape rooms and multifarious puzzle solving games, allow me to express my thoughts.

Originally posted by necrophonic:

I didn't say "less puzzles", I said I "prefer a type of puzzle".

Originally posted by necrophonic:

I said the, "for me", I prefer more traditional logic based puzzles. If you like something different, cool.

Question: what constitutes "traditional" logic-based puzzles? All puzzles, by design, are logic-based anyways. Preferring "certain" puzzle types will lessen the number of puzzles. Thus, escape rooms will be nearly identical. Puzzles should be different, not a preference.

Originally posted by necrophonic:

Too many sliding puzzles etc. Following on from the positive of classic escape room puzzles, my heart always sinks when I just get some sliding puzzle (or "rotate the thing" or similar) as they're just (to me) annoying.

So, classic (or older) escape rooms had puzzles you disrelish? I don't understand.

Originally posted by necrophonic:

... they're just something you're either good at or you're not...

Do all puzzles have this effect? Puzzles are meant to challenge your brain.

Originally posted by necrophonic:

Arrogance would be saying "only I am right", which I didn't.

Arrogance isn't 'being right', and no one said you were. It means of own importance or ability,

I don't understand what you're attempting to say. If I had to guess, you're 'complaining' because the puzzles aren't "traditional"? The puzzles were a moderate challenge, and I finished a little above an hour.

Also...

Originally posted by necrophonic:

Interact-able items aren't obvious (there may be a setting in the menu for this?). Swinging the mouse over everything to try and find something that changed the cursor was a bit annoying.

I agree. Something more noticeable interactions.

Originally posted by necrophonic:

Some of the hunting for items for annoying. The main example being the knife...

It wasn't for me but an extra hint would've helped.

[necrophonic]

Thanks for the reply

Ultimately with the puzzles I was just making the point that I personally prefer the kind of puzzle where you work stuff out, piecing information together (like the safe code or working out getting the right employee card).

This is mainly because I personally get more of a "ah ha!" moment of accomplishment doing them than say, a sliding puzzle where even if you know how to solve it, it can still end up with a lot of trial and error.
The "work out information" ones felt immersive and drew me into the game world. The others are just puzzles that feel like, well, just puzzles that I could find anywhere.

I'm not saying those puzzles aren't a challenge too. It's just not my preference. That's all.

This is again 100% just my opinion, and other people prefer the opposite. That's totally fine. I'm not trying to tell people what to enjoy, just leaving my thoughts.

Again, thanks for replying. This was what I was hoping for - a sensible conversation and back and fore about elements of the game, so I appreciate that.