Escaping 101

This guide is meant to help explain how the escape minigame works and some strategies you should keep in mind to succeed in them.

Intro

Over the course of the game, Seles and friends will get tied up by a wide variety of foes via story sequences. While the game is usually a game over when you have everyone subdued, some areas also have you simply tied up again with another escape attempt, and you can do this forever with no penalty, which is actually helpful as it refreshes party health and magic.

Sometimes being caught is beneficial, especially if you're trying to take something from a bandit camp for a side quest (though later areas can soft lock you with a guard outside a cell before you get back any of your party, just turn down to easy if needed). You can also gain bonuses via leveling up your escape skills by making successful escapes. You can also grind out these levels at camp a ways into the game (where you can also view level perks and your current gained).

Basics

Your goal is to get Seles to free herself, usually under a time limit. You have to undo your wrist bindings to free yourself, but undoing other bindings can open up more options or make undoing your wrist bindings easier.

The time ticks down with every action you pick, plus during struggles. When you struggle, you select a single binding to focus on and press the arrow keys as they appear on screen to weaken the binding. Empty the bar and the binding is removed. You have a variety of actions to give you information and assist you in your escape attempt as well.

Ties can also have a distraction rope placed that will raise a distraction bar whenever you move in a particular way. This will weaken your struggle attempts. Undoing certain bindings can sometimes remove this. Otherwise, you can lower the bar by focusing on blindfolds, gags, or interacting with the guard, though this costs time. Consider what the more time efficient option in the situation is.

Ties

Basic Tie

Fairly easy to get out of, and you can move around via hopping from start. There may be a distraction in place that will irritate Seles when you move your legs. This also applies to the torso.

Chair Tie

Similar to the basic tie, except you're tied to a chair at start. To move around, you'll have to undo the torso bindings. Otherwise, it's the same sort of game.

Hog Tie

A tie you have to undo to enter a basic tie. You only have to worry about a connection binding, plus any possible blindfolds or gags. A distraction may be used, so just focus on your gags, blindfold, or interacting with the guard to lower that meter.

Later in the game, some guards will tie Seles up this way while also tying them to the ceiling, and undoing that tie will make her land to the ground in a thud and possibly alert the guard. This is unavoidable. You will be left in a regular hog tie.

Frog Tie

The hardest tie of the bunch. Frog ties completely restrict your legs, so you have to undo them to have any hope of moving. Normal variables apply otherwise, including a possible distraction.

The other major complication is that many points in the story leave Seles in this tie while tied to a pole, which you can only escape from by undoing your wrists, thus winning the minigame. This means when a pole is involved, don't bother trying to use items from around the area or attack the guard.

Blindfolds and Gags

Blindfolds will restrict your sight, removing the ability to inspect unless removed. Gags will make Seles quieter and difficult to understand. There is only one type of blindfold, but several gags. Each gag gets increasingly more difficult to remove. They all share the same ability to make it harder to call guards and allies with a 50-50 chance of success, plus muffles your voice.

In order, gags are cleave, knotted cleave, OTM (over the mouth), OTN (over the nose), and ball.

Anti-Chromatic Ropes and Gags

As the game goes on, anti-chomatic ropes and gags will be introduced. They are more difficult to struggle out of then normal ropes or gags. The AC gag also cannot be removed by Seles, meaning you will remain difficult to understand the entire escape attempt. You can spot them by their blue glow.

The one upside to the AC gag is that you can struggle with it all you like, a safer way to lower distraction then risk a guard making your bindings stronger. Very useful for frog ties, especially when tied to a poll.

There's also another quirk to these restraints that makes them especially troublesome. Their weakening effect stacks with each AC binding, so if you have your legs, torso, and wrists tied with a AC gag and a distraction with AC ropes, you will be extremely weakened. This also means removing an AC restraint of any kind also returns some strength, so even releasing your legs in a frog tie while tied to a pole can help you.

Actions

Struggle

Choose a binding and press the arrow keys as they appear on screen to weaken the binding. A distraction will lower your struggle effectiveness as the distraction bar goes up, usually done by trying to undo legs or torso bindings, or connection and suspension bindings in a hog tie.

If you manage to get an item, said item will improve your struggle effectiveness. Useful for tough bindings.

Inspect

When not blindfolded, Seles can give information on binding strength and their function in the tie, look around your surroundings to see if any items are present (will be marked with question marks), or see if you have any allies around.

Make Noise

Seles can call a guard or an ally. This is more effective if you are not gagged.

You can charm a guard to lower their strictness to make them possibly more helpful, but they'll often re-gag you or tighten bindings in response, even if you managed to lower their strictness.

Threatening a guard will have the opposite effect, but can open them up to be assaulted if you're feeling adventurous. Mainly a tactic for roleplaying rather than an effective method of escape.

Pleading for help will often make a guard ignore you or tighten or add to your bindings, unless you lower their strictness enough. If you manage that, they may loosen your bindings.

Assault will have you attack the guard if you have enough bindings undone. This can possibly net you an item they have on them.

You can also assess a guard to learn their tying skills, strictness, how closely they'll observe you (ie see if you loosened or undid any bindings), and if they have any items on them.

For allies, you can ask them to loosen your bindings. There's an option to try and help them, but so far, this option is useless as you're almost always too restrained. You can rescue them after finishing the minigame.

Worth nothing that guards will react to you differently if you talk while gagged, sometimes to your benefit in rare cases.

Move

Seles will move around the area. If blindfolded, she'll possibly drop items you pick up, and sometimes move in the wrong direction. If her legs are still in bind, she'll hop, using up more time. You can interact with allies, pick up objects you found via inspecting your surroundings, or can pick them up blind (which is very unlikely).

Give Up

Seles will give up and you can watch a game over sequence. The game is filled with failed escape game overs with unique dialog.

Perks

You'll get a hidden amount of escape experience after every escape, the amount going up with the difficulty of the escape. The highest level escapes can usually guarantee a level gain. As of 1.0.3, there are perks up to level 65, a new one unlocking every five perks.

There are a set of late game challenges that offer extra rewards at the chroma lab, and these perks can be success or failure on them.

The perks are as follows:

• Lvl 5: Keen eye – When assessing a guard, you can see if they have any items on them
  
• Lvl 10: Blindfold familiarity – If wearing a blindfold, you will be able to see the level of the blindfold bind
  
• Lvl 15: Opportunist – The most important perk! This will get you a critical hit if you press the arrows during the struggle quickly, giving a 10% bonus to how much you undo the binding
  
• Lvl 20: Discreet owner – Guards will take your items less often
  
• Lvl 25: Not Again! - If a guard tightens your restraints for a second time, there's a small chance they might loosen instead
  
• Lvl 30: Aggressive acrobatic – Can assault a guard when legs are tied in a basic or chair tie, with halved chance at success
  
• Lvl 35: Careful fumbler – If you find an item while blindfolded, there is no chance of it being dropped
  
• Lvl 40: Self-discipline – Distractions are only half effective
  
• Lvl 45: Fluent in Gag – Greater chance an ally will understand you when talking while gagged
  
• Lvl 50: Tinkerer – Items do double to bindings
  
• Lvl 55: Self-starter – The struggle timer last an extra second and doesn't start counting until after the first two tries, but canceling after the first attempt will still cost time
  
• Lvl 60: Penalty kicker – Double your chances of a guard dropping an item when assaulted
  
• Lvl 65: People person – Assessing a guard no longer takes time

Now practice!

No better teacher than doing some wriggling yourself!

Sidequest Update!

Worth noting that there's been a huge change to the escape system since a recent update! What you need to know is:

- The Perk system has been replaced with "Skills," which can be selected and unlocked with a menu during the escape minigame. There's some returning perks, but what makes this system unique is some skills have downsides, giving a bit more strategy to how you want to approach a situation. Leveling gives points that can be used to purchase skills, which are shown in a skill tree format.

- Wrist cuffs have been added. They are a new wrist binding that can only be removed with a proper item from the ground or a guard.

- There is now a "Wait" option that lets you bring down distraction a great deal more.

- There's been some UI tweaks, like the AC gag and wrist cuffs having a different color bar, representing chains, to signify these cannot be removed normally.

Otherwise, the fundamentals still apply.

[JKDarkseid]

@The Eye You have to move to the item and it will automatically give you a buff to your struggling. Thus, if you are tied to a pole or suspended, you won't be able to go to the item. You also need to do this when you have wristcuffs, as you need a lockpick or similar such item to undo those (you can use inspect to see what items you have just add to struggle or can help unlock cuffs).

[The Eye]

Question: I have inspected the area around, found an item.
How do I use it or is it automatically increasing the effectiveness of struggling?

[JKDarkseid]

@somapodra It unlocks I believe after chapter four and you can visit by leaving the main chapter areas and choosing the camp option at a few points. Don't fret, though, the game doesn't really throw anything impossible at you in the main game, the perks just make things easier. They're more necessary for some challenges at the chroma research center late in the game for extra, very useful items (I believe the last challenge also hasn't been added yet, may be wrong on that).

[somapodra]

When exactly is camp unlocked, anyway? I tried practicing at the Miu Miu bandit camp but the escapes kept getting harder. I decided that I had to stop after almost losing to a hogtie with a distraction. And I only leveled up once, so if every repeatable escape is like that, I'm screwed if I have to deal with AC restraints before I can grind without risking a Game Over.