Room Escape Artist

Access Denied: Escape is a point-and-click game available on Steam, Switch, Xbox, and Playstation, developed and published by Stately Snail.

Format

Style of Play:

• Point-and-click

Who is it For?

• Puzzle lovers
• Any experience level

Required Equipment: computer with internet connection

Of note, Access Denied: Escape can only be played on a Windows system, not on a Mac. While you move around using WASD keyboard keys, I was not able to use the trackpad to interact with the game. I needed a mouse.

It is also available for Switch, Xbox, and Playstation.

Pen and paper are not required but definitely suggested for note-talking on certain puzzles.

Recommended Team Size: 1

Play Time: about 3 hours

Price: $4.99

Booking: purchase and play at your leisure

Description

This is a point-and-click game accessed through steam. Gameplay consists primarily of solving logic-based puzzles with no instructions, by rotating and interacting with various elements on puzzle cubes. You will also explore several rooms to find objects and information.

Christina Rohlf’s Reaction

Access Denied: Escape was a fun puzzle game with about a 3-hour playtime. The game revolved around unlocking a series of 30 “data vaults” by solving puzzles. The puzzles were generally of easy difficulty; however, I did enjoy that the game shifted puzzle mechanisms after every five vaults and combined new and old puzzle mechanisms to increase the difficulty slightly as the game progressed. Surrounding the puzzles was a loose story that was easy to follow and concluded in a satisfying, but not particularly surprising way. In general, I found this to be a fun game to sit down and play a few levels during a break in my day. I would recommend this game to anyone looking for a relaxing puzzle game, especially since it has a tendency to go on discount often during Steam sales.

Joel Smileypeacefun Reaction

You find yourself locked in the office of a scientist who needs you to unlock an important Data Vault. But your job does not go according to plan.

At its best, there was a great mix of self-contained puzzle cubes to rotate and some more environmental walking around the virtual room to explore the surroundings. I loved the feeling of levels building on each other and getting more and more involved through using tricks I had learned previously. Additionally, this little adventure was a bargain on Steam and yet I still got quite some gameplay out of it.

At its worst, the game controls felt a bit clunky to operate at first. Also, one search component overstayed its welcome a tiny bit. But that’s all nitpicking compared to how underdeveloped the hint system was. First, it incorrectly assessed which puzzle I was on. Then, it went from stating the obvious to straight-out giving the solution with little to no explanation of how to get there.

At the end of the day, you get some fun challenges that improve your problem-solving skills for very little money, so you have nothing to lose by going for this.

Cindi S’ Reaction

Access Denied: Escape packed a lot of puzzle into a relatively compact game. As a professional hacker locked in a lab, the goal was to hack a series of mechanical devices while searching around for a way to escape. There were no instructions, so figuring out where to start on each device was part of the challenge. Most puzzles were quick, taking minutes to solve once I’d figured out how they worked. I really liked how new mechanisms were introduced on one device and then combined to make an even more complex puzzle on a later device, essentially teaching as I progressed. The only issue I had was sometimes I had the wrong code, but stumbled past the right one, immediately solving the puzzle without knowing why. And while there were helpful hints for each device, there were no hints when I was searching for an object and couldn’t find it. Overall, I really enjoyed tinkering with the devices in Access Denied: Escape; it is definitely worth checking out, especially considering the low price point.