Following Freeware: December 2012 releases

Killer Escape

The place you wake up in is poorly lit by red bulbs, grimly displaying dirty, blood-flecked walls. A man in an orange jumpsuit and disturbing mask greets you in dark and echoing tones. It seems that you are the prisoner of a madman, and in his hands your future only holds pain and death. But in a stroke of good fortune, he has decided you are too weak to do anything and left you unshackled. Can you take advantage of this lapse and free yourself from a killer’s lair?

data-fancybox="images"
>

Psionic Games have woven a disturbing little horror story. Presented in first-person slideshow format, the setting is unpleasantly realistic. The cell where you start out is a truly unwelcoming place, with insects crawling on the walls and a mix of old rusted pipework running across the ceilings and walls. Once you have escaped this initial location, you will find the rest of this fiend’s playground no more inviting, with poor flickering lights and filth everywhere. As well as the insect animation, the various machines you operate are also fully animated when activated. Sound effects like the squish of poking a dead rat are present throughout. A disturbing, echoing ambient tone and beat add to the atmosphere in the background.

This is not a game for the faint-hearted, as the horror setting is embraced to the full. You will find plenty of evidence of the less fortunate souls that preceded you in this dungeon, most often in the form of crumpled and blood-stained notes. Many of the puzzle solutions are distasteful as well, requiring you to delve into things you might otherwise shun. You will grab a variety of inventory items and put them to good use, along with using the machinery in this subterranean vault to help you turn tables on your captor. This game largely avoids the arbitrary nature of many escape games, with puzzle solutions that are logical in the context of the setting. As well as the overall tense mood, the game incorporates a number of more blatant scares which are likely to catch already nervous players unaware.

Killer Escape can be played online at Mousebreaker.

data-fancybox="images"
>