The Artful Escape is a game I did not expect to enjoy so much. Gripping my attention from the beginning, it gave me a powerful and entertaining story of one’s quest to identify himself and find his place in the world. He wants to live his own life and not by how his community defines him. It accomplished almost everything it set out to do, from the stunningly breathtaking art style to the psychedelic vistas it has its players traverse throughout its run time. The surprisingly sharp writing that breathes life into its characters, to just how incredibly well-realized the settings are.
The story has you play as Francis Vendetti, who’s the nephew of a folk music legend. He has spent his entire life in the shadow of his deceased uncle and has been expected to follow in his footsteps. Francis does not want to be his uncle; he knows that much. However, he doesn’t know who he is, or what he wants the world to perceive him as. The struggle of this minor identity crisis makes Francis question if he wants to be taken seriously as a folk musician like his uncle was, or if he wants to be something more original. This is at the heart of The Artful Escape’s central conflict and what helps begin a playable ballad of rock.
The premise only works because of how incredibly written the game is. From the first scene of Francis talking to himself, to the many different conversations he has with the many characters he interacts with. People in the game speak like your average person. It does not feel like talking to a robot and each conversation pulls you further into the game. It is a marvelously hard feat to achieve when the game ends up getting pretty weird as it is. Even when Francis is surrounded by scenes that are viscerally incomprehensible (but beautiful in their psychedelic unknowability) to the senses, what grounds it all is how well he and all the characters are written. Some are even voiced by some big names. Lena Headey as the Tastemaker and Carl Weathers as Lightman to name a few. These characters also help bring the game’s rich settings to life. From the small town you start in, to the dimension-hopping spaceship that is inhabited by creatures of all forms and persuasions, every setting feels rich and thoroughly fleshed out.
The Artful Escape is a labor of love for music. The music is fantastically done and is shown to be one of many reasons to pick up this game. It’s embedded into the gameplay itself in the platforming segments, holding down a key to constantly be shredding on your guitar changes the landscape around you, causing new paths to open up and hazards to be contained. It even affects the visuals by changing the environment around you. Music also alters other gameplay segments in the game. For example, there are the rock-offs where you have to follow the lead of the opposing character in what notes you play and create your own rhythm out of them. The music being tied to the gameplay and the story help make a point of how well everything is done with the big performances.
The Artful Escape does have one flaw, which is in its performance. The frames are pretty consistent for the majority of the game. Once you get out of the calm starting areas into the more elaborate ones, slowdown and frame rate drops during the platforming segments. This doesn’t cause any real issues. As a platformer, this game is extremely forgiving, so it’s not relying on frame-perfect inputs or anything. This gives great detail into Francis becoming the person he wants to be and gives individuality to the player.
The Artful Escape is a short game but is the perfect length for what it is. With pitch-perfect pacing and the strength would both be undermined if it ended up padding itself out. But what it does mean is that some might find it to be a hard sell. The asking price to me seems to be fair, and the experience you get out of it more than justifies the cost. I think you’re going to find it to be an experience that is patently worth it. Everything looks and sounds fantastic, as you rock out to your own light show. It is a joy to play and is a story of self-discovery that everyone should play.
