Indie side-scroller The Artful Escape has already attracted attention and acclaim at E3 2017, particularly after the trailer shown during Microsoft’s Sunday press conference basically made it seem like nuclear-grade eye-candy. And from the very first moment, my demo thoroughly lived up to the growing hype.
You take the role of Francis Vendetti, a guitar prodigy from the humble burg of Calypso, Colorado. The nephew of a folk-rock legend, Francis is aiming to cultivate his own distinct voice, one that owes more of a debt to the likes of Eddie Van Halen and David Bowie. But he’s not quite sure how to go about it. On the brink of his concert debut, he finds himself whisked away to an alternate reality. In order to make his way back home, he has to journey through a strange, psychedelic world populated with enormous, translucent jellyfish, bombastically blossoming flowers, spindly shaggy-haired giraffes and more trippy alien creatures.
You begin the game bounding through a gorgeous violet winterscape, with glittering snow twinkling heavily on the branches of christmassy pines. The lighting, the colors, the rich sense of place; it’s hard to pinpoint what exactly makes the visuals of The Artful Escape so compelling, but it’s hard to tear your eyes away from the magical spectacle blooming before you in real time on-screen. As I was playing, I found myself torn between bounding ahead to see what came next, and pausing to take in every detail of the sparkling, glorious landscapes.
The controls and gameplay will feel familiar to anyone who’s played a side-scrolling platformer, but The Artful Escape comes with a notable twist to a well-worn formula. Typically, these sorts of games pit you against a host of dispensable baddies to blast out of your way with your butt, tail or a barrage of fireballs.
But The Artful Escape isn’t a conflict-oriented game; it’s all about the journey and the spectacle. Your goal is to experience the various landscapes of this altered space, not destroy it. There’s no coins, keys, or power-ups to collect. If you bungle a jump, you end up a short distance back. Progression through the game happens by means of simple jumps or prolonged guitar-shredding sessions that allow Francis to traverse greater distances.
During my demo, what I assumed would be the game’s first boss encounter soon revealed itself to be a kind of jam sesh, or meeting of the minds. Instead of lobbing projectiles at the giant creature towering before you, your task is to harmonize with the music it makes, through a series of increasingly challenging button patterns. Instead of defeating a monster and acquiring its skills, you encounter another being, throw down some sick guitar licks, and learn a lesson. It sounds a little wavy-gravy, but it works damn well, and it’s hard not to keep charging ahead to find out what crazy-ass flights of fancy you’ll run into next.
It’s a bit of an obscure reference, but if there’s any 80s kids out there who had the National Geographic book Our Universe, this game is basically like playing through its artists’ renderings of what life on other planets might look like, and I mean that in the best possible way. A constant sense of surprise -- and wonder -- tugged at me while playing this game, and left me wanting more when it was over.
The Artful Escape doesn’t have a release date just yet, and the official word from the developer is that the game is “coming when it’s damn ready.” In the meantime, you can check out the trailer below.
