Escape

Anyone who’s ever found themselves in a dead end job will know that horrible sense of being stuck in a repetitive pattern, constrained by invisible walls while you jump through someone else’s hoops.

If that cocktail of metaphors isn’t potent enough for you, try Escape - a puzzle game that fittingly symbolises the futility, monotony, and claustrophobia of the daily grind.

The only trouble is, we don’t think IUGO really had that in mind when it designed the game.

Escape is supposed to be an accessible and stylish casual puzzler. While the game certainly meets that description with its sharp, minimalist graphics and simple swipe-based gameplay, it appears someone forgot to check the formula for fun.

The goal is to jump your little chap onto every single floor tile in each level. You can only hop onto tiles in front or to either sides of you, with no diagonal or backward steps permitted. Distance doesn’t matter - it’s all about alignment.

As such, each stage becomes a case of planning out your route, then executing by swiping the direction of your next jump.

Unfortunately, that’s it. There’s a certain level of simplicity that every smartphone puzzler should ideally aim for, but Escape takes things too far.

The hopping concept just isn’t involving or appealing enough to sustain a whole game, and your attention span will quickly hit a brick wall - likely around the time you hit your first genuinely tricky level and realise that you can neither skip it nor be bothered to persist with it.