Escape from the 5th Door 1.0

Warning: You need to have a special piece of software to run this game. You can find the special software right here. Then, you'll need to follow the instructions in the review to play the game.

There are a couple of incredibly well-known figures in the online flash point-and-click escape room scene. One of them is Hottategoya, a Japanese developer known for escape room experiences that are easy and quick to complete, but with just the right amount of challenge to provide a satisfying experience. Another well-known figure is Tesshi-E, who shares a very similar style to Hottategoya but with their own twist. Let's look at one of their games - Escape from the 5th Door.

To play Escape from the 5th Door, you have to unzip all the files into the folder you extracted the FPSoftware files to. Then, navigate to FPSoftware -> Basilisk-Portable -> Basilisk-Portable.exe. Afterward, drag the HTML onto the Basilisk browser.

There is an animated intro and the protagonist's thoughts are conveyed at the bottom of the screen, but there's no English version for this game, so you won't be able to follow along if you aren't fluent. This game has the photorealistic look that Tesshi-E is known for now, but the room is pretty bland - intentionally so. Everything's designed to look identical so that it confuses you and tests your ability to keep track of your surroundings, but it makes for a very drab look.

This game has a unique technique where the camera will actually rotate as you look around the room. This makes the room feel a lot deeper and helps you keep track of how the room looks as a whole, something that's incredibly important as each door looks identical in the beginning.

This game has a special examine item button so you can zoom in and interact with an item in your inventory closely. This will prove essential as you try to escape from the dome room as there are some hints that can only be found by examining items closely.

All in all, Escape from the 5th Door is another great entry by Tesshi-E and really shows off the creator's strength in escape room game design.