Escape to the Ground 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.

Point and click games used to be all the craze until around the 2010s. Now, they're usually relegated to mid size productions or simple indie titles. The genre also proved incredibly popular among flash game creators, due to the relatively simple planning and programming that goes into such a game. One creator, Tesshi-E, became known for short, bite-sized escape room games. Let's look at one of the first games he ever made - Escape to the Ground.

To play Escape to the Ground, 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.

This game has no story, which is completely fine, as the game is incredibly short. This game was some of Tesshi-e's first releases, so you'll quickly notice that the graphics definitely look outdated. However, as you play the game, you'll quickly notice the foundation to their puzzle design ability. Unfortunately, there's no English version for this game, so all the Japanese flavor text may fly over your head.

You click on the buttons at the side of the screen to navigate around, click on an object or door to zoom in on it and have to figure out how to solve a number of puzzles in the mysterious room to get out.

All in all, Escape to the Ground is a great entry by Tesshi-E and really shows off the creator's strength in escape room game design.