Escape Castle - Clio Pantelides & Lauren Yates (14), London
"Our game is aimed at a variety of ages ranging from children to adults, it inspires the growth of lateral thinking skills via a team building escape game and is also a lot of fun!"
Escape Castle is a multiplayer online game with up to 6 players per game. Each player will be assigned a different colour and each colour has a unique skill that will help all the players throughout each level - making certain puzzles easier of more understandable-. This will ensure that communication and teamwork are key components in the game.
Everyone starts in their own cell and all you can see is your starting cell. There are multiple clues in each starting cell however, you are reliant on your teammates solving puzzles in their respective cells to unlock each other. Once you are all out of your cells, you will be found in the main room which you need to get out of. The next puzzle is one of stealth where you and your team must sneak past the enemy guards. Each room gets harder and harder. The less time you take to get out the more points you will get. There are 5 castles each with different focuses. The aim is to escape the castle in as little time possible.
Each coloured character will have a different type of puzzle to solve and skill to solve it.
Red - Artistic - puzzles that involve deciphering paintings and art.
Orange - Designing - puzzles that involve disguises and stealth
Yellow - Communication - puzzles that involve talking/negotiating with people or animals
Green - Strength - puzzles that involve extreme physical strength
Blue - Decoding - puzzles that involve ciphers like 'Caesar's cipher'
Purple - Handiness - puzzles that involve fixing broken items.
Each individual starting area or 'cell' acts as a tutorial, the puzzles in the tutorial are simpler and are aimed at helping the user discover how to use their abilities. It is a bird's eye view so you can see only the circle of your character's colour. We chose to not put any physical features to our character as it acts as a distraction and teaches the valuable lesson o not needing to look a certain way to harness the full power of your being. You can see the grey tiles of the floor and the objects in the room.
"Our target audience are people age 10+. It is a great game for the whole family, and we start at the age of 10 and through the teenage years as the skill of lateral thinking, teamwork and communication are essential components that will help them in the future. Their brains are constantly developing and through this game it produces a fun and solid foundation for the rest of their knowledge to build on. with the ability to mix up and control the difficulty levels and to play versions developed by other players, adults will also scramble their brains whilst playing."
