Escape from Norwood is a thrilling text-based adventure game, and the first game created by solo team Singular Works. In this Point-and-click 90s style game you venture on a long and vast journey to escape the titular Norwood. You explore the lands, take on quests, learn character behaviour and schedules, find and solve mysteries and puzzles.
The game opens mid-chase, you are playing as Lecia, a 13 year old girl. With no concept of what is going on you are thrown into the world of discrimination. A sentry is hunting you down after learning about your powers. Your dad quickly orders you to get into your hiding place, but despite this you are quickly discovered. However, due to the power you were born with you can go invisible. Your dad is briefly interrogated, where in you discover your dad’s possible treachery to the kingdom. Your dad then sets you on a quest to gather resources to aid your escape from Norwood. This involves vast amounts of exploration, puzzle solving, explaining mysterious, sneaking, and doing quests.
Escape from Norwood is a 2D game, and one played through a series of interfaces which each inhabit a corner of the screen — each one handling different information.
In the top right of the screen is where you are allowed to move about and explore the map, The bottom right displays where you are and, if you are in a room, what is in the room and who else is in it, The top left contains all dialogue and the player’s recent interactions and the bottom left is where the players inventory is.
Escape From Norwood has an incredibly memorable style for the interactable map. The map displays the perfect amount of information, clearly designed with readability in mind; It keeps complexity down, but has enough going on that it doesn’t look boring. This is then enhanced with the information in the bottom right. I do wish the player description was more in depth though, as there is always a danger of feeling separated from the world by the way information is structured, and a few tweaks could have furthered the immersion.
The NPCs each having their own schedules creates a sense of achievement when you do their quest as it feels you have actually affected them.
Escape From Norwood is a fantastic and engaging game featuring loads of potential fun just waiting to be explored. If you like UI-heavy strategy games and RPGs then this is the game for you. But it is not without its flaws, It does take a while to get used to this type of game, as it’s certainly not a popular modern design. The lack of visuals can make it less enjoyable and occasionally the dialogue can get a bit stale and dry.
I can see how its style and uniqueness can look off putting and complex, but if you can get past that then you’ll get hooked by Escape From Norwood.
Escape From Norwood is available now on Windows, macOS, IOS and Android.