A Rogue Escape is admirably committed to both immersion and tough puzzling, making for an experience that will reward those with patience. More in our A Rogue Escape review!
Of all the many dreams I hope VR will one day fulfill for me, I have to admit experiencing the stuffy, cramped confines of a submarine locked in slow, methodical combat wasn’t very high on my list. Hats off to developer Spare Parts Oasis; they did pull off that particularly unpleasant atmosphere very well with A Rogue Escape.
The game — a re-imagining of the developer’s 2019 flatscreen game, Nauticrawl — is short on compromise. It’s a strictly room-scale experience based on physical movement only, so make sure you have a decent-sized play area. It also doesn’t give you too much in the way of direction so, when you come to start up your part-submarine part-Zepplin Frankenmech, you have to do a lot of guess work.
In this way, A Rogue Escape never really holds your hand; it’s a game about figuring out the individual machinations of your monolithic ship, the Nauticrawl, working out the kinks of its leaky, archaic infrastructure and then melding those different elements together at your own pace. Past a discreet set of opening directions, the game isn’t going to tell you how to do anything, so you’ll have to have the patience to figure it out for yourself.
A Rogue Escape Review – The Facts
What is it?: A escape room-style puzzle game in which you pilot a part submarine, part Zepplin ship called the Nauticrawl. Platforms: Quest, PC VR Release Date: Out now Price: $19.99
This approach has both pros and cons. A Rogue Escape is a wonderfully immersive experience, with very little to get between you and its claustrophobic world of valves and levers. You watch your sub drag itself through ocean canyons via a radar, alarms indicate when a certain element needs immediate attention, and weapons need to be charged up before firing, draining your battery and costing precious time between attacks. It’s a game of deliberate pace and effort, a bit like doing a one-man performance of The Hunt For Red October (though use the Sean Connery impersonation at your discretion).
Space Parts Oasis often achieves the desired atmosphere, then. It’s just that atmosphere is one of sweaty confusion, panic and frustration. A Rogue Escape moves at a snail’s pace, with controls so cumbersome that you might as well try navigating with your teeth, and paying anything less than 100% attention to its various meters and alarms at all times will land you in hot water. It knows all this and, in murky moments of hopeless anxiety, as enemies fire upon you and you’re not sure where to turn next, it does absolutely nothing to alleviate your concerns. Stuck? Tough luck – figure it out. Thankfully the checkpoints are pretty generous and you can collect items to both repair your hull and restore fuel.
At least it doesn’t overstay its welcome; trust me when I say the 1 – 2 hour runtime feels a lot longer bathed under the red light of the Nauticrawl. And it’s true that, by the time you reach the ending, you’ll genuinely feel like you’ve worked hard to reach something not many others will have endured. Strange as it may seem, there’s power to that.
A Rogue Escape Review – Final Impressions
A Rogue Escape is unapologetically the game it wants to be. It’s a tough, claustrophobic puzzler that rewards those who have the patience to poke and prod their way through its maze of buttons and switches. If its stuffy atmosphere doesn’t sound appealing to you then it’s not likely to win you over, but anyone looking for a more demanding VR puzzle game will no doubt find a lot to like here.
For more on how we arrived at this score, read our review guidelines. What did you make of our A Rogue Escape review? Let us know in the comments below!
Escape room games shouldn’t be easy, by their very nature they need to be taxing or else you’re just an idiot stuck in a room. So it’s always satisfying when a videogame-like A Rogue Escape comes along, offering barely any information other than you’re some giant mech which you need to somehow pilot and obviously use to escape. With that in mind be prepared for an equal measure of head-scratching whilst flicking switches and levers galore to get this hulking monstrosity moving.
A Rogue Escape is based on a previous title, developer Spare Parts Oasis’ Nauticrawl. Known for being rather difficult, the same ethos remains whilst being completely remade for virtual reality (VR) gaming. So there’s lots of physical interaction with the vehicle and very little in the way of hints to help you along, half the experience is simply figuring things out.
You find yourself in this giant Nauticrawl because you’ve managed to escape your captors but there’s one slight problem, you’ve never been in one and a manual isn’t exactly laying around. Apart from a rather vague tablet outlining the initial basics, A Rogue Escape presents a rather dizzying array of interactive elements which are perfectly suited to VR, it’s always great fun to flick and turn dials aplenty. All in a rather suitable steampunk design. The only weird inclusion is the fact that buttons don’t require a physical push which you’d expect. Instead, your translucent hand points its index finger and you then have to click the trigger, making for a rather unsatisfactory interaction.
Even though you’re inside a giant walking mech which you have to pilot around, A Rogue Escape is still very much an escape room experience, completing challenges in a certain order to unlock the next puzzle. It’s very slow to start as you learn the main controls and the order certain sequences need to be activated. So if you’re not into slow and methodical gameplay then you might not enjoy this. What becomes clear is that A Rogue Escape requires plenty of multitasking, managing a selection of tasks as various buzzers warn you of incoming hostiles, an overheating engine or a dead battery.
While you do have to deal with enemies per se, A Rogue Escape isn’t action-oriented in the slightest, so all those controls can feel a little clunky if you’re used to more arcade-style control schemes. And you don’t have any real strategy options or variance when dealing with those outside forces, as the couple of areas you can explore are very limited in scope.
The real joy with A Rogue Escape’s gameplay is that it becomes immensely gratifying when everything does start coming together, like being a kid put inside a giant steam train for the first time. Suddenly all those annoying beeps and flashing lights make sense so you can instantly react and go on your merry way. You just need the patience to get there. The lack of info before then does mean if you get stuck the bubble you’re in starts to look rather drab after a while.
When it comes to comfort you shouldn’t have much issue with A Rogue Escape as there’s no locomotion apart from a lift with which you can adjust your height. This sounds ideal for playing either seated or standing, however, A Rogue Escape really doesn’t work sat down. Most of the control systems are too far away, requiring getting out of the seat to reach, completely negating the feature in the first place. Even though it doesn’t look it, the enclosed Nauticrawl interior is rather large and even a 2mx2m roomscale area will see the boundary pop up occasionally on the Oculus Quest 2. And don’t look for options because there aren’t any.
On first inspection, A Rogue Escapedidn’t seem like it was going to do anything too different yet it showcases how a traditional escape room videogame can be recreated and enhanced by VR. Playing around with all the systems is a lot of fun with a run through taking around 2-3 hours. The real shame is the replay factor, there is none. Once you’ve figured out what does what that initial spark is lost, and there’s nothing else to explore. But the same can be said for most games of this ilk. Even so, A Rogue Escape had its moments of greatness.
Especially thanks to its hands-on nature, A Rogue Escape channels the feeling of an escape room while fusing it with videogame elements, ultimately pulling off an experience that simply wouldn’t be feasible in the real world.
A Rogue Escape Details:
Available On: Oculus Quest, SteamVR Release Date: June 10th, 2021 Price: $20 Developer: Spare Parts Oasis Publisher: Armor Games Studios Reviewed On: Quest 2, Valve Index
Gameplay
Image courtesy Spare Parts Oasis
In A Rogue Escape you’ll be tasked with commandeering a steam-punky mech. But with no instruction manual, a dizzying array of levers and buttons before you, and nary a window to peer out of, figuring out how to actually operate the machine is the heart of the game.
Although you’re ‘piloting a mech’, A Rogue Escape very much channels escape room vibes. If you aren’t the type that likes to explore and discover game systems and rules on your own, the game might not be for you. If you are the type that finds that kind of thing fun, A Rogue Escape brilliantly delivers. Because figuring out how everything actually works is most of the ‘content’ of the game, I’ll avoid specific descriptions of systems, but do my best to relay the feeling of the game.
At the start, you have essentially no idea what’s going on—you know nothing about the mech, the world, or even who you are or what your goals are. The mech has no porthole to peer out of, and initially you’ll feel completely blind to the world outside the machine.
At the start I was literally crashing the mech into walls and damaging the hull until I began experimenting and understanding the sensors and systems around me. The feeling of growing from clueless to competent is definitely an achievement of A Rogue Escape.
Image courtesy Spare Parts Oasis
The game is definitely slow to start—you literally need to figure out how to move—which could lose some less patient players. But once you understand the basics, things start picking up as you find objectives and enemies to engage with.
I’ll say this nice and clear right here: A Rogue Escape isn’t a combat game. Although your mech has some offensive capabilities, gameplay plays out more like a point-and-click adventure in terms of progression.
While coming to terms with controlling the mech is fun, the outside world ultimately isn’t particularly complex, and doesn’t leave much room for strategy. You’ll discover some minor objectives and obstacles to overcome, but in the end you’re steadily progressing toward ‘escaping’ (remember: escape room vibes), which will have you uncovering more of the mech’s capabilities and more of the outside world’s layers over time—as opposed to lingering in the world fighting complex battles.
Image courtesy Spare Parts Oasis
As far as story goes, A Rogue Escape’s light narrative unfolds nicely through clues you discover in the world. It’s neat (and convenient for the developers) that so much of the world is ultimately hidden from the player, which means you get to infuse your imagination into what’s going on. Granted, I would have loved to see something that felt more like a story (rather than merely lore) to give greater motivation to the action.
I found A Rogue Escape largely enjoyable throughout, with its only major issue being brevity. While I’m perfectly fine with a game that’s only really meant to be played once but leaves me with a memorable experience, my initial playthrough took just under 2.5 hours, which was shorter than I would have liked to really sink my teeth into the game. I also wish the ending felt more significant.
While some elements of the game change from one play to the next, the game ultimately isn’t dynamic enough to warrant replays. Like an escape room—once you’ve figured it out you’re probably looking for the next one. A higher difficulty, with the option to turn it down if necessary, might have extended playtime without feeling like padding.
That said, the structure of the game seems like it would have an easier time than most using post-launch updates to slot in more complexity to the outside world and its inhabitants for players to engage with. Here’s to hoping.
Immersion
Image courtesy Spare Parts Oasis
Interestingly, A Rogue Escape is directly based on a flat screen game called Nauticrawl. While I never played the original, it appears that the underlying mech controls of A Rogue Escape are essentially a direct translation. But make no mistake, A Rogue Escape isn’t a mere port; developer Spare Parts Oasis recreated the game specially for VR, complete with full hands-on controls and room-scale gameplay.
If you did play the original and were looking forward to a more immersive version playable in VR, the studio notes: “In contrast to Nauticrawl’s challenging and at times unforgiving gameplay, A Rogue Escape has been constructed from the ground up to deliver a fully explorable, atmospheric experience which more resembles an escape room than the original’s rogue-lite gameplay.”
While the game inevitably feels immersive thanks to all of the well implemented hands-on controls, the developers didn’t seem to spend much time fine-tuning A Rogue Escape for specific VR controllers, which is a shame considering the underlying gameplay is about using your hands to pull levers, flip switches, and press buttons.
For instance, on Quest 2, the game expects you to ‘press’ buttons by hovering your hand near them and squeezing the index trigger. That might make sense in some other context, but many Quest games use an outstretched index finger (detected by the controller’s capacitive sensing) to ‘poke’ a button without invoking the use of any of the controllers triggers or buttons. ‘Pressing’ a button by pulling the trigger just feels weird by comparison.
Image courtesy Spare Parts Oasis
Even more unfortunate, the game lacks support for finger tracking on Valve Index controllers, and ignores the ‘grab’ input of the controller’s handles entirely. Instead, the game expects all interactions to happen with the index trigger (which includes pushing buttons, pulling levers, and turning knobs). There’s also the same issue with needing to ‘press’ buttons by pulling the trigger, instead of being able to simply stretch out your finger and poke the button.
The grabbing issue is fortunately fixable by digging into the SteamVR Bindings and switching the configuration so that the ‘Grab’ function does the same thing as the Trigger input. Unfortunately the SteamVR Binding system is absolutely obtuse and sometimes doesn’t seem to work at all, so I doubt most players will know that they can make this change, let alone how. Hope fully the developer will quickly issue a new default binding update which will fix this for all players.
A Rogue Escape looks surprisingly good on Quest 2, and reasonably good on PC (though the lack of any in-game graphics options for the PC mode is a shame). Sound design is decent, though I really wish they’d gone a step further for a truly visceral and memorable audioscape, especially with spatial sounds. It seems like the game employs some level of spatial audio, but some of the sound sources seem misplaced (or perhaps some are even head-locked), which can make the various alert beeps and sounds confusing at times.
Comfort
A Rogue Escape is built around room-scale gameplay with no artificial locomotion or turning at all. You’ll need to physically move and rotate yourself to reach the controls of the mech. This makes the game immersive and intuitive, but also means the game will be difficult to play in tight playspaces without constantly activating your boundary. I found the controls of the mech to be just a bit too spaced out to reasonably play the game while seated, which seems like a missed opportunity.
Though you might not be able to play seated, the developers thoughtfully added an always-available height adjustment to let players of all heights dial in a comfortable position.
On the whole, I found the game absolutely comfortable and was easily able to play it for long stretches without issue. Its room-scale nature means it should be comfortable for the vast majority of players. There’s only a few things which highly sensitive players would need to watch out for, which is elevator motion when transitioning between key segments of the game, and a few instances of camera-shake, though fortunately both are rare.
A new puzzle game is arriving for PC VR early next month that will see you attempt to take control of a giant underwater mech in an escape room-inspired experience.
A Rogue Escape places you in a giant underwater mech and tasks you with playing around with all the switches and controls to find a way to get it moving so you can escape. Here’s a bit of what to expect from the Steam page:
It was your only way off this forsaken planet, but standing aboard a colossal stolen mech, you find yourself surrounded by unfamiliar buttons, levers, and monitors. In full VR, push, pull, press and hack everything you can find in an attempt to activate this lumbering beast and make your escape.
The game is being developed as a collaboration between Spare Parts Oasis and VR development studio Sylphe Labs. It’s actually a reimagining of one of Spare Parts Oasis’ previous games – their 2019 title Nauticrawl. Spare Parts have teamed up with Sylphe Labs to take the original rogue-lite puzzle game and turn it into a VR title with a fully explorable 3D space inside the mech.
Despite being a reimagining of a previous game, Spare Parts Oasis says that A Rogue Escape has been built “from the ground up to deliver a tense, atmospheric experience, on par with some of the very best escape rooms.”
“Combining an escape room with dungeon crawling and cockpit simulation was a daring concept back when I did this on PC with my previous title Nauticrawl, but somehow it feels right at home with a headset on and a fully immersive and tactile environment to experience,” said Spare Parts Oasis’ Andrea Interguglielmi.
If that sounds like your kind of jam, you won’t have to wait long – A Rogue Escape will be available from June 11 for PC VR on the Oculus Store and Steam, where you can wishlist it now.
Back in November Spare Parts Oasis and Armor Games Studios announced A Rogue Escape, a virtual reality (VR) escape room experience based on Oasis’ first title Nauticrawl. Today, the teams have released a new trailer for A Rogue Escape, confirming an Oculus and Steam store launch will take place in June.
A Rogue Escape takes place inside a giant underwater mech called a Nauticrawl. You’ve stolen this giant machine in a bid for freedom, there’s just one small problem; you’ve never piloted one and its filled with all manner of levers and switches. So the gameplay is very hands-on, finding out what systems work and how those that don’t can be hacked.
The mech is split into five control areas, each with its own set of systems to manage. You’re not left to blindly stumble around the controls, however, as clues have been left by previous pilots. Whilst these will give you a starting point the rest is left up to you and your wits.
“With A Rogue Escape, I got the rare opportunity to realize my childhood dream of what it would really feel like to be inside a mysterious machine, surrounded by buttons and levers to experiment with, while danger lurks outside of the riveted metallic walls!” said Spare Parts Oasis’ Andrea Interguglielmi in a statement. “Combining an escape room with dungeon crawling and cockpit simulation was a daring concept back when I did this on PC with my previous title Nauticrawl, but somehow it feels right at home with a headset on and a fully immersive and tactile environment to experience. I just feel truly excited to share this unique adventure with all VR players willing to be challenged by this colossal machine!”
To help finesse the gameplay for VR headsets Spare Parts Oasis worked with Sylphe Labs – which created Steel Alive for Gear VR – to ensure the interior offered a suitable area, whether players are seated or standing.
Supporting Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Valve Index, A Rogue Escape will launch on 10th June 2021. Check out the new trailer below and for further updates, keep reading VRFocus.
Developer Spare Parts Oasis and publisher Armor Games Studios announced that A Rogue Escape, a VR reimaging of PC puzzle game Nauticrawl (2019), is coming to PC VR headsets on June 10th.
Update (May 20th, 2021): It’s been six months since we last saw A Rogue Escape, and now developer Spare Parts Oasis says it’s coming to SteamVR headsets on June 10th, 2021, announced through a new trailer (linked above and below). You can wishlist it on Steam here.
The original article follows below:
Original Article (November 30th, 2020): The genre-splicing title, which is based on 2019’s IndieCade nominated rogue-lite puzzle game Nauticrawl, puts you in the commander’s seat of a giant steam punk-style mech stuck on a hostile planet.
In order to escape the planet, you’ll have to figure out how the gargantuan machine works, and discover the functions tied to its dizzying array of switches, buttons, screens and levers.
Clues left behind by its former crew are indispensable, as you learn to navigate across the world to five control centers in effort to free yourself from the planet’s elite overlord class.
Image courtesy Spare Parts Oasis
Spare Parts Oasis’ Andrea Interguglielmi, the original creator of Nauticrawl, says the game isn’t a port as such, but rather a “complete reinvention of something that now seems like it was always meant to be experienced in VR.”
To create A Rogue Escape, the team also partnered with VR development studio, Sylphe Labs, to “reimagine Nauticrawl’s titular vehicle as a completely 3D inhabitable space,” its developers say.
A Rogue Escape is slated to launch on the Oculus Store for PC and via SteamVR headsets in 2021. You can also sign up for the game’s closed beta here.
