Escape (video game)

Escape is maze video game for the ZX Spectrum developed by New Generation Software and published in 1982.

Escape
Developer(s)	Malcolm Evans
Publisher(s)	New Generation Software
Platform(s)	ZX Spectrum
Release	1982
Genre(s)	Maze

The cassette inlay reads: "Can you ESCAPE from the monsters? You must search through the maze to find the axe which will enable you to break down the door and ESCAPE. But it is not that easy—the Triceratops hides behind the hedges and the Pteranodon soars over the maze to swoop down upon you"^[1]

Gameplay

The player has to search a maze displayed in primitive 3D for an axe, which will allow him to break the exit, and escape. He is chased by initially a single dinosaur - each successful escape increases the number of dinosaurs roaming the maze, until level 5, which introduces a pterosaur that will occasionally take off and fly over the hedges, not being restricted to the maze paths.^[2]

Upon finding the axe, which is randomly placed for each level, the player slows down allowing the dinosaurs to catch up.

The player (in black) carrying the axe, and being chased by five dinosaurs. The entrance to the maze is in the bottom right, and the exit (still blocked) in the top left.

Reception

Sinclair User: "The game was written by the author of the J K Greye 3D Monster Maze and is one of the best and most original games we have seen for the Spectrum so far"^[3]

ZX Computing: "This is not, as it may sound a jump on the 'Pacman' bandwagon, but rather an original and absorbing game which can become extremely difficult and frustrating"^[4]

Popular Computing Weekly: "I would rate two of the games here Escape and Dictator as being amongst the best Spectrum games I have played"^[5]