Best of 2012 (Top 5):
Some might call this Haretoki creation one of the best escape games this year in terms of brain busting scenarios and enjoyable gameplay but that's up to you to decide. It isn't the prettiest room we've spent time in nor is it the friendliest, if you can stick it out through some head-desk-thump moments, it will reverse those escaping tummy growls into a plump full feeling of satisfaction.
It's time to raise a toast in celebration of Tesshi-e's 73rd astonishing room escape effort and once again enjoy its tricky, twisty, mistily nostalgic personality. There's really nothing to complain about in Mild Escape 5. The puzzles are tricky and satisfying with some neat solutions, the construction is at a minimum, the English translations are terrific, the controls are top notch, and the color puzzles come with text making them solvable even for the colorblind.
Feel like you haven't played enough escape games lately? Especially games that involve animate pickles, potted noses and astronauts having a shove match? In perfect surreal serendipity, here is another Detarou game for your point-and-click escaping amusement. Explore your way through the multiple rooms, find and decode clues to open doors, and watch out for that Bad Panda end again! You'll be happy to discover plenty of challenging-yet-logical puzzles and all the oddball zaniness you've come to really appreciate about Detarou.
Get ready for a gruesome discovery or two in the latest freaky escape game from horror master Psionic. Waking up in a basement cell is bad enough, but when you find out you've become imprisoned by one seriously twisted killer, all you have to escape are the clues left behind by the victims who came before you.
When you see a key, isn't your first thought, "I wonder what it will open?" That curiosity and search for answers makes the perfect theme inside this austere and surreal room, where you must use observation and exploration to open new paths and find your way out. This escape game may be small but it's three times the fun to play!
Without logic (except Tesshie who has to be the first, I think - designer who has continuity and high quality every time )!
Very disappointing (for me at least).
No Robamimi, no Kotorinosu, no Tomatea...
What is the point?
To force game designers to make one or two games per year instead to give us quality and quantity in the same time?
Sorry for the harsh words, but it is my opinion.
These were the games that gathered the most player votes and, as the results show, the JIG community was focused on scoring games as individual entries, not as which designer is most popular or prolific.
All of the designers who were nominated deserve recognition for being the best of the best in escape game development. There is an abundance of escape games out there, and few are worthy of being called great. Tesshi-e, Robamimi and the others featured here are those few, I'd say.
In this year's Best of, the entries that won represent those qualities that the players continue to look for in a stellar escape game. All games started on equal footing and needed to compete for the same votes (why hold back those who, for whatever reason, do not produce more games?) It should be encouraging to all would-be or fledgling game makers to see a new kid able to steal the spotlight even in competition against the big names. But that doesn't mean the big names are any less great by their own rights.
no Tesshi-e? "Sometimes Sunny Reverse" is a good game but "Mild Escape 5" is better
@elle
I could not agree more, as I see it all the JIG best of 2012 votes are on the individual games on their own individual merits.
They are game awards not Dev awards - now that would be a whole different category!
Elle, thanks for your reply, I understand your point of view, but my opinion is slightly different.
I think that has to be balance between quality and quantity. I don't want to be rude to you, JIG people, or to developers, but I have right not to be right, isn't it? :D
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