Don't Escape Trilogy

Rate it

Three puzzles where the danger is outside, or you.

Platforms: PC, Browser
Stores: Steam
Price: Paid
Rated: Overwhelmingly Positive on Steam (99% of 770 reviews).
Players: 1
Controls: Mouse only: click to look and pick things up, move to the top of the screen for the inventory, click one item then another to combine them.
Made by: scriptwelder
Released: 2019

No. 1 of the church horror games · No. 2 of the horror games about memory loss · No. 2 of the village horror games · No. 2 of the spaceship horror games · No. 2 of the moon horror games · No. 1 of the cabin horror games · No. 1 of the werewolf horror games

Get it on Steam Don't Escape (free in browser, Newgrounds)Don't Escape 2 (free in browser, Newgrounds)Don't Escape 3 (free in browser, Newgrounds)

What frightens Three point-and-click puzzles where you lock yourself in instead of out: a man who will turn into a werewolf at moonrise barricades a cabin above a village, a survivor fortifies a hideout before a zombie horde arrives at sunset while his bitten friend gets worse, and an amnesiac wakes on a silent spaceship with a gruesome discovery and a sense he is not alone.
Content: violence, blood, dead bodies.

Don't Escape Trilogy collects scriptwelder's three original point-and-click horror puzzles, in which you secure yourself inside instead of escaping: from your own werewolf self, from a zombie horde, and on a spaceship that holds something gruesome. The free browser originals are still on Newgrounds.

About Don't Escape Trilogy

Don't Escape Trilogy is a collection of three point-and-click games by scriptwelder, the Polish developer behind the Deep Sleep series. The first Don't Escape came out as a free Flash game in 2013 and turned the escape-the-room formula around: instead of looking for a way out, you look for a way to keep yourself, or something else, from getting through. Armor Games Studios released the three games together on Steam in July 2019, with no new content, and the originals still run free in the browser on scriptwelder's Newgrounds pages.

In Don't Escape you wake in a remote hunter's cabin above a small village and have until nightfall to make the place impossible to leave, because when the full moon rises you will not be yourself. In Don't Escape 2, two weeks into a zombie outbreak, you and your bitten friend Bill hide in an abandoned building and have eight hours to scavenge the surrounding area and fortify it before the horde arrives at sunset; every trip away costs time. In Don't Escape 3 you wake with a headache in the airlock of a starship, without your memories, with an hour of air left and a computer that reports an intruder.

All three are drawn in grainy pixel art with a dark, quiet mood. Jay is Games called the third one tense, ominous, almost predatory. The horror is mostly in what waits for you if your preparations fail, and the games show the results in short pixel-art scenes of violence and bodies.

The puzzles are logical item hunts and combinations, and the store notes that many have more than one solution. It suits players who liked scriptwelder's Deep Sleep games or other compact point-and-click horror such as the Cube Escape series.

How to play Don't Escape Trilogy

Buy the trilogy on Steam for Windows, or open each game free on scriptwelder's Newgrounds page.
Click around each scene to look at things and pick up items.
Open the inventory at the top of the screen and click one item on another to combine them.
Use what you find to block, lock or fortify the place before the deadline.
When you think you are ready, click the hourglass in the inventory to let time run on and see whether your preparations hold.

Screenshots

Don't Escape: a dim wooden cabin with a chest of drawers, a candle and a green coat on the wall, captioned I've found a tinderbox

Don't Escape: a dark cabin lit by a fire in a stone fireplace, with a musket and antlers on the wall

Don't Escape 2: a small stone chapel with an angel statue beside it and a full inventory bar along the top

Don't Escape 2: a bloodied man in a concrete pit with a ladder and stacked boxes, seen from above

Don't Escape 3: a spaceship corridor ending at a round airlock door, with WARNING VACUUM painted on the floor

Don't Escape 3: a man in a red jacket at a console on a bright spaceship bridge, captioned Captain...

Tips

Search every scene twice; small items hide in dark corners.
In Don't Escape 2 each trip away from the building costs time, so plan your route before you leave.
There is often more than one way to solve a problem, so try the odd idea before giving up.
Turn the sound up: the store pitches it for the lights down and the volume up.
If a scene is too dark to search, raise the brightness in the game's settings.

Questions

Is Don't Escape free?

The three original games are free to play in the browser on scriptwelder's Newgrounds pages. The Steam release is a paid collection of the same games with no new content.

What is Don't Escape about?

Each game reverses the escape-the-room idea: you have to secure yourself inside a place before something happens, whether that is your own transformation into a werewolf, a zombie horde or what is loose on a spaceship.

Is Don't Escape: 4 Days to Survive part of the trilogy?

No. It is scriptwelder's later full-length game, sold separately; the trilogy holds the three original web games.

Who made Don't Escape?

scriptwelder, the developer of the Deep Sleep games; Armor Games Studios publishes the Steam collection.