The Escape Is A Free Promotional FPS That's... OK, Ish.

Is it a game? Is it marketing material for a game-creating tool? Dunno really, but you get to shoot some men in it, so there's that. The Escape is a short, free, so-so shooter intended to demonstrate the capabilities of upcoming gamemaking-for-newbs application FPS Creator Reloaded. It looks a bit like someone made a rudimentary singleplayer game out an early version of Counter-Strike, but it has guns and men and keys and exploding barrels in it, and most importantly it doesn't cost any of your Earth coinage to obtain.

It is, however, enormously keen to make you look at, sign up to the newsletter of and even pledge to FPS Creator Reloaded, but hell, no such thing as a free lunch, eh? (That isn't true by the way - I once was given a lovely cheese sandwich in a sofa store, then immediately left before they could show me any sofas).

I don't know, The Escape isn't great on any level (most worryingly, the act of shooting a gun at someone feels oddly weightless and disconnected), but some part of me is vaguely taken with the idea that anyone could make something that looks and feels like an early 2000s Euro-shooter with relatively little exertion. Maybe something super-good will come out of this, if the collision between ease and someone with an idea-fountain of a brain pays off.

Here's a trailer for the dev tool, by the way:

That'll be out properly later this year, but if you want to 'pledge' at this stage you get access to earlier builds, as I understand it. There's also an asset store so you can add fancier doors and things to your death-arenas with a minimum of effort.