- A Clean Getaway -(PunyJam)-
It’s really cool to see a game that doesn’t use a spaceship or submarine airlock. In A Clean Getaway you start in the tightly locked and secured research room of some kind of scientific/medical facility. You’re a nerdy researcher who was so absorbed in work you got overlooked while your co-worker stepped out.
And then something happened and now the airlock is locked, leaving you trapped listening to the fans…
A very promising start.
This is a rather straightforward basic parser puzzler. The puzzles are hands-on. Despite the background of the protagonist, there is no science involved in overcoming any obstacles you encounter. Well, except some basic knowledge of gravity and common sense stuff like that…
Relatedly, it was a real disappointment that the introduction made such a big deal of the top-secret stuff you were discovering and inventing, but then nothing of that research was involved in the story. I kept thinking there would be some groundbreaking speculative scientific/medical new theory and lots of sciencebabble in a backstory, but no…
If it were polished with a lot of spit and shoeshine, A Clean Getaway would be a very cool game to last the player an hour or so. The kind of game that gives you comfort on a rainy sunday afternoon.
Sadly, it’s not. It’s clumsily implemented and it lacks narrative tension.
The poor implementation specifically made me never put my trust in the game. I encountered a number of bugs, unhelpful responses to reasonable commands, and one time a suddenly appearing object. This made me question if my commands did indeed have the intended result under the hood.
The game has a good setup and a bunch of nice albeit simple puzzles. It does need more attention and testing. Given that, it could be a very enjoyable escape-puzzle.