PixlBit

Escape Goat is a 2012 Puzzle and Platafoming indie game made by Magical Time Bean, which made its way to Steam thanks to Greenlight and you can also find on Gog and Desura. The plot is pretty straightforward: you are a goat that has been imprisoned for witchcraft. With a mouse joining you as a companion, you must escape the prison by beating set of levels and getting to the sheeps (who had also been imprisoned) at the end of each set. Yeah, don't expect too much out of characterization and story here.

As you see in the title, I consider this blog a first impression and partly review since i've already beaten the main campaign, but there's the extra hard levels you unlock after beating the main mode (which appear to be plenty) and also a level editor, both of which I haven't gotten to.

Overall, the main story is really short, as in, you can beat it in a single day. I clocked about 4 hours and you can do shorter if you know what you're doing. But despite that, I found the game to be a nice little charming experience. The puzzles are a standard fare of get to the door, but there's things that make it stand up. The puzzles combine the mobility of plataforming with the careful use of contraptions (some deadly), so there's a lot of focus reflexes, cordination, a bit of planning ahead of time and quick thinking as you can die before you know it. Adding to that, is your mouse companion who is necessary to reach buttoms that you can't get to otherwise, hold on some switches so a moving plataform works, among other actions, and there's also the magic hat, an item only used on certain levels that allows to switch places between the mouse and goat on whichever part of the level they are. All of that combined make the game, if not unique, stand out on other puzzles. It's also a good thing that the pad controls are very precise and work well, so otherwise this would had been a chore to play.

With all that mentioned, the game is challenging but not that much to get frustrating and the level structure is kept short so you don't have a fist of impatience and return right back at the game not very far ,although there's still some misfortune on dying before you can reach the exit, sometimes of a cause you didn't see on time. I wouldn't say the game is old-school, so the pixel graphics are for convinience more than anything, but they still look nice and they are pretty colorfoul, even if there's only some slight variants in the levels you visit. The music is also very well done and catchy enough to still hear the tunes for days. Lastly, even with the minimal plot and characterization, you start to grow attached to the sheeps as they give useful advices and encouragement, and there's some element of bonding between the goat and the mouse even if the mouse only talked twice, first when you discover him and lastly when you are about to finish.

Overall, I would give this game a solid 8 so far, maybe a 7.5 at worst if this only had the main story. It's short, but very well done.

The game is currently 4,99 on Steam, which I find to be a fair price, especially for those who love puzzle and/or plataforming games and the other content make it worth, although if you are still unsure, wait for a sale as it can go just for 1 dollar (that's how I bought it in the first place).

Just to finish, i'll leave you with a song from the nice soundtrack: