Escape from Death
Choice of Games · 2023 · RPG, Interactive Fiction, Choose Your Own Adventure, First-Person, Atmospheric
PC
5 user reviews80% · 5
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About Escape from Death
Steal Death’s power and break free of his corrupt realm! Hide your heartbeat from the dead as you harness soul magic, navigate political intrigue, determine the fate of the Afterlife—and perhaps even claim its throne yourself.
Escape from Death is a 256,000-word interactive horror adventure novel by Tova Näslund. It’s entirely text-based—without graphics or sound effects—and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.
In the material realm, your body hovers between life and death, your heart still beating—but your spirit has somehow been transported to the nightmarish Afterlife. Oppression and injustice pervade this dark realm under Death's absolute control. At the bottom of the social hierarchy are the Penitents: unfortunate souls indebted to Death, twisted by his magic into uncanny animal-human hybrids. Above them are the Elect: those in Death's favor, who enjoy an existence of freedom, entitlement, and luxury.
Not only that, but the Afterlife is beginning to fall into an even greater and more mysterious corruption. Performers have gone missing from the luxurious entertainment center; a sanctuary for both Penitents and the Elect is under attack; and a mysterious sickness has started spreading throughout the land.
This presents you with an even more perilous threat—but also an opportunity. At the heart of the Afterlife is the Clockwork Hall: home to Death's Court and the repository of souls. If you can find your way there amid the chaos, you can launch an attack that will allow you to put an end to Death's tyrannical rule, make your way back to the world of the living, or even take the throne of the Afterlife for your own!
Escape from Death is a 256,000-word interactive horror adventure novel by Tova Näslund. It’s entirely text-based—without graphics or sound effects—and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.
In the material realm, your body hovers between life and death, your heart still beating—but your spirit has somehow been transported to the nightmarish Afterlife. Oppression and injustice pervade this dark realm under Death's absolute control. At the bottom of the social hierarchy are the Penitents: unfortunate souls indebted to Death, twisted by his magic into uncanny animal-human hybrids. Above them are the Elect: those in Death's favor, who enjoy an existence of freedom, entitlement, and luxury.
Not only that, but the Afterlife is beginning to fall into an even greater and more mysterious corruption. Performers have gone missing from the luxurious entertainment center; a sanctuary for both Penitents and the Elect is under attack; and a mysterious sickness has started spreading throughout the land.
This presents you with an even more perilous threat—but also an opportunity. At the heart of the Afterlife is the Clockwork Hall: home to Death's Court and the repository of souls. If you can find your way there amid the chaos, you can launch an attack that will allow you to put an end to Death's tyrannical rule, make your way back to the world of the living, or even take the throne of the Afterlife for your own!
- Play as male, female, or nonbinary; gay, straight, or bi.
- Romance your melancholy Penitent guide; a revolutionary bird-woman; a warrior trying to escape Death's employ, or an idealistic healer.
- Master the magic of Death's realm: get a glimpse through the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead; see the dreams and desires of the souls around you, and capture the memories of the living.
- Take your place in an epic conflict: side with the impoverished Penitent or the entitled Elect; or strive to become accepted by both.
- Keep to the shadows and evade Death's vengeful gaze, plant spies in Death's court, make political allies to extend your influence, or enact bold conflict to become renowned through the Afterlife
- Choose the next ruler of the Afterlife: will you uphold Death's regime, put a new ruler in his place, or seize the throne yourself?
Can you find your way out of Death's darkness?
What Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
It can be really difficult for an author to strike a balance between over-exposition and leaving the reader confused. This is particularly difficult when the setting is intended to be surreal, bizarre, alien, or similar. I think some titles from CoG that manage to pull this off include Choice of the Deathless, Changeling Charade, Tower Behind the Moon, and Faerie's Bargain. All of these titles are able to throw allusions and the unknown at you in a way that you are still able to make sense of it. They have crafted the Potemkin illusion that every little random thing is imbued with depth and meaning, that the fictional world is infinitely complex and yet comprehensible. Escape from Death aims to insert you into a surrealistic - and awful - afterlife as a fish out of water. Some amount of confusion comes with the territory. Unfortunately, I was just baffled throughout most of it and not in a good way. More along the lines of "Ok we escaped from that person" only for two scenes later we are going back to that place and one of the options is to go meet up with them. Like, did I miss something important? Aren't we on the run? There's also a politicking mechanic that is really odd, and…21 found this helpful
Good5 found this helpful
I like spiders, is that wrong? If someone took a handful of spiders and put them in my mouth, and I would have to eat them. Maybe I could do it. But I know I would feel guilty about it.3 found this helpful
This is a really tricky recommendation to make, as Escape From Death is such a weird book. Well, deep down its actually a pretty normal fantasy book, but the execution has some quirks that makes it both really interesting but also kinda abrasive to read. Do make sure to check out the demo if it sounds interesting; I've rather enjoyed my time with it, but maybe not all parts of the book. Escape From Death is a very fragmented book. Scenes, environments, world building, characters; they are all more or less disjointed and feel like they are formed from irreconcilable fragments. Some scenes feel like vignettes more than a connected story, where shorter moments in sparsely described environments sort of appear without much connective tissue. And this is not a pacing issue, scenes are given the room they need to feel properly weighty and slower paced when needed (apart from maybe the final chapter). Still this disjointedness makes for a reading that's not very engaging in itself -- it's easy to forget yourself and get distracted or simply not attach emotionally to the story when it doesn't feel like it's giving you a single idea or object to desire / want to know more about. But it a…
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