To be honest, I was stunned for a few seconds when I saw this game on the shelves. The escape room series has been released in the 18th generation. Time flies so fast. Thinking about the night when I played the Java version of the escape room on the Symbian machine, ten years have passed in a flash. At that time, there were still pixel graphics, 1024x576 screens, and the click-click sound of the slider phone's keys was accompanied by the sound effects of solving puzzles. I still miss it now when I think about it.
Not to brag, this "Escape Room 18 Mobile Maze" has really worked hard on the screen performance. Developer Shenzhen Martian Interactive Entertainment Co., Ltd. did not fool people this time. From the thick fog of the ghost ship to the desolate scene of the Lost Territory, the changes in light and shadow and the details of the scene have achieved a very comfortable layering. Especially the scorch marks and moss on the deck of the ghost ship, you can clearly feel that the production team has some ideas in art, and they are not just randomly painting textures to fool the players.
In terms of puzzle design, as a veteran player of this series, I think the overall difficulty is controlled at an upper-middle level. Fortunately, the clue linkage in the game is relatively natural, and there are no hard-core logic jumps for the sake of difficulty. If you want to get stuck, there will definitely be some, but if you carefully observe the details of the environment and then look back at the item bar, ideas will naturally come out. The smoothness of this kind of reasoning is, to be honest, the best among similar puzzle games.
The plot continues the series' consistent mysterious adventure style. This time it revolves around the clues of Susan and the Ghost Captain. The stage of Lost Territory is back again. As a veteran player of the series, it is quite familiar. The ghost ship scene in the first chapter has a really good rhythm. From exploring the path to discovering clues to encountering emergencies, there is no sloppiness in the whole process. This makes me look forward to the next chapters a lot higher. The settings of the world compass and the distress note are also suspenseful enough. At least for now, the appeal of the story line is completely sustainable.
Optimizing this aspect really needs to be mentioned. I ran it on an old tablet, the heat generation was quite well controlled, and the screen zooming and dragging were very smooth. The biggest fear in puzzle games is the sense of drama caused by stuck operations, which will directly ruin the entire immersive experience. The fact that this can be handled to this extent on this 5.0 platform shows that the developers are still very concerned about the game experience.
By the way, in today's mobile game environment, puzzle games are almost completely squeezed out by gold-based cards and card-drawing activities. To be honest, there are fewer and fewer game manufacturers in this industry who are still willing to provide stand-alone experiences and one-time buyouts, let alone maintain the rhythm of one game a year. Although Martian Interactive Entertainment is not a big company, the fact that this series has been able to produce 18 movies is a rare companionship and persistence for veteran players.
Of course, let's talk about some personal regrets. It's just that the pace of this game is a little faster than the previous works. Some players may like the speed-running puzzle solving process, but old bones like me actually prefer the big map puzzle solving method that requires slow exploration and stopping to think. Of course, this is also my personal taste. Today's young players may prefer this fast-paced way of advancement. Not bragging, this is a very smart choice in terms of commercial considerations. After all, the game must first be played by new players before they have the opportunity to taste the precipitation in the old box.
To sum up, this work maintains the consistent stable level of the series, the picture performance has been improved, and the plot is well laid out. It is a qualified or even excellent puzzle sequel. If you are a veteran of the escape room series, you must definitely book this one. If you have never been exposed to this series, it is not difficult to get started from this generation. After all, the number of mobile games on the market that rely purely on plot and puzzles can be counted on one hand.
Cherish it while there are still studios willing to make pure puzzle games like this. Time flies much faster than we imagine. Just like the days when we were picking out pixels with our mobile phones, it became a scene in our memory in the blink of an eye. 😌