The Artful Escape is a wildly vibrant musical platformer

There’s a transcendent joy in performance that’s hard to put down in words, and even in my brief experiences as a deeply amateur musician in my younger years, I was able to experience the thrills and trepidation of a live performance: the pre-show jitters, the initial luke-warm reception,  and gradually the soaring euphoria of finally getting into the groove, amplified by the electrifying buzz of the enthusiastic crowd around you.

The guitar-fueled, psychedelic dreamscapes of The Artful Escape’s trailer feels a bit like that, resembling the wondrous, dizzying heights of a particularly invigorating glam rock performance. It’s also about a teenage guitar prodigy, Francis Vendetti, who’s about to deliver his first performance, but struggling to escape the shadow of a legendary folk musician, who also happens to be his uncle. Perhaps to assuage his anxieties, Francis has decided to embark on a cosmic journey of self-discovery to craft a stage persona of his own.

To boil it down to game terms, The Artful Escape is, in essence, a narrative-driven platformer, as you pluck the strings of Francis’ electric guitar to leap across alien terrains and visit tentacled monstrosities in search of your own inspiration. You can also perform the best stage moves as Francis: sliding down grassy hills on your knees and swinging your arms wildly to the cheers of an impassioned crowd. There’s also a feature that allows you to mix your own songs within the game itself, according to an interview in Engadget.

The Artful Escape was originally set to be released in 2020, but has been delayed for a year. Fortunately, we now have a concrete release date of September 9th.