Game Jam Winner Spotlight: Escape From 1927

Culture

from the gaming-like-it's-1927 dept

We’re nearing the end of our series of posts showcasing the winners in all six categories of the fifth annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1927. So far we’ve featured Best Remix winner Lucia, Best Visuals winner Urbanity, Best Adaptation winner To And Again, and Best Deep Cut winner The Pigeon Wager. Today, we’re turning the spotlight on the winner of the Best Digital Game category: Escape from 1927 by Jacob P. Silvia.

The first three Hardy Boys novels were some of the higher-profile works to enter the public domain this year, and it’s a bit surprising that we didn’t get more entries based on the iconic characters. But that void is capably filled by Escape From 1927, which turns the first book (The Tower Treasure) into a fully realized point-and-click adventure/hidden object game. At first glance, you might think it was slapped together with minimal effort — the graphics especially look sloppy and perfunctory at first. But as you start to play, you realize that the game is aware of this, and its tone harmonizes with these elements to make the whole thing funny and charming. The time constraints of game jams force designers to make sacrifices, especially on things like graphical polish, and the best designers find ways to turn that sacrifice into an opportunity. This game’s tongue-in-cheek attitude is a prime example.

And, indeed, later in the game there’s a joke in the dialogue that directly acknowledges this, but I don’t want to spoil it. In fact there are several funny lines and jokes that I don’t want to spoil, and the best of them are on a subject that is a surefire way to our heart: copyright and the public domain. Better still, one such joke is actually woven into one of the game’s puzzles in an excellent marriage of narrative and mechanics. I can’t describe that puzzle in full without spoiling it — you should just go play it for yourself — so instead I’ll just tell you that at one point you’re interrupted by a copyright maximalist ghost:

Overall, the gameplay and the puzzles are all very simple and straightforward, and it only takes a few minutes to get through the game. But this, too, is made to feel appropriate as part of the overall package. The game is constantly winking at you, knowing that it’s going to make you crack a smile. As a complete, original, memorable, and entertaining game that speaks directly to the themes of copyright and the public domain, Escape from 1927 is a deserving winner of Best Digital Game.

Congratulations to Jacob P. Silvia for the win! You can play Escape From 1927 in your browser on Itch, plus don’t forget to check out the other winners as well as the many great entries that didn’t quite make the cut! We’ll be back next week with the final winner spotlight.

Filed Under: game jam, games, gaming, gaming like it's 1927