Escape Lizards Reviews

Wait for a camera fix.

It's a fun puzzle game, but I would prefer a bit more camera smoothing.

Was making this game $2 out of the blue intentional? I don't know. It doesn't matter though. I could have sworn it was around $15 when I first saw it mentioned in a rockpapershotgun article about 'new games on steam you probably didn't notice,' and its 'supermonkeyball-like' gameplay was what made me keep it in my wishlist. Welp bringing it down to $2 did just that and I can safely say that this game is SUPER quality, even if the main menu, choices of fonts, and other various things would have you think otherwise. First things first, the options menu is better than most games nowadays, even some AAA ones, including essential things for a PRECISION PLATFORMER such as this. Joystick deadzones, camera adjustments, frame rate caps(or lack thereof), are all present. Hats off. Second, and more importantly. The gameplay here is really dope for fans of Super Monkey Ball. You navigate your perfectly-spherical egg to a bell instead of a gate at the end of the level. The bell, like the gate, can be missed completely, thus necessitates being hit every time to complete the level/update your score/hit more per-level objectives. Those objectives are, -coins -vulture eggs that need to be rolled off the level -the time limit (gold, silver, & bronze medals) What's unique!? [spoiler]-you have a limited number of jumps/hops per level, allowing 'some' SWEET shortcuts. Again, hats off. -you can rotate the gravity of the level 90 degrees with each press of some buttons. [/spoiler] That's it really, this game is pretty great especially for the low price as of now. If it could use one thing from Super Monkey Ball that could be that local pass'n'play multiplayer.

This is a good game and I would say that it is fair for the price. If you are looking for another game or just something to mix it up from other genres Escape Lizards presents a unique (on PC) genre. I've played a fair amount and I can say that the game is engaging. The gameplay is solid, the camera is wonky as other people have mentioned. The level design seems to be mixed. I love some of the levels and feel they are fair but also challenging but I question the design stand point of some of the levels. I am not a completitionist by any means, however in this game you are presented with different medals for beating levels by x time. I consistently try to get gold and most of the levels allow this, albiet with difficulty. I like a great challenge and it presents it. The primary problem I have with the level design is that certain levels expect you to cheat and skip 90% of the course. There are no other alternative to getting gold without cheating on these levels. There are several such levels, the primary offender I would say is One Hop in World 3. Another I can think of is Cogs in World 4. I am currently on World 5 I do not mind a skill based game, I'll even accept a wonky camera at times. Because what game in this genre doesn't feel like it has a wonky camera? But when the gold standard is designed around me effectively sniping a goal bell while flying through the air and skipping 90% of the level (as is One Hop), well I just find that a very poor decision in level design. Keep those levels by all means, but have them as extra or something. Its not enjoyable to redo a level 50 or 100 times until by chance (and some small skill) you finally hit a target after 50 tries. When getting the Gold Standard turns into a matter of chancing it enough that it is statistical instead of skill based, then it it obnoxious. Even with these discrepencies, the game remains good, however I feel that questionable level design and at times terrible camera limit it greatly.

Game is looked alright, mostly played by my niece. I feel like the game would feel better on portable device.

Fun super-monkey ball game. Levels are pretty diverse with no level being the same. Sidenote: A few levels are poorly designed but overall are good. There are two levels that have unobtainable coins.

Escape Lizards has some flaws, but it's a good game overall and perhaps the closest you're going to get to Super Monkey Ball on Steam. A few other reviews were justifiably hacked off with some camera issues, but the dev has recently fixed this and added tons of miscellaneous graphical and camera options to boot, as well as altering gameplay mechanics and rebalancing the entire game. Thumbs up there. This is the only marble game I've found where you tilt the game world rather than your ball, hence the emulation of Super Monkey Ball. Obviously it isn't quite up to that lofty standard, but a lot of effort has gone into Escape Lizards and the core gameplay certainly works. You move through the levels by tilting the floor, and also have the option of flipping the environment at 90 degree angles at any point, which makes for some interesting and tricky paths through levels. If you're a speedrunner or love messing around with absurd shortcuts through levels, you'll probably love this mechanic. The movement feels pretty slick and unusually for the genre, you have a lot of control over your aerial movement in addition to being able to jump. Combining all of the above would assuredly make for some crazy tricks from better players than myself. The amount of content is very solid, with 110 levels across 11 environments. In each level there are three main goals: time medal, collecting all coins and knocking all vulture eggs off the stage. I mostly went for time on my first pass through, then went back for a bit of casual monetary exploration and vulture genocide. The levels themselves are very varied, and this is possibly the biggest strength of the game. Some are straight speed gauntlets, others being large mazes and more still involving numerous obstacles in your path - no two levels are the same, and there are new varieties of obstacle introduced regularly. Collecting (almost) everything took me 16 hours, with the later levels taking quite a few tries to net all of the coins in particular, which is a good amount of content for the price. The downsides are that this is a budget indie title, so while the graphics and environments are functional, they're not going to set the gaming world ablaze. Level difficulty can also be uneven - the whole game rebalanced has been a sizeable net positive overall, but occasionally you'll bump into a time limit that seems stricter than it should be, or some bizarrely positioned coins. The developer could well patch some of these in the future, though. It's also worth noting that while I don't suffer from motion sickness at all, those that do should turn down the camera sensitivity significantly - it flicks around a lot, and could be quite jarring. Escape Lizards had a strange start to life on Steam, initially being priced at double the current price, then reduced down to £3 (too cheap, really) before finding the current happy medium. Perhaps that, combined with the niche genre, is why it's relatively undiscovered. Still, I had fun with the game and would recommend it to marble game enthusiasts and those who enjoy a bit of a challenge in 3D platformers. Also, the hilarious voiceover in the menus is almost worth the price of admission alone.