With a car, you put it in neutral. With a room, Neutral puts you in IT!
January 20, 2018 11:17 PM Subscribe
Room escape game developer Neutral (previously - I kind of know how you feel, phunniemee - I found out about this by randomly checking Bart Bonte's site) has returned from the unknown once more with his latest game, SIGN. (If you thirst for more, welcome to hell No1Game.)
Mizu, have you played Tesshi-e's series of escape games? Similar aesthetic to Neutral, I find. They're called the "Mild Escape" series, and to date, there are One Hundred And Eighteen (118) of them!!
posted by nonspecialist at 1:22 AM on January 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by nonspecialist at 1:22 AM on January 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
Aaaaaaaaahh!!!!!!!
posted by phunniemee at 6:12 AM on January 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by phunniemee at 6:12 AM on January 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
Also, is Neutral a guy? I guess I've always assumed the creator was a woman (based on ???) and it didn't occur to me otherwise until reading "his latest game" above. Anyone know?
posted by phunniemee at 6:18 AM on January 21, 2018
posted by phunniemee at 6:18 AM on January 21, 2018
I saw this pop up on JayIsGames (yes, JiG is still limping along, thanks to volunteers) a couple of days ago, but haven't gotten around to playing. Thanks for this reminder.
As a slight aside, I am heartened in seeing a lot of the escape game makers in Japan finally moving from Flash over to Unity.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:32 AM on January 21, 2018
As a slight aside, I am heartened in seeing a lot of the escape game makers in Japan finally moving from Flash over to Unity.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:32 AM on January 21, 2018
Yeah, I used to check JiG religiously but now I just head straight to the source at No1Game.
Agreed that Tesshi-e Mild Escape is similar in feeling to Neutral. Also Robamimi, and oh crap some others I can't think of right now? Aries Escape is pretty good but always has a woman's torso (..."your torso?") in your inventory, in various states of dress, which is weird as heck.
I have the same feeling about real-life room escapes: good god no I don't want a ZOMBIE sitting there while a TIMER ticks down; I want quiet jazz and a puzzle that involves making coffee, COME ON.
posted by little cow make small moo at 9:23 AM on January 21, 2018
Agreed that Tesshi-e Mild Escape is similar in feeling to Neutral. Also Robamimi, and oh crap some others I can't think of right now? Aries Escape is pretty good but always has a woman's torso (..."your torso?") in your inventory, in various states of dress, which is weird as heck.
I have the same feeling about real-life room escapes: good god no I don't want a ZOMBIE sitting there while a TIMER ticks down; I want quiet jazz and a puzzle that involves making coffee, COME ON.
posted by little cow make small moo at 9:23 AM on January 21, 2018
Gaaaaaah - this is so over my head - I picked up a bunch of scattered objects, and even figured out how to use one object with another, but now am stuck.
posted by PhineasGage at 9:26 AM on January 21, 2018
posted by PhineasGage at 9:26 AM on January 21, 2018
I won! Let's not talk about how long I squinted at channel 5 trying to will some kind of magic eye image out of there.
posted by theodolite at 12:15 PM on January 21, 2018
posted by theodolite at 12:15 PM on January 21, 2018
Aaaaa nooo I am at work and can't dive in! Also I have very little work brain in operation after a weekend of excessive heat. I am going to try very hard to save this for the coming weekend, which is meant to be even hotter and more unpleasant, because at least I will have one nice thing. And if the aircon gets fixed I can park the laptop in front of it.
posted by Athanassiel at 4:51 PM on January 21, 2018
posted by Athanassiel at 4:51 PM on January 21, 2018
Where do people look for hints for games like this? I don't want a spoiler, but I am stuck.
posted by freyley at 7:27 PM on January 21, 2018
posted by freyley at 7:27 PM on January 21, 2018
Most Escape-style game walk-throughs I've seen are very good about partitioning the walk-through out through spoiler tags. I've seen upwards of 6 click-through tags with hints at each step to try and help you figure things out yourself before giving away the answer.
The aforementioned JayisGames is really good for walk-throughs in general
posted by Lykosidae at 7:49 PM on January 21, 2018
The aforementioned JayisGames is really good for walk-throughs in general
posted by Lykosidae at 7:49 PM on January 21, 2018
Holy shit! I was just (re)playing through Neutral's older games because I got the idea to create one of my own. Now I have a brand new one to try.
posted by eruonna at 9:12 PM on January 21, 2018
posted by eruonna at 9:12 PM on January 21, 2018
That was fun to do over coffee. There are tons of these over at /r/pointandclick if you need some more to occupy your time.
posted by msbutah at 9:21 AM on January 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by msbutah at 9:21 AM on January 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
Thank you for posting!
This was my first virtual escape the room game (OK, I played Switch first, then SIGN). Switch was good but ended up being more a hidden object type game and led to me just clicking everything. SIGN was a really well thought out series of puzzles.
I might get addicted....
posted by pianissimo at 4:31 AM on January 24, 2018
This was my first virtual escape the room game (OK, I played Switch first, then SIGN). Switch was good but ended up being more a hidden object type game and led to me just clicking everything. SIGN was a really well thought out series of puzzles.
I might get addicted....
posted by pianissimo at 4:31 AM on January 24, 2018
A new Mild Escape is up, oho! http://www.mildescape.com/escape119/
posted by little cow make small moo at 10:28 AM on January 28, 2018
posted by little cow make small moo at 10:28 AM on January 28, 2018
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There's something about the exact aesthetic of Neutral's games that immediately mellows me out and puts me in a calm puzzle solving headspace that I've never found elsewhere. When the real life room escape game fad started I was briefly excited to see if anybody had evoked the same feeling in a real room (or series of rooms) only to find them all terribly dramatic and overly themed. Nobody does it like Neutral and I'm going to specially reserve a block of time to dive into this new game.
posted by Mizu at 12:03 AM on January 21, 2018 [1 favorite]