Not sure how many people this will be news to at this point since it’s so old, but if I didn’t know there was a Windows version of The Great Escape until today, somebody else who might care probably didn’t either.
The great Escape is an updated windows port of a classic accessible dos game, so may bring nostalgic memories to many. You are trapped in a maze of 100 rooms, and need to find your way out in as few moves as possible.
As well as moving in the four cardinal directions, you can also use secret passages if you become stuck, though these will take many more moves. Of course, the maze is far from empty, there is a Villain out to find you who will throw you to random locations if he catches you, and a lepricorn you can gain gold and wishes from.
Rooms in the maze also contain a number of challenges and obstacles, including a vending machine, an evil merchant who requires paying to proceed, and guns and amo to pick up should you run across any monsters.
Typos in that description are theirs, not mine.
This is one of the first computer games I ever played independently. We got an Apple IIe computer when I was about nine years old. It came with a couple disks worth of games, and Great Escape quickly became one of my favourites. Playing it now definitely brought back a lot of memories, even though it isn’t quite the same without the Echo voice mangling pronunciations left and right.
For the record, I won when I played today. It took me 89 moves because I had to use so many secret passages, but in the end the villain wound up helping me out when he threw me into room three after mugging me for about the fifth time.
Also worth noting: When you launch the game for the first time, your computer may need to go out to Windows Update and grab some old .Net Framework files in order to run it properly. It took a few minutes for them to download and install and at one point I thought the wizard had crashed, but everything worked out.
I am way more excited about this than I have any right to be. Between Karen teaching me that I can play Wardle and you bring back ridiculous memories of my childhood, you guys are really helping me this week. Love you always.
I remember when I first started playing Great Escape. I thought Echo was saying “Vivian is 7 rooms away from you. He moves to find you.” So first I was convinced there was someone named Vivian. But was Vivian a he? And should Vivian find you? No, the developer of the game misspelled Villain and never noticed. Ah, Great Escape. I lost many, many games.
And Steve, you made me think about our conversation about Delton T. Horn. Good times.
Lol. That’s one of the things I was getting at when I wrote the line about mangled pronunciations.
Carin: I’ve been reading a bunch about Delton T. Horn.
Me: Who?
Carin: You know, Delton T. Horn!
Me. Um…No.
Carin: The guy who wrote Great Escape!
Me: No. That was Del Tunty Horn.
Carin: Right. Delton T. Horn. I have a good screen reader now. It gets his name right.
Me: Oh. Wow. Well…how about that! I need some time to make sense of this.