Hello and Happy New Year fellow Escapists! Coin Crew Games has exciting news about our free major update: it’s titled [i]Escape Academy: Tournament of Puzzles[/i], it features procedurally generated escape rooms, and the best part? You can playtest it NOW using the Steam Playtest feature! [h2]What is Escape Academy: Tournament of Puzzles?[/h2] [i]Escape Academy: Tournament of Puzzles[/i] is our free, major content update which introduces one of the community's most requested features: replayable levels! Join Coach Yoach and his crack team of Puzzletes as they compete against other Escape schools to bring the championship cup back home to Escape Academy! [i]Tournament of Puzzles[/i] features procedurally generated escape rooms that take place in all new, massive arenas themed around each Escape school. Puzzle your way through the rainy, neon labyrinth at Hackademy’s “Phish Market” and do your best to survive the perils of History High’s “The Tomb of the First Escapist.” [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42120301/ab1b3f0c5bc4d8ba8fe3a07ae94299ef03558d54.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42120301/0d2f904820019aba2af834ee80bdc29fc60dba02.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42120301/c69ba04272765124ab183ae65e31dc25a40d66db.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42120301/d5931c6695186c9a15e54de0c7f74d593d97d084.png[/img] Every time you compete in a heat of the tournament, you’ll encounter different puzzles and challenges, procedurally selected from our ever-growing depot of brain twisters. No two runs will be the same! The [i]Tournament of Puzzles[/i] Playtest can be played single player or in co-op! [b]A NOTE ABOUT MULTIPLAYER:[/b] While online play is accessible in this build, there are known desync issues that will make the completion of levels nearly impossible. We strongly urge players to stick to playing locally with friends for the best co-op experience. Steam remote play or other third party screensharing apps could function as an alternative. Enter online at your own risk! [h2]How does the playtest work?[/h2] Pay a visit to our Store Page and request access to the Steam Playtest! This playtest will run from today, Friday 1/27 to Monday 1/30 and everyone who requests access will be permitted to play. On Monday morning, we’ll close access in order to take some time digesting your feedback, incorporate it back into the game, and get ready for another playtest! You don’t even need to own the base game in order to access the playtest so if you don’t own the game, you can hop on in without spending a dime! [h2]What is the purpose of this playtest?[/h2] The purpose of this playtest is to gather feedback in order to improve and build out this new mode of play. As lots of its elements are experimental in nature, we wanted to hear what you’d like to see in a procedural escape room experience. Our hope is that by opening this up publicly, we can gather large amounts of player feedback and refine the update before its full release across all platforms. We want to emphasize that this content is still in active development, and therefore players may experience issues that haven't been ironed out yet. So, while not the primary purpose of this playtest, we will also be making note of any major bugs discovered by players (and we appreciate the flagging of those when they occur). Rigorous playtesting has always been a part of building [i]Escape Academy[/i], and Steam Playtests are a great chance to bring that to a significantly larger stage. [h2]I’ve downloaded the build, how do I access Tournament of Puzzles?[/h2] Once in build, start a new save and quickly play through the tutorial level and make your way to the map screen. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42120301/79da7d5232445fad574277e901904f1874194ee5.png[/img] Once you arrive at the campus map, press TAB. Then, on the DLC select screen, select [i]Tournament of Puzzles.[/i] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42120301/8116de96ef86c93af9dafc3afc5620d0b0714da4.png[/img] After selecting [i]Tournament of Puzzles[/i] you will be placed into a 3D diorama. On the left is a TV screen labeled “Tournament Mode” that you can click to start your first heat in the tournament! [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42120301/bb0af01d60ded3dcc188aa649e6c8474dae9e6e1.png[/img] [h2]Where can we share our feedback?[/h2] General feedback can be submitted on our Steam page or on the #feedback channel of our [url=https://discord.gg/P3RmrHtp]Discord[/url], but we’ve also built a questionnaire for more pointed questions and player input! [url=https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdVguAqhkOlZA9et_HWNPlfruW16O94bHSi8H9RO2XJtBzeHw/viewform?usp=sf_link]Questionnaire Link[/url] [h2]Will there be more playtests?[/h2] Yes! Our goal is to run public playtests once a month until the full release of the [i]Tournament of Puzzles[/i] across all platforms. [h2]Thanks for helping us make our game better![/h2] As mentioned, playtesting is a critical piece of development at Coin Crew Games and we’re thrilled to bring more of our playerbase into the development of our content. Keep your eyes peeled on our [url=https://twitter.com/CoinCrewGames]Twitter[/url], [url=https://discord.gg/P3RmrHtp]Discord[/url], and [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/1812090/Escape_Academy/]Steam Page[/url] for future playtests and other [i]Escape Academy[/i] announcements! Cheers, Coin Crew Games