Escape from Death

I sought out this game specifically by trying to find the worst-selling recent games published by Choice of Games. I'm working on making one right now, and I've had a really bad-selling one in the past, so I wanted to see what I could learn from playing it.

I used number of ratings as a metric for 'worst-selling'. On the Choice of Games app, it has the third-least ratings out of the 170 or so games listed.


Having played the whole thing, I can say that the storyline and setting are pretty solid, and the characters are great. But I have some theories as to why it may have struggled.

First of all, the game is called 'Escape From Death'. The cover art for the game is a cool-looking grim reaper. The first paragraph of the description is "Steal Death's power and break free of his corrupt realm! Hide your heartbeat from the dead as you harness soul magic, navigate political intrigue, determine the fate of the Afterlife—and perhaps even claim its throne yourself.".

I didn't read the full description before playing. So I imagined some kind of gritty urban fantasy game, maybe like Wayhaven, where you play cat and mouse with the grim reaper.

The truth is very different. This game actually has very little to do with death and the afterlife. With just minor changes to the text, this is a (good) standard 'strange lands' fantasy/western Isekai, with more in common with Alice in Wonderland, The Phantom Toolbooth, or Narnia than with any horror or thriller stories.


The grim reaper is actually a chill guy named Aaron that is part of a government and is appointed by a council. The position of Death is basically being President of the Afterlife. Souls that die come down and are transformed into Elite (who look human and treat memories from life as drugs) and Penitent (who are transformed into animals. There is unrest between the lower classes and the higher classes. The majority of the game is exploring the political factions and wheeling and dealing between them, exposing their corruption or helping their cause. There is very little mention of the living or the human world. Occasionally you get flashbacks to your life above, but they feel very disconnected from the game itself, and having been alive once in the above world doesn't come up. People even die down here, turning into vaguely sentient water or sand (something like that).

The author had been constructing this setting for a long time, and it shows in the game. The four side characters seem like old friends to the author, with very well-mapped-out personalities and interactions. At times, though, it would have been hard for me to know who counts as a main character without the stats screen.

Speaking of which, I think that's where the main difficulty with the game lies. I once wrote an essay after playing over a hundred Choice of Games games about patterns in good and bad ones, and I saw that something I call 'stat disease' is very common in lower-placing games. When I started playing this game and looked at the stat screen after 1 chapter, I instantly recognized 'stat disease'. Tons of sliders, almost all of which had barely budged since we started. All of my stats were in the mid-50s. Choices didn't clearly label which stat was involved and if it was being increased or tested. Some choices had overlap, etc.

So, for me, this game had strong characters and a cool setting, but it wasn't what I had imagined going in, and had trouble with the stats. I still had a good time, and the game had no bugs I could see, so I'm still giving it a high score. I wonder if the game I worked on will end up in a similar spot to this one, so I look at this not to criticize it, but to hopefully learn from its fate. This has the bones of a high-selling game. I just need to figure out what kept it from that destiny.