You may not know this, but the best kinds of goats are purple goats with turquoise horns. In Escape Goat, the sprite-based platformer from indie developer Magical Time Bean, you play as one such goat, jumping and dashing through a dungeon in the hopes of freedom. If that’s not an amazing premise for a game, we don’t know what is.
Though it may not make any sense, trekking through the game’s eight zones, each comprised of five tricky rooms and a captive sheep, is retro-tastic fun. You’ve got the age-old 2D standbies in the form of a double jump and dash, but things get interesting when you team up with a fellow prisoner: a tiny talking mouse. Throw in a Magic Hat that lets you swap places with your rodent buddy, and you’ve got all the tools you need to gallop to victory.
With your powers combined, you’ll conquer levels filled with devious block puzzles, grim reapers, and fireball-spewing statues – provided your noggin’s as sharp as your twitch reflexes. Some puzzles prioritize timing, while others come down to figuring out just what in God’s name you’ll need to do to reach the exit door. All the while, you’ll be jamming to some excellent chiptunes that sound like lost tracks from the NES Castlevania games.
Escape Goat debuted as an Xbox Live Indie Games title, but it’s destined for so much more: it’s coming to PC (the Mecca of indie gaming) this June, and we whole-heartedly recommend it. With the ability to tackle levels at your own pace, and some masterfully-tuned difficulty, we can guarantee that you’ve never played a better goat-centric game.