逃脱艺术家

As this is a commercial boxed game, many Chinese reviews exist; you might want to check them out too.

Played at: Player One Detective 头号侦探推理社
6 players (2 female, 4 male)

《逃脱艺术家》is a difficult case to talk about, for perhaps the ‘wrong’ reasons. If you haven’t played many 硬核 cases, you might enjoy the dramatic inferential leaps or intense logic-thread-following required. Fans of outlandish architectural tricks (it’s not a spoiler, it’s in the premise) may also have fun.

The main problem I had with《逃脱艺术家》was that it reminded me uncomfortably of two popular 硬核 cases: most obviously Martinez in its use of architecture, but also another case in its general structure. To even talk about this would be spoilery for both cases; suffice it to say that it felt too similar for comfort (and didn’t pull off the structure as effectively as the original).

In addition, a central idea in《逃脱艺术家》is apparently borrowed from a famous intellectual property in another medium, which doesn’t help with the plagiarism-y vibe.

Mysteries aside, the narrative and character development are fairly weak, so if you’d like some emotional involvement with your murder-solving, this is not the case for you.

One thing we did appreciate is the list of guiding questions at the end, which take over the burden of ‘supporting the car’ of players (扶车) from the DM. But as a reviewer on bilibili said, perhaps the very need for this list indicates how hard it is to reach the conclusion through regular reasoning…

Try if you like: Bold and outlandish theories; imaginative architectural ideas; the idea of playing an 硬核ish case within 5 hours.

Not recommended for: Players who have played many well-known 硬核 cases and don’t want to play a game that is too reminiscent of others; players who dislike architecture or unrealistic methods.