The primitive graphics do serve to distance you from some of the violent actions taking place, and I wish more had been done to make characters more obviously distinctive but generally it works very well.

Guards, staff and inmates (who can all be renamed if you desire) go about their business and interact with each other – sometimes violently – completely independently of your own involvement. The cute-pixel graphics may give the game a retro appearance, and the audio effects are extremely basic, but they hide an in-depth system that really brings to life your simulated prison. However how you do so is completely up to you as there’s a myriad possible methods of escape in this genuinely open sandbox setting – many games promise to put you in what feels like a living, breathing world but few manage to do live up to their promises like this. Best described as a sort of puzzle-RPG, the aim of the game as you might expect is to escape from six ever more secure prisons. Starting life as a Kickstarter project from Mouldy Toof Studios (actually a one-man project from fellow Englishmen Chris Davis), the Escapists is a remarkable achievement given it’s limited resources. I don’t even know why I’ve been imprisoned and I don’t really care – all I know is I’ll do anything I have to in order to escape. After a few days playing The Escapists I’d reached the stage where I saw everything and everybody in terms of what possible benefit they were to me. Things I’m not proud of – rummaging through the pockets of an unconscious inmate, instigating a riot, attacking a prison guard with a shank… yet I don’t feel any guilt from any of this.

The escapists exercise controls