On January 5th, indie developer Touyaski announced the release of the horror game “Escalator | Escalator” will be distributed on January 7th.announcementdid. The compatible platform is PC (Steam), and the price is 420 yen (tax included).
“Escalator” is a first-person horror game set in an underground passage. In this work, the player is trapped in the underground passage, and aims to escape from this mysterious space by participating in a game presented by someone.
There is an escalator in the underground passage, and the player must use it to go to the upper floor. It is said that something strange may happen while riding the escalator. Observe your surroundings and see if anything strange is happening. If you notice anything unusual, go down the attached stairs and ring the emergency bell. On the other hand, if nothing happens, you will continue on your way and exit through the emergency exit.
Once you make a mistake, you have to start over from the beginning. If you miss something unusual or ring the emergency bell by mistake, it will be treated as a mistake. Also, “starting over” seems to mean that the gameplay will loop through this underground passage, requiring you to climb up the escalator several times without making any mistakes.
This kind of gameplay of this work is reminiscent of “Exit 8” by KOTAKE CREATE. In fact, developer Touyaski has publicly stated that “Escalator” is a “No. 8-like” work that was inspired by the same work. “Exit 8” is a work in which the goal is to reach exit 8 and escape by turning back if you find something unusual in an endless underground passage, and continuing on if you don’t find anything unusual.
“Exit 8” was released on November 29th last year and received high praise. After that, follower works including “Escalator” appeared. Also, perhaps due to its popularity, an unrelated smartphone app pretending to be “Exit 8” was released (related article: All apps by the same developer are currently suspended). Regardless of such apps, Kotakenotokeke, the developer of “Exit 8,” has commented that he welcomes the appearance of similar works developed under the influence of the same work (related article).
『Station 5』
By the way, as a side note, a game influenced by “Exit 8” is “Station 5” by ClickToPlay Games, which was released on PC (on December 30th last year).Steam) distribution has started. The story is about searching for abnormalities in subway cars and stations. However, at the time of writing this article, user reviews have a “mixed opinion” status with 50% of them being positive, with some pointing out issues such as the difficulty in finding anomalies and the slow tempo of gameplay. Many users compared it to “Exit 8,” and the result seems to be that they feel that “Exit 8” has a high level of perfection.
“Escalator | Escalator” is a PC (Steam) is scheduled to be distributed on January 7th.
