We roughed up some inmates and conned our way out of prison in this strategy title.

The Escapists fully released on both Steam and Xbox One earlier this month, already having earned much praise from Steam users during its Early Access phase. A strategy game at its core, The Escapists will keep you busy as you gradually work your way toward a prison break, with varying difficulty depending on the starting map you select.

The game only has a brief tutorial before you move on to the action. While this tutorial emphasizes breaking out, most of your time in the actual game is spent gathering everything you need for that breakout. You'll find yourself performing favors to curry money and respect from other inmates, pillaging those same inmates' unconscious bodies and desks for items, craft supplies and more.

Gaining the respect of your fellow inmates is going to take some extra work. Refuse too many favors and their opinion of you will drop—this is indicated by the color of their name (green is good while the closer you go toward red is bad). Respect also drops with an inmate if you instigate fights with them, but if you are completing tasks to do that exact thing it could work to your benefit. You can buy items from you fellow inmates, but the prices will fluxuate based on their opinion of you.

The guards in your facility will ensure that you hold to a strict daily regimen. Morning and evening will have rollcalls (which is a great time to trade gifts or 'speak' with other prisoners to raise respect); there are three meals, an exercise and shower period, and also a job session. If you hold a job, not only can you use that time to get more supplies for your escape—such as a guard uniform from the default laundry job—but a job like the workshop is great for crafting. There will be free time periods, which are the best for rifling through other inmate's desks... or just wait for a couple of them to fight and pick the unconscious one's pockets.

Crafting requires some smarts, which you can raise from browsing the internet or reading books. You would think that books are easy to come by, but they're not. We ended up eventually finding a couple in other inmate's desks, and you can purchase them from other inmates as well. To craft items you need to figure out the correct combination. Sometimes you'll find recipes in an unfortunate inmate's body, but you can also learn from a frustrating exercise in trial and error. There's a crafting entry on wikia if you'd like to keep your sanity instead.

Of course, crafting or procuring items you shouldn't have in a prison constitutes possessing contraband, which is signfied by the item's name being in red. The guards happen to not have a high opinion of this, and should you be found with contraband either on yourself (if you get knocked out) or in your desk (when chosen for a random search), it will be taken from you. This could possibly negate a lot of work you put toward your escape, so picking fights or stashing illegal items for too long doesn't work in your favor. You can craft a Contraband Pouch to help with sneaking these items past metal detectors, but it will lose durability over time.

There are many layers and methods to how you'll have to manage your prison life. It's going to take a lot of time to work toward the breakout of your choice. The multitude of ways you can break out (dig your way, sneak, have a prison takeover, etc) offer replayability to each map. Varying difficulties can offer more of a challenge, which you unlock as you prove your mettle in each prison.

The daily grind of each prison day does get a bit wearing, so this is a game more enjoyable in small doses. I found myself loading it up for about 1-2 hours each day. The biggest downfall of The Escapists is the lack of control you have over saving the game. The only time it is saved is when you go to sleep at night; there is no manual or autosave otherwise.

The Escapists offers a lot of fun, some humor and will keep you on your toes. It has a fun soundtrack that will keep you entertained while plotting your escape. You can grab it on Steam now for $17.99.

Ann "Cyliena" Hosler, Managing Editor