Co-op escape room puzzler Escape Academy is free to keep on Epic Games Store for the next day

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Easy to get into, harder to exit

While the weather outside is still a bit chilly and everyone’s bank accounts are recovering from the holidays, visiting an escape room with friends might not be at the top of your to-do list. Fortunately, you can currently get some of the same puzzly satisfaction for free – and without having to go outside – by nabbing Escape Academy over on the Epic Games Store for the next 24 hours.

Escape Academy released over the summer of 2022 as a virtual alternative to hunting around a confined space for clues and codes in order to puzzle your way outpu of a locked room as quickly as possible. Like most escape rooms, you can work together with a pal to crack riddles and find hidden secrets together, or go it alone in single-player if you find yourself getting annoyed at someone not quite being on the same wavelength as you while you’re trying to think your way through brainteasers.

Having been on a bit of an escape room fix for a few years now, whether it’s in person or one of those home escape rooms in a box, I enjoyed my time playing Escape Academy with my wife back when it came out. It’s a polished, charmingly presented puzzle game that manages to strike just the right balance between being thinky enough to give you the real pleasure of working out a tricky answer without being too obscure to end in frustration.

Unlike the more nuts-and-bolts sandbox of Escape Simulator, it’s tied together with a bit more of a curated story experience too, though the narrative is definitely a secondary element versus the escape rooms themselves. That’s probably not much of a surprise given that developers Coin Crew Games enlisted the help of real-life escape room designers to craft the virtual rooms.

Ed found the same in our review, calling it “a fantastic co-op brainteaser that’s perfect material for catch-ups and corporate days”. Personally, it’s one I’d recommend playing in local or online multiplayer if you can, but I imagine the puzzles hold up nicely solo if you’re just after a nice bit of brain-tickling to fill the dark January evenings.

Escape Academy can be grabbed for free over on the Epic Games Store until 4pm GMT tomorrow, January 2nd, being the latest daily game giveaway via the PC marketplace after Saints Row, Cat Quest and more.