Industrial Excitement
Pre-alpha · v0.1.0

Escape

User Guide

How to Play

Movement, enemies, shards, portals — everything you need to escape.

Escape gameplay — the player navigating an industrial chamber toward a distant light.
Reading the room: timing your moves toward the portal, collecting the shards. Escape is the core of every stage.

Controls

Escape uses keyboard or any Xbox-compatible controller.

Move

←→ or AD

Jump

Space or ↑ or W or Z

Crouch

↓orS

Sprint

Shift

Pause

PorPause

Menu

Esc
  • Jump height is variable — tap for a short hop, hold for maximum height.
  • Crouching reduces your hitbox height and slows you to crawl speed. Use it to slip under enemies.
  • Sprint is a modifier held alongside movement — it doesn't change jump height.

Health & Lives

Your health is shown as flame icons in the top-left corner. You start each stage with full health (up to 5 flames depending on difficulty).

♥♥♥♥♥

  • Taking damage triggers 3 seconds of invincibility — you glow orange-white and cannot be hurt again during this window.
  • The glow pulses fast (8 Hz) while fully invincible, slowing down and fading in the final second.
  • You have 5 continues. Losing all health costs one continue and restarts the stage. Losing all continues ends the run.
  • During the 3-2-1-GO countdown at stage start, you are always invincible.

Shards & Portals

Each stage contains at least one shard — a glowing crystal collectible. Collecting all shards on a stage activates the exit portal.

  • Shards are marked with their ID label in yellow above them. Walk through one to collect it.
  • The exit portal appears 20 tiles to the right of the shard and glows with a green vortex when active.
  • Step into the portal to complete the stage.

Enemies — Stomping & Combat

Most enemies can be defeated by jumping and landing on top of them (stomping). Land feet-first on the upper half of an enemy while moving downward.

Can't stomp? Enemies with a bright pulsing cyan shield spinning around them are immune to stomps. Avoid them — they can still hurt you.
  • After taking a stomp, multi-HP enemies still have their shield until their HP reaches zero.
  • Side contact or landing on the bottom half of any enemy deals damage to you.
  • After being hit, your 3-second invincibility window lets you escape without taking additional damage.
  • Some enemies fire projectiles — watch the trajectory before crossing their line of sight.

Enemy Portals

Enemies use three types of portal, each with a distinct colour and meaning:

ColourTypeWhat it means
Green / Teal Spawn portal Enemy is materialising. It grows from nothing over 1 second. Safe to walk through, but can be stomped — a well-timed stomp during spawning counts.
Orange / Red Despawn portal Enemy fell off the map or completed a retreat cycle. It sinks into the vortex over 1 second, then respawns at its home position via a new spawn portal.
Purple Death portal Enemy was killed by a stomp. The portal grows as the enemy shrinks into it. Permanent — the enemy is gone for this stage.
A spawn portal opening as an enemy materialises in an Escape stage.
Portals in play — green spawns, orange despawns, purple marks a kill.

Enemy Types

Escape features many enemy variants. These are the ones whose behaviour you'll need to learn first — each blends a generated look with hand-tuned movement. The type code (e.g. T19) matches the editor.

T19 Hell Hound sprite
T19

Hell Hound

Waits until you're at least 20 tiles away, then spawns 20 tiles behind you via a green portal. Runs at you, turns 5 tiles away, retreats, then despawns. Repeats (default 2 cycles). Contact deals 1HP.

◐ Stompable only during its spawn portal
T15 Shadow sprite
T15

Shadow

Stalks you — closes to 3 tiles, then holds. Every 5 seconds it teleports 4 tiles behind you via a green portal, leaving an orange residue. After 5 snaps it opens a permanent despawn portal and is gone.

● Stompable
T1 Shell sprite
T1

Shell

Chases you until within 1.5 tiles, then patrols ±5 tiles around your position. If you move more than 6 tiles away, it switches back to chase mode.

● Stompable
Shielded, stomp-immune enemy sprite
Shielded

Immune Types

Any enemy ringed by a bright pulsing cyan shield cannot be stomped — landing on it hurts you. Multi-HP enemies keep their shield until HP hits zero. Avoid or out-manoeuvre them; some also fire projectiles.

✕ Stomp-immune — do not land on it

The Demon

On Stage 1-3 (The Abyss), a massive demon appears and scans the level with twin perspective eye-beams. If the beams hit you, you take damage.

The Demon scanning a stage with twin red eye-beams while the player hides near a death portal.
The Demon's twin eye-beams sweep The Abyss — break line of sight behind rock formations.
  • Watch for the warning phase — a brief window before the demon arrives. Use it to reach cover.
  • Rock formations: (large boulders) block the demon's scan completely. Standing behind one makes you invisible to the beams.
  • The demon departs after its scanning phase — it won't stay forever.
  • Music ducks to 25% volume while the demon is present, then restores over 8 seconds.

Stages

StageNameEnemy typesDemonBackground
1-1Gates of HellT0–T26 (Generics + Infernal)NoInfernal Caverns
1-2Ember TunnelsT27–T53 (Lava + Bone + Citadel)NoBone Cathedral
1-3The AbyssT54–T79 (Plague + Void + Chaos)YesPlague Marshes
1-4Demon's KeepT20–T27 warmup + BossNoVoid Abyss

Tips

  • Platforms are your friend — many enemies can't reach you on the higher ledges. Use them to observe patterns safely.
  • The debug overlay (always visible) shows enemy type numbers (T0–T79) above each enemy. Cross-reference with the editor guide to understand what you're facing.
  • Enemies respawn via portals when they fall off platforms — the orange despawn portal tells you where they were.
  • Running out of time on a stage doesn't kill you — there's no time limit. Take your time.
  • Found a bug? Let us know — it helps.
  • Change things using theEditor guide.