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COMPLETE: Can You Escape Fate?
Mar. 12th, 2018 07:14 pmTo properly explain this one, I'm going to have to go back a little, to talk about its predecessor.
The year is 2015. Undertale has just conquered the Internet, I'm still on Tumblr, and I'm watching this blog that features cheap asset flips and other obvious bootlegs from the dregs of the Google Play Store, because that is my jam (see icon.)
One day, this blog features Can You Escape Love? because... well, I mean, look at it. No points for guessing what game clearly and directly inspired this.
I have a good chuckle because of course I do, but... I have to admit, guilty pleasure as it may be, that I'm kind of intrigued. I know what this looks like, I know whose blog I was in when I found it, but 1) I have a sense of kusoge appeal and NOT FAKE designs are a great way to directly appeal to it (again, see icon,) 2) I am a furry who likes horrible things and I have to admit that an evil yandere sheep with built in creepypasta mode is exactly my jam, and 3) it's free so what the hell.
I downloaded it, and played through it, and was pleasantly surprised! Yes, it's clearly... uh, inspired, but there is still quality there. Someone (and by someone, I mean the one person on DeviantArt who's responsible for all this) put genuine effort and passion into this. Most "LOL Play Store" fodder is the way it is because it's a cynical lazy cash-grab coded up in a sweatshop to make as much money off stolen assets and the Canabalt/Flappy Birds framework as they can before anyone notices, but CYEL was made with heart. Chibixi/JCSoft had a vision and genuinely wanted to share it, and I can't help but admire that.
CYEL tells the story of Yang, the sheep representative of the Chinese Zodiac pantheon, refusing to let go and kidnapping you when year-of-the-sheep 2015 is supposed to be closing. Instead of staying with a lovestruck yandere sheepgod forever, you must solve a basic room escape point-and-click with lots of Undertale "be a heart and dodge attacks" battles so that 2016 can happen. (In hindsight, this was clearly the worst ending.)
So, with the understanding that "okay this looks like a bootleg but it's actually good" is kind of how this dev works, I was very eager to give the sequel, Can You Escape Fate?, a look. One look at the icon implies that the author got the memo that the year of the monkey had its own issues, so there was definitely room for another story here.
However, actually playing through this game, it is much more than "CYEL 2: But Now With Monkey," which is saying something because CYEL itself was already much more than "Bootleg Undertale: But Now With Sheep." Defying underestimation seems to be how JCSoft rolls. Anyway, CYEF is several times larger, with a more complex plot. There is an unfolding mystery and questions about who to trust. "Houzi is obviously the bad guy... I think?" gets zigzagged back and forth so many times that the question of whether she actually is can be treated like a legitimate reveal and spoiler, which is no small feat for a character who gives you that jumpscare face right there in the game's icon. And toward the end, it pulls some serious scary moments (not cheap ones, I'm talking Petscop-tier quiet jumpscare-free rooms where nothing actually happens but nonetheless are just creepy) and some heartwrenching feelsy scenes.
I think I am going to have to put Five Nights of Love on the to-do list at some point. Smooching the evil furry robots is an idea I was kind of into from the beginning, and JCSoft as a developer has completely won me over to trust their "okay I know this looks like a blatant bootleg and it probably is buuuuut" efforts to nevertheless be legitimately good.
The year is 2015. Undertale has just conquered the Internet, I'm still on Tumblr, and I'm watching this blog that features cheap asset flips and other obvious bootlegs from the dregs of the Google Play Store, because that is my jam (see icon.)
One day, this blog features Can You Escape Love? because... well, I mean, look at it. No points for guessing what game clearly and directly inspired this.
I have a good chuckle because of course I do, but... I have to admit, guilty pleasure as it may be, that I'm kind of intrigued. I know what this looks like, I know whose blog I was in when I found it, but 1) I have a sense of kusoge appeal and NOT FAKE designs are a great way to directly appeal to it (again, see icon,) 2) I am a furry who likes horrible things and I have to admit that an evil yandere sheep with built in creepypasta mode is exactly my jam, and 3) it's free so what the hell.
I downloaded it, and played through it, and was pleasantly surprised! Yes, it's clearly... uh, inspired, but there is still quality there. Someone (and by someone, I mean the one person on DeviantArt who's responsible for all this) put genuine effort and passion into this. Most "LOL Play Store" fodder is the way it is because it's a cynical lazy cash-grab coded up in a sweatshop to make as much money off stolen assets and the Canabalt/Flappy Birds framework as they can before anyone notices, but CYEL was made with heart. Chibixi/JCSoft had a vision and genuinely wanted to share it, and I can't help but admire that.
CYEL tells the story of Yang, the sheep representative of the Chinese Zodiac pantheon, refusing to let go and kidnapping you when year-of-the-sheep 2015 is supposed to be closing. Instead of staying with a lovestruck yandere sheepgod forever, you must solve a basic room escape point-and-click with lots of Undertale "be a heart and dodge attacks" battles so that 2016 can happen. (In hindsight, this was clearly the worst ending.)
So, with the understanding that "okay this looks like a bootleg but it's actually good" is kind of how this dev works, I was very eager to give the sequel, Can You Escape Fate?, a look. One look at the icon implies that the author got the memo that the year of the monkey had its own issues, so there was definitely room for another story here.
However, actually playing through this game, it is much more than "CYEL 2: But Now With Monkey," which is saying something because CYEL itself was already much more than "Bootleg Undertale: But Now With Sheep." Defying underestimation seems to be how JCSoft rolls. Anyway, CYEF is several times larger, with a more complex plot. There is an unfolding mystery and questions about who to trust. "Houzi is obviously the bad guy... I think?" gets zigzagged back and forth so many times that the question of whether she actually is can be treated like a legitimate reveal and spoiler, which is no small feat for a character who gives you that jumpscare face right there in the game's icon. And toward the end, it pulls some serious scary moments (not cheap ones, I'm talking Petscop-tier quiet jumpscare-free rooms where nothing actually happens but nonetheless are just creepy) and some heartwrenching feelsy scenes.
I think I am going to have to put Five Nights of Love on the to-do list at some point. Smooching the evil furry robots is an idea I was kind of into from the beginning, and JCSoft as a developer has completely won me over to trust their "okay I know this looks like a blatant bootleg and it probably is buuuuut" efforts to nevertheless be legitimately good.