Are you looking for a game to scratch your Zero Escape itch?
Exit/Corners, by Canadian-based Moon Moth Games, is a free visual novel/puzzle game available on itch.io and playable in web browsers.
You play as Ink, a student who wakes up alongside four other strangers to find himself kidnapped and locked inside a mysterious abandoned hotel that's rigged to explode. They can escape, as long as these 'Contestants' solve a series of riddles and puzzles within a 24-hour time limit. Or, they can die.
Without spoilers, this game surprised and delighted me. It's 29 episodes, takes several hours to complete, and has detailed art and a custom soundtrack. I can strongly recommend it to anybody who enjoys character-focused mystery stories and simple but satisfying puzzles (and who doesn't have an issue with dark themes or depicted violence).
None of the puzzles felt 'unfair', as the game has a great hint system where you can ask the other Contestants for advice or their opinions, which gives you extra insight into their characters as well as providing hints. If you get really stuck, ask them enough times and they'll eventually spell out the answer for you.
The relationships that develop between the Contestants, positive and negative, form the emotional core that the plot needed to keep the reader invested. At first most of the characters are abrasive, stressed, and either insulting to or dismissive of each other. The only friendly face is Aether, the girl who woke up in the same room as you, but she has her own secrets she's keeping. As you can imagine from people picked to play a deadly game, all of them have hidden depths that they're unwilling to trust the other Contestants with—including Ink. Uncovering the pasts of each Contestants is as much part of the mystery as who brought them together, and why.
Generally I found each backstory reveal satisfying, placing each character's previous actions in new context. There was one particular reveal that worked so well on a meta-level that I felt genuinely called-out by the fact I hadn't realised what was happening. Actions that felt unrealistic or confusing could often be explained through later information, as well as the high-stakes situation revealing the best and worst sides of each Contestant.
The mystery plot was excellently foreshadowed. As new information is revealed, through Ink's internal monologue the reader is also gently reminded of relevant points they may have forgotten—allowing them a chance to put the clues together as Ink does without being excessively heavy-handed. Many of the biggest twists were hard to predict, with enough clues that I could guess some of the elements, whilst the actual unveiling left me staring at my screen in shock as my mind went over all the clues I'd overlooked or missed. The plot started slowly, picked up the pace as revelations started stacking on top of each other and revealing the shape of the plot, and in the last few chapters definitely sped up as the different mysteries converged together. The ending felt a little rushed, but each major plot thread and mystery was neatly resolved when the true purpose of Exit/Corners was explained.
This won't be a game for everybody, but for a completely free game that doesn't even require a download? If any of this interests you, give it a try. It might surprise you.
Spoiler-free warnings: This game includes depictions and discussions of graphic violence, depictions and discussions of mental illness and suicide, derogatory language, and internalised bigotry.
What's next for Moon Moth Games? Although they have a demo for an upcoming game called 'Séance: Spectral Noise' on their itchi.io page, there have been no official posts since March 2022. A twitter post from January 2023 stated the project ran into legal difficulties. There have been no subsequent updates.
stayed up till 6am for exit/corners cause a mystery puzzle-filled saw-style hotel with a transman man character who never openly says it in so many words but just. is.
I finished Exit/Corners a couple of days ago, and I enjoyed it a lot! Strongly recommended if you enjoy visual novels in the ‘a bunch of people are abducted and put through traumatic, murder-filled trials for mysterious reasons’ genre, e.g. Zero Escape, Your Turn to Die, Danganronpa. (It’s free!)
I don’t think there’s much market for Exit/Corners fanfiction, but, if there’s any interest, I wrote a short fic set around the ending! No Direction Home, gen, 2,600 words, rated T. Slightly weird and dark. Ink’s my favourite character, and that means I’m compelled to shred his sense of reality.
