ESCAPE FROM DELIRIUM

WHERE EVERYTHING YOU FEARED IS REAL!

When an old corpse is found in an abandoned section of the subway, you are sent to investigate the matter. Unfortunately the rope lowering you breaks, leaving you by yourself in the tunnel. In finding a way out, you stumble into the monitor room for the city museum and witness a burglary. The burglars steal a stone tablet and disappear with it. Why they would want it is anyone's guess, but they do and they're willing to kill for it. As the only witness to the crime you are sent to help convict the criminals, but a (freak?) accident causes you to crash land on a deserted island, or is it? You must use all your wits to get off this island and Escape from Delirium!
Violence Rating: Minimal Violence. Crime Scenes may contain blood and implied violence.

HIGHLIGHTS:

• Easy to use interface.
• Zoom effects.
• Fast loading.
• 100% hand-painted.
• A totally crazy plot that will surprise you even in the end.
• Bilingual with English and German text!

~ from the back of the box

If you're gonna steal from something, you gotta steal from the best. Or, if your a couple of German brothers developing their very own shareware point-and-click adventure, 'homage' is perhaps the best word to use. And if you're gonna homage adventure games, it's a good idea to homage LucasArts. That's what Walter and Stephen Koch did in 1995 with Escape from Delirium.

From a character who suspiciously looks like the second iteration of Guybrush Threepwood, to a voodoo lady called Jojo whose sister Mojo resides deep in the Caribbean, to a Star Wars reference so oblique only readers of the extended universe would've got it at the time - there's a playful reverence to all things George Lucas. Our protagonist, Paul Cole, even begins the game dangling from a rope just like Monkey Island 2. With minor help from a couple of others, almost everything in the game was created by Walter and Stephen Koch, so some extended inspiration is understandable. The thing is, these references are almost inconsequential to the overall plot. In fact, their presence only proves the creator's deep love of the genre.

The game wears its inspiration proudly on its sleeves. The map depicts mundane locales in an exotic location 

kinda like Monkey Island (left) while all games are improved by featuring a voodoo priestess (right).

Going by the credits, Stephen was the creative brother, being responsible for the story and art while Walter concentrated on the more technnical aspects like coding and scripting systems. Technically, it is very similar to the Scumm interface of the early 90s with a few differences. If you hold the right mouse button while hovering over the scene, a zoomed in view will appear in place of the inventory on the bottom right of the screen. This is very useful when pixel hunting to the point here I wish other, earlier games thought of it but generally speaking it's not needed so much here.

To the left of the inventory are some graphical icons that reference the usual verbs, including a severed eyeball used to examine and a gnashing sharp-toothed maw used to talk. You may think these macabre markings are a little out of place with a comedic point-and-click adventure but you'd be wrong. Escape from Delirium goes to some dark places. Paul may have the odd one-liner or fourth-wall breaking moment, but overall the game has a far more serious tone than the Monkey Islands that inspired it. And that tone is a gory one. It won't be long before you'll see your first blood-stained dead body, and two minutes later you'll be witness to a Jihadi hijacked plane that - in a seperate series of events - also has an explosive bomb hidden onboard. All except Paul and some caged chickens die horrifically!

The violence and gore in this game is well beyond what you'd see in a LucasArts adventure.
Good job you can zoom in for a closer view!

The final product is surprisingly polished, albeit a few years behind the times graphically speaking. Had it been released two or three years before its January 1996 deut, it would've competed favourably alongside Discworld or Simon the Sorcerer 2 in the looks department. You could argue it could compete in the gameplay department too, but dig a little deeper and the low-budget cracks begin to show. The overall story is lacklustre being confused in its plotting with baffling events and uneasy motivations. At one point you stab an unconscious body so it will bleed out to make a man standing nearby faint. None of what you go through has anything to do with the plot from the somewhat interesting opening. You discover a murder scene and become involved in a stolen artifact plot that leads to plane crash which is just an excuse to get you to the strange jungle where the rest of the game takes place. Even the dialogue often suffers despite having a decent English translation from its original German. Some lines are more about exposition than entertainment while looking at items returns with little more than dry lines like "it's a rock" or "nice snake".

Considering its obvious inspirations, more could've been done to make the script and story more entertaining but then again, this is the work of just two guys. Overall, it is a remarkable accomplishment that harks back to the classic era of point-and-clickers in a good way. The puzzles are decent, the hand-drawn backgrounds are often pleasant to look at, and while I was stunned and baffled by the WTF ending, it sure was memorable. I'm incredibly glad I got there.

To download the game, follow the link below. This custom installer exclusive to The Collection Chamber uses the DOSBox Daum build of DOSBox 0.74 to bring the game to modern systems. Read the ChamberNotes.txt for more detailed information. Tested on Windows 10.

File Size: 23.6 Mb.  Install Size: 43.1 Mb.  Need help? Consult the Collection Chamber FAQ

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Escape From Delirium is © Virtual X-Perience
Review, Cover Design and Installer created by me

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