![]() The music and the psychedelic art style evoke the sights and sounds of the golden age of rock, but it's the gender-bending queerness inspired by David Bowie and Freddy Mercury that really makes The Artful Escape feel like a rock opera. "It's your brain that really brings it all together," Galvatron assures us. Galvatron likens it to the 'Dark Side of the Rainbow' phenomenon: the near-perfect pairing of Pink Floyd's seminal album The Dark Side of the Moon and the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. No matter what chord you make Francis play, it still feels like it's perfectly in-sync with the background music. Not only is every level in The Artful Escape in a different key – a bit of trivia that will make any audiophile swoon – but the music is intentionally written to be amorphous. Five hours worth or something? Too much for a soundtrack." He takes a pause to laugh before continuing: "We used every kind of synth that I could think of – an example of excess, like Def Leppard in a studio in the '80s just spending 10 months on a guitar solo. When asked how much original music was recorded for the game, Galvatron responds with "too much. The Artful Escape captures rock-and-roll aesthetics spanning decades with an attention to detail that can only come from an almost fanatical fervor.įirst, there's the music. "It's got that nice kind of jamming rhythm that you can get when you play music with other people, which is kind of hard to replicate," Galvatron points out. I feel like the gameplay is very accessible, but at the same time, I feel like it's quite powerful."Īs a result of Galvatron's efforts to make a music game unlike any other, The Artful Escape feels like playing through a jam session with all the talent of Eddie Van Halen at your fingertips. "The gameplay is kind of like Smells Like Team Spirit… it's not about virtuosity, it's about being able to lead the narrative up to get to this crescendo, and then you're gonna lead the gameplay up to get to that crescendo. "I think the way the game is put together is that it tries to use every medium as a tool and lead you through the game as a song, like the verse, the pre-chorus, the chorus," Galvatron explains. This isn't a rhythm game, but more of a free-flowing jam sesh that lets you traverse the world how you'd like. The gameplay in The Artful Escape is simple: bring up an ethereal guitar with a button press, knee slide down a hill with another button, slam the guitar down onto a platform that shoots off fireworks with yet another button. "The gameplay is kind of like Smells Like Team Spirit… it's not about virtuosity It's at this point in the preview that I watch in awe as the world around Francis reacts in a myriad of psychedelic ways. Each signpost is read aloud by a hilarious Schwartzman, and throughout the tour, there are moments where you're prompted to 'hold x to jam with the environment'. ![]() Francis makes his way through a museum dedicated to Lightman, with each display representing a key moment in the groovy dude's career. The Artful Escape preview includes one trippy level that centers around Carl Weathers' character, Lightman, who feels like a Prince/Hendrix crossover. The path to finding Francis' rockstar persona takes you through a journey normally reserved for consciousness-expanding trips: multiple cosmic realms, an '80s mall on a boat in the middle of an intergalactic desert, and a planet with sea creatures spewing fountains of water in time with the music. This man is far more sci-fi arena rock, the kind of musician you'd expect to see in a deep-cut leotard. However, it's quickly established that Francis' music is antithetical to the kind of strummy folk he's expected to play. The Artful Escape introduces Francis as an incredibly talented but nervous new artist – nervous because everyone expects him to be a folk musician and follow in his uncle's footsteps. "So I made it as far away and as fantasy as I could." "I didn't want to make a rockstar in Australia because it made me feel a bit sick in my stomach, 'cuz of my own experiences," explains Galvatron. The entire cosmic journey towards self-discovery kicks off just before Francis is set to perform his first show (where he's billed as the nephew of folk icon Johnson Vendetti) in the fictional town of Calypso, Colorado. The World), Lena Headey (Game of Thrones), Mark Strong (Kingsman), and the iconic Carl Weathers (Predator). The cast includes Jason Schwartzman (Scott Pilgrim Vs. That fantasy includes surreal space entities bobbing along to rad guitar riffs, an extraterrestrial rock museum set in a glittering, snow-capped forest, and a star-studded cast of voice actors that were brought in late in development.
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