Escape Doodland looks like a lo-fi Rayman Legends

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Escape Doodland, you may have gathered, is a game about escaping Doodland. More specifically, it's a co-op 2D auto-runner with art straight out of the notebook of a bored art student with too much paper on hand. It's also on Kickstarter, with developer appSide Down asking for $7,838 to bring it to life. At the time of writing, its campaign has raised $1,989 and will run for another 26 days. 

The best doodles are simple, silly ideas taken way too far, and Escape Doodland nails that bonkers look. Everyone has too many eyes and also precisely enough eyes, environments are Alice in Wonderland-esque oddities, and you can often literally see the graph paper in the background. It works because it's everywhere, and there's a surprising amount of detail to it. The devs said they "wanted to combine absurdity with diversity," and only settled on doodles after trying more traditional art styles. 

The game's 10 playable Doodlers all show the same weirdness, from the irresponsibly happy potato to the good old-fashioned blobs. You can play Escape Doodland with up to four people at once, so it's important to have varied characters. You don't want to lose track of yourself, for one, and you're escaping Doodland in the first place because a big red monster is gobbling it up, so you're going to want to know who invariably throws you to the monster in co-op. 

The devs say the bulk of Escape Doodland is finished, and that the Kickstarter money will mainly be used to cover multiplayer and music costs. Depending on the success of its campaign, it will release in mid- to late-2018. 

Austin Wood
Austin Wood
Staff writer, GamesRadar

Austin freelanced for PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree, and has been a full-time writer at PC Gamer's sister publication GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize that his position as a staff writer is just a cover-up for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a focus on news, the occasional feature, and as much Genshin Impact as he can get away with.