Ludography
No Escape! cover

1983 · Arcade

No Escape!

Atari exclusive

Jason has taken the Golden Fleece from the gods! They are naturally upset and have imprisoned Jason in the Temple of Aphrodite with deadly Furies running overhead. You control Jason and your goal is to eliminate all of the Furies to move on to the next level. The Furies can be destroyed if they are hit with a magical brick from the roof of the temple.

Released
31 December 1983
Platforms
Atari 2600
Genres
Arcade
Developers
—
Publishers
—
Perspective
Side view
Themes
ActionFantasy
Languages
English

About

No Escape! is an Atari 2600 video game developed and published by Imagic in 1983. The player controls Jason, leader of the Argonauts, who fights off the Furies sent by the Greek gods. A two-player mode, in which the second player competes against the first turn-by-turn, is also available.

Keywords

  • greek mythology

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

No Escape! begins with Jason imprisoned in the temple of Aphrodite due to stealing the Golden Fleece. Jason must survive against waves of attacking Furies, and the gameplay revolves around picking up and throwing rocks. The player must hit the ceiling of the temple, causing a brick to fall onto a Fury.

Throwing a rock directly at a Fury causes two more Furies to appear in its place. Gameplay is focused around timing the falling brick to intersect with the moving Furies. Subsequent levels increase the difficulty by allowing the Furies to shoot back at the player, fly around faster, and move in different patterns.

Development

No Escape! was programmed by Michael Greene with graphical assistance by Michael Becker and Wilfredo Aguilar. This was Greene's first project at publisher Imagic, having also worked for the company on the game Wing War for Atari 2600 and the program Talking Teacher for Commodore 64. Greene estimated that it took six months to develop No Escape!

and said the game's Greek mythology theme was a different one than what he had initially chosen. Becker and Aguilar collaborated on Imagic's Fathom, a game based on Roman mythology, just before the company's dissolution.

Reception

Hardcore Gaming 101 called the game a "rare gem" and said it has a "completely different feel to any other shooter from that time, or, for that matter, any other shooter since". IGN called it a "strange shooter", but also complimented its "compelling gameplay and some very attractive visuals". The game was also praised for its final animation showing Jason escaping on Pegasus.

In a 1983 review from Electronic Fun with Computers & Games, Imagic was praised for delivering a game with the right balance, providing a "challenge that the player can neither overcome nor resist playing again and again."

Releases by platformdates and regions as published

PlatformReleasedRegions
Atari 260031 December 1983North America

Editions and related releases

Included in
Activision Anthology: Remix Edition

Games like this

Collections1 collection

Platform libraries

Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.