The Artful Escape is a simple game. You get abducted by aliens who sense your talent as a psychedelic rocksmith struggling under the weight of your folk music uncle, and they fling you through time and space to ride the Cosmic Lung, meet a god with skyballs for a face, and jam with a series of unintelligible aliens who could only ever have been imagined in the fever dreams of a scientist who ate some off-colour meat. See? Simple.

It’s a game all about understanding who you are not, and embracing who you are. You start The Artful Escape as Francis Vendetti, nephew to the revered Johnson Vendetti, the folk music legend whose spectre of greatness haunts your soul, your music, and your hometown of Calypso. Everyone there is desperate for you to be the second coming of Johnson Vendetti, and wants you to live out your days as a shadow of what once was. There’s far too much colour in your fingers for that though, which is why the aliens intervene and blast you off into mind-bending superstardom. As director Johnny Galvatron explains in our interview, Francis doesn't really change on this journey, he merely discovers himself.

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It’s also a game about realising you are not who people think you are - you are not even who you think you are. As a trans person, there is a temptation to read into stories and see a version of one’s own self - or perhaps more accurately, one’s own selves. It’s natural for anyone, trans or cis, to relate to fiction, of course, but trans people are so starved of representation that invention becomes a necessity. The Artful Escape straddles the line where I’m not sure if I’m reading too much into it or have in fact cracked the secret code, but I’m not sure I ever need to know. My experience of The Artful Escape was very queer, and that’s good enough for me.

The Artful Escape

It’s not just that you go from one thing to another. Queer readings would be very pedestrian if they were all so surface level. Most of them resemble Charlie looking for Pepe Sylvia, and The Artful Escape - a game defined by its visual indefinability - is no exception. You not only change who you are, but what the world calls you, shrugging off the bland ball and chain of a name stained by the legacy of someone you never knew and embracing a name of your own. I changed mine to The Ethereal Gamer, a name so perfect I might have to change it from Stacey again in order to keep that one forever.

Throughout the game, you explore vast alien worlds you’d normally only see in a cartoon where a teenager takes their first pull of a joint and the show acts as if a single toke is the most hallucinogenic experience a human being can endure - I guess that’s what happens when you inject marijuana. But you also explore yourself, both as Francis Vendetti, nephew of Johnson Vendetti, and as The Ethereal Gamer. The bones of Francis, themselves haunted by the ghost of Johnson, still dwell inside The Ethereal Gamer. You realise that you don’t need to leave all of Francis behind - while some trans people feel differently, I do not regard my pre-transition self as a different person. It was merely the Francis to my The Ethereal Gamer.

The Artful Escape

Of course, as with any trans person - and any millennial teen movie - the showstopper is the makeover. At one point, you find yourself on an airship with a creature of raw intensity, and inside their quarters, you find a closet that leads to a strip mall. Inside, you change various aspects of your appearance from your original folksy getup and your more electric outfit the aliens first provide you with. It is here that you truly become The Ethereal Gamer, and while most options are masculine - and characters will still refer to you as he afterwards - the world of rock n roll cares not for gender norms. Garters, stockings, fishnets, crop tops, thigh highs, lipstick, nail polish, blouses, and a range of feminine hairstyles are all available for The Ethereal Gamer to enjoy.

This journey culminates with a fearful return to your hometown. You have made it big, not just in the world, but in the galaxy as The Ethereal Gamer - but back home everyone still sees you as Francis, Johnson’s nephew. To some members of your family, you will always be that. But you return as The Ethereal Gamer nonetheless, and your greatness, your Etherealness, your Gamerness begins to shine through. ‘Discover who you aren’t’ is the game’s tagline. For a trans person, that’s the most important discovery you can make.

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