Arcade party games are often best when a silly concept is also stupidly easy to understand. ExitMan Deluxe takes the person icon from an exit sign and turns it into a minigame. This is a twitch reaction based game that asks you to run from one exit door to another. You have a couple of seconds at best to make a decision and stop in the right place before the walls slam down. Don’t get squashed. That’s all there is to it.
It is so simple and easy to pick up and that’s exactly why it works so well in local multiplayer. Up to 4 players can play at once and the game cranks up the difficulty in two ways. Firstly, the time you’ve got to reach the exit reduces every so slightly the longer you play. Secondly, the speed of your avatar increases too which means that it becomes trickier to stop in the right place. You’ll find yourself shouting at the screen when you make a terrible decision, overshoot the safe zone or stop on the edge of the zone and get caught when the wall comes down. It’s good fun and whilst there is a little bit of a visual issue at times when multiple players are standing on top of each other, the game plays flawlessly.
As a single player game though, there’s a few modes to enjoy. ExitMan Deluxe has 99 AI competitors for you to battle ranked from A – D and there is a 100-to-1 mode. to battle them. This is find the exit battle royale where you’ll often need to perfect over 60 exit doors to win. You can then battle these AI individually to increase your own ranking system, so as you get better, you’ll get harder AI opponents. When you stop in the yellow door zone in any mode you’ll earn a coin and you can spend these to unlock new avatars to play as. Play as a pigeon, a witch, a nun or a baby. It gives the game extra charm. There is also a challenge mode where you must chain X amount of exits together, X amount of perfect centre yellow zone exits or a tricky mode where you must each the exit but not touch the yellow centre zone. These also award coins for more unlocks.
Will ExitMan Deluxe change your life or the gaming industry? Absolutely not. It is stupidly fun for quick fire bursts of arcade joy. You’ll laugh and scream at how annoying it is when you fail but also when you beat your mates. Keep it to short bursts and maybe add a few shots in and this will earn a place in your local multiplayer rotation.
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