Salary Man Escape

2 Minute Video Review →
Salary Man Escape is a physics-based puzzle game.
In each level you’re presented with a miniature scene which contains a small salary man, and a door. You don’t control the salary man, but if there’s a clear path toward the exit then he’ll automatically walk towards it.
What you can do is manipulate the red blocks and platforms to rearrange the scene. Things start off pretty simple, as you would expect, and the later levels become real head scratchers.
The coffee cups act as checkpoints, so if you get stuck you can try again without restarting from the very beginning of the level.
The art style is pretty cool. It’s a mostly monochromatic world which allows the red blocks to stand out and be easily seen.
There’s 78 levels, with an estimated 8 hours of gameplay. So there’s a lot of content in here. And VR isn’t required, you can play this in regular flatscreen as well.
I found this pretty fun. If you’re a puzzle fan then I definitely recommend it.

I'm a fan of puzzle games so I immediately checked it out when a friend told me about this. The puzzles start out pretty easy, but they get hard fast. It gets more interesting as you go onto later levels because the puzzles become more physics dependent - it definitely put my puzzle solving skills to test and pushed me to the limit. That being said, I definitely recommend playing into the later stages to really gauge the difficulty of the game as a whole. Complaints would be that the time limit made it frustrating sometimes since I would have to start over in the midst of a hard puzzle, but it does fit in with the entire concept of the salaryman working on a deadline I suppose.

Don't be fooled... The puzzle gets harder! The music is groovy and blends nicely with the simple, dark theme of the game. Sometimes there were couple of issues moving the blocks around, but overall, I enjoyed it.There are lots of chapters to play, different non-repetitive puzzles to solve and some levels to unlock (which I haven't unlocked all yet), so more challenges for me. Worth it for an indie game. Now on to the next puzzles...

Salary Man has a unique style. The visual and auditory appeal is just as nice in game as the screenshots and videos make out.
There are plenty of brain teasers and small extras for which to aim. Even though the overall game progression is very linear, there is joy to be had. The puzzles are well done and the physics make it feel real.
Controlling the game can be a bit rough at times. Either with VR or with the mouse, there will be times where moving the blocks is a physical struggle (e.g. due to screen space.) This does not hinder gameplay all that much however, so there is not much reason to worry.
So basically if the style appeals, the gameplay looks fun, or you just love puzzle or VR games, it is worth a shot!

I like the overall atmosphere that the game sets, it harkens back to childhood days playing Jenga with friends (but this is way more challenging). Some points I liked:
Puzzles
- challenging
- addicting
- so many levels to unlock
-
Music
- funky retro love it (even if I don't understand it, now I have LSS)
Controls
- easy (not using any gear)
Quotes
- the best!
Definitely worth it if you like brain teaser puzzle games!

Honestly the puzzles are challenging and will give any puzzle gamer a run for their money. I like what the game is trying to get at with the whole salaryman and depressing workplace kind of thing, the concept in itself is quite unique, so that's definitely something to applaud. There are still aspects of the game that need to be more polished though, and hopefully the devs will continue with patching so more puzzle fans can find out about this game.

Pros
1) puzzles are nicely designed and there are different mechanisms that make the puzzle solving more varied in each chapter
2) the music is original and creates a good atmosphere
3) I like what the developers are getting at with the whole satirical salaryman thing
Cons
1) unable to advance further if you're stuck on a level...the difficulty curve is big
2) trouble moving blocks sometimes