Escape Comics: The Alien Ship (Jumping High Five) // Review

Escape Comics: The Alien Ship is a tabletop sci-fi adventure game with a comic book narrative, escape room-style puzzles, and tactile components. Developed over the last 8 years, it is the passion project of Douglas and Evan from Jumping High Five Games. Are you ready to save the world?

Players: 1-4 // Age: 13+ // Playtime: 4-8 hours

What you need: A pencil/paper for notes.

Please note: Jumping High Five Games sent me a copy of this game in exchange for an honest review. This in no way influences the content of my review, which accurately reflects my experience.

First impressions

I’m not a big comic book reader, but I do love tabletop escape games, so my interest was piqued when I came across Escape Comics: The Alien Ship. I first saw it a couple of years ago, while hunting for puzzle games on Kickstarter. It was listed as ‘coming soon’, but had been for so long that I thought the project had been abandoned. Late last year, Evan – one of the creators – posted to say that the campaign would be launching in 2026, confirming that the fires of creativity were indeed still burning. After years of development, testing and refinement, the campaign has now officially launched.

Douglas and Evan have said that it is unlikely that the game will hit retail due to the complex manufacturing requirements. So if you are keen to grab a copy after reading this review, you should head straight over to Kickstarter to secure a copy.

Presentation

Part of why this game appealed to me was the really eye-catching box design. Mauricio Salfate and Maria Becvar have both done a stellar job with both the box art and other illustrations throughout the game. They utilise a colour palette of alien greens, blues and purples which fully embrace the sci-fi theme. The box itself stays true to the comic book roots and showcases the distinctive art style used throughout the game. I also enjoyed how humour was conveyed through the character’s facial expressions and poses, along with the alien creature design.

This is the first escape room game the team have designed, but they do have a background in board games. This shows with the top-notch quality of both the box and its contents. The physical components you unlock at different points in the game were satisfying to interact with and well-designed. Everything feels really polished, which I can assure you is not always the case in these campaigns. The prototype I played felt very much like a final version of the game, although I imagine a few tweaks will be made before it is released.

Gameplay

Getting started

The box contains everything you need to play the game. It is a completely analogue experience that won’t require searching the internet or downloading an app. This means you can play it anywhere you like, as you might with most standard board games.

You play as the Captain of an Escape Troop, who has just awoken from Cryosleep. Lifting the lid reveals a cardboard insert with some brief gameplay instructions, aka the “mission protocol”. The actual flow of gameplay is incredibly simple, but this brief guide introduces you to your mission equipment and the scoring system. More on that later!

The Comic Book

One of Escape Comics’ USPs is that, perhaps unsurprisingly, the linear narrative is delivered in comic book form. As you turn the pages, the twists and turns of the story unfold through traditional comic book panels and dialogue bubbles. At certain points, you’ll be instructed to ‘STOP’ and retrieve an envelope with a matching icon from the box. These contain physical components that are used to solve puzzles, often in combination with the comic book.

One of the most exciting things about The Alien Ship is the way in which physical items you need literally leap off the pages. Hands bound by alien handcuffs? You’ll get to pull these out of an envelope and place them on your own hands. I loved how immersive this makes gameplay. There was one occasion where I felt like the use of an envelope was needlessly wasteful. Having spoken to one of the designers, I’ve been told that the team did explore removing this. Unfortunately, it caused too much confusion in playtesting when it wasn’t present, so they kept it in.

The story itself was engaging, humorous and twisty – it just would be nice to see a bit more of it. I wonder if I feel like this because I’m not as familiar with the comic book format. I’m used to more prose or dialogue in the games I play. Comic readers may well find it hits the mark perfectly.

Puzzles

A lot of thought went into the puzzle design, with some creative uses of well-known mechanics. Some items you’ll use to solve puzzles include a mechanical arm, an alien head and a set of holographic maps. There is a jigsaw to complete, a cipher to crack, and a 3D cosmic shrink ray to be calibrated. The mix of 2D and 3D components allows for some varied gameplay and puzzle types. I really enjoyed the tactile nature of some of the more intricate items as well.

When you solve a puzzle, you will have three ‘planet’ symbols. To verify these, you must use the automated intelligence system, aka ‘Clairvoyance’ or ‘Clair’ for short. This takes the form of a decoder ring, similar to those used in the Exit games. First, find the relevant envelope icon, then line up the three coloured rings with the correct planet symbols. This will reveal a number that corresponds to a card in the answer card deck. When you turn this over, you’ll reveal a red ‘Failure’ card or a ‘Maybe’ card with the 9 envelope symbols. Use the answer card number next to the envelope symbol, and you may find a ‘Success’ card. This will instruct you to turn to the next page in the comic and continue your mission.

There is a ‘Mission Score’ system that I personally chose to ignore. You can use this to keep a tally of your score as you play, with points deducted when you take the wrong answer card or use a hint.

Hints & Difficulty

The game is estimated to take between 4 and 8 hours, depending on experience. I finished it in about 2 1/2, but I’ve obviously played a lot of puzzle games. I didn’t find it overly difficult, although a couple of the puzzles took a little longer to click.

Despite your experience level, there is a hint – or “Team Support” – deck on hand that can be used at any point during the game. There are tiered hints for each puzzle, and a full solution if required. Using the hints does impact your overall mission score, but whether you utilise that particular game mechanic is up to you.

Verdict