the Good Evil GmbH

Factsheet

Developer:
the Good Evil GmbH
Based in Cologne, Germany

Release date:
2023

Regular Price:

tbc

Description

Rascal’s Escape is a Jump & Travel Exploration Adventure game. Be nimble like a Squirrel and strong like a Bear. Unite your forces in the colorful and wild journey across Europe! Work together with your animal friends to follow cheeky Rascal's traces. Learn foreign languages, eat delicious food, climb famous sights, and stomp obstacles away. Take your time to explore each country, find souvenirs, take pictures, dress up and meet new friends. Made for family and friends to play with 1-2 players in local co-op. Coming to Nintendo Switch and PC/Mac.

History

Satisfy your wanderlust!

Discover Europe's treasures from the comfort of your living room. Alone or together with your favourite travel companion you can explore ten unique European cities. Indulge each cities atmosphere. Join traditional festivals and taste local food. "Rascal's Escape" takes you on a cozy adventure.

Two unequal heroes join forces

The friends Squirrel and Bear live on Leaf Island in Berry Town. They have different interests and abilities, but respect each other how they are. Both share a common love for nature. The nimble squirrel carries small objects, like nuts. She jumps across gaps, activates buttons and climbs to lofty heights. Squirrel loves to leave the comfort zone and is not afraid of something "new". The ponderous but mighty bear uses his strength to move heavy objects and pull levers to overcome obstacles. To uncover treasures hidden beneath snow, leaves, and dirt, Bear stomps the ground by doing a little dance. Whenever something is out of the big Bears reach, the two can join forces by Squirrel standing on Bear shoulders and jumping even higher. These abilities let them discover every nook and cranny of a city and help them save the day!

The series continues

With "Rascal's Escape" the Good Evil sends the beloved characters on their next adventure. Previously Squirrel and Bear had to cure the bees by harvesting a magic flower, in the award-winning mobile game "Squirrel & Bear: Learn English". The bee savers Squirrel and Bear benefit from their experience in the previous language adventure. With the help of the grateful bees they discover ten European languages this time. The three grown badger kids were already meant trouble, when Squirrel and Bear saved the winter wonderland surprise in "Squirrel & Bear: Winter Dash". Now Squirrel and Bear have to embark on a rescue mission to bring the cheekiest badger of the three, the Rascal home. Not an easy task, as Rascal has some tricks prepared and is not as innocent as it seems!

An adventure for everyone

Since its beginnings, the Good Evil creates games with purpose for family and friends. "Rascal's Escape" is developed with this family-friendly quality game time in mind. Enabling a unique play experience with your friends, siblings or parents together with the local co-op mode. With "Rascal's Escape" the Good Evil enables their audience to go on a new exiting adventure. By joining their beloved characters, Squirrel and Bear, on the Nintendo Switch and PC, playing together.

An adventure for the developer

Just like the two heros of "Rascals Escape" who are leaving their home for an adventure, the studio and its developers also stepped onto unfamiliar territory creating their first console game. "Together, and each department on their own, went on an adventure. Changing the visuals from 2D to 3D, including the level design for a 3d world. Expanding the movement from touch controls to full gamepad controls. Allowing single and two player co-op. But the cherry on top are the nearly 10 hours of gameplay created to catch that little Rascal!", says the founder of the Good Evil Linda Kruse. The independent game studio from Cologne was founded in 2013 and creates games, that make the world a better place. Starting with mobile games and web games, the studio evolved over the years creating games for various target audiences and platforms. Among the recent development for consoles, like the Nintendo Switch, they create games and experiences for virtual reality. From the initial idea in 2016 to release of "Rascal's Escape" seven years later the Good Evil did smaller and bigger iterations. The lead programmer Barbara von Hunnius explains: "We iterated both on the game and our underlying framework the 'Evil System' to adapt for Nintendo Switch. Some of our biggest challenges came from the split screen mode combinded with the unique narrative gameplay." Ulla Schmidt, the 2D artist and animator of the characters explains the visual decision and why people are surprised at first, when playing the game. "Everybody knows Squirrel and Bear in 2D. We wanted to stay true to the visual appearence and thus built the 3D levels for 2D characters. It comes as a surprise to the players, that the levels are 3D. You can move freely in depth, though all of the 60 characters in game are drawn and animated in 2D."