When you first gain control of a video game protagonist, often one from an Adventure Game, they've got a task to do. Many times that task is to get out of the room they're in. The difficulty of this task can vary; sometimes it's as simple as opening a forgotten window, while other times it requires several minutes of fussing with items. This task is usually a Justified Tutorial to the mechanics of the game, letting the player get used to the controls while not getting overwhelmed with enemies or things to do.
Note that for it to qualify as an example of this trope, the task of getting out of that particular room must be the first task of the game, but not the entire game (see Room Escape Game for that). Also, being confined to a single room but not having the task of escaping is not this trope.
Depending on why and how the protagonist is trapped in the first place, can overlap with In Medias Res, You All Meet in a Cell, and/or You Wake Up in a Room.
Examples:
- Ghost of a Tale starts with the player character waking up in a prison cell. The first task is obviously trying to get out.
- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: While the first part of the game serves as an extended tutorial for Link in his human form, the first thing he needs to do once he wakes up in a cell as a wolf is to dig his way out (also serving to get the player to learn how wolf senses and digging work). Escaping the castle teaches the other mechanics of wolf form, such as tightropes, jumping, and combat.
- Second Sight: In the first mission, John Vattic wakes up handcuffed to a hospital bed in an unfamiliar research facility, unable to remember much more beyond his own name. His first task is to use his newfound Psychic Powers to escape.
- Subverted in The Adventures of Willy Beamish. Once you gain control of Willy, he's in detention. His initial task is getting out of the classroom and then school by sneaking past Ms. Glass when she falls asleep, tricking Coach Beltz with a fake hall pass in the hall, and bribing Spider in the bathroom. However, it's possible to just wait the detention out and leave a little later, though he'll discover his report card has already been taken.
- Alice Is Dead: You start Part One at the bottom of a deep pit, which you need to escape from to progress. Part Two begins with you in a locked room that you need to escape from. (Part Three, for variety, is about having to break into various locked places.)
- The Broken Sword series uses this in Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror, it sees George tied to a chair and trapped in a room with the door on fire and a poisonous spider approaching him after the opening cutscene. In the third game, Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon, Nico isn't trapped anywhere, however George is stuck in a plane hanging over a cliff.
- Changed: Colin's first task upon waking up is to escape his holding chamber, as the vent is too small to climb through and the door is locked. The solution is to lure the living milk puddle out of the vent and down the drain so that Colin can press the emergency door unlock inside the vent.
- Thy Dungeonman:
- The first objective of Thy Dungeonman 2 is to escape from a prison cell. The solution is to open the cell door.
- Thy Dungeonman 3 begins similarly, although the method of escape is a bit more complicated this time.
- Escape From Rungistan, an old Apple II game. You started off in a prison cell and had to escape from it before continuing with the game.
- In Fallen London, your character starts out in a cell in New Newgate Prison (the game's Justified Tutorial), and your first endeavor is to escape and leave via airship.
- Flight of the Amazon Queen begins with Joe's rival locking him in a hotel room. He has to get out by moving some sheets aside to reveal a laundry chute and sliding down.
- All three episodes of Hector: Badge of Carnage start like this with Hector trapped or locked in and having to escape to start the main plot. He has to escape out of a prison cell, a partially collapsed building, and finally from a Death Trap septic tank.
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1984) begins with the puzzle of escaping the one room of your house, which is about to be bulldozed. Your main obstacle is a terrible hangover.
- I Have 1 Day: As soon as you start, you're imprisoned for trespassing on the castle grounds. While the guard says he'll let you out early if you clean up the cell in 3 hours, it's better to turn a loose brick to escape, replace yourself with a scarecrow, and leave prison, as time is of the essence.
- Adventure-game-slash-platformer Inquisitive Dave starts with the titular protagonist locked in a two-screen prison cell.
- Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love for Sail!: Larry's task before he takes a cruise and the main game begins is getting out of Shamara's hotel room, which has been set on fire. He first must leave the bed, then break a window and jump out of it.
- Played with in the Adam Cadre game Lock And Key: You start in a prison cell, and can't continue until you've figured out how to escape. When you do, it turns out you're a security expert who's been hired to test the prison's security, and the rest of the game is about making it properly escape-proof.
- Lure of the Temptress starts with the protagonist in a prison cell.
- Przygody Reksia: The third game begins with Reksio locked inside a magical trap. The first task is to follow the white rabbit who shows Reksio the correct path. The rabbit leaves him alone after they get inside a room with a mirror, so it is up to Kretes to free Reksio from the prison.
- The second SPY Fox game begins with the titular hero cornered by Mooks in a ski lodge.
- Uninvited: As soon as the game starts, you have to get out of your car within four turns, otherwise you burn to death in it.
- Cold Winter begins with your escape from a Red Chinese political prison. You even get to execute the Torture Technician who's been flogging you for days.
- The Western-themed FPS Dead Man's Hand have El Tejon, the player protagonist, subjected to a Frame-Up in the backstory and thrown into the villain General Blanco's prison. The first stage depicts El Tejon's escape with a massive shootout against prison guards.
- Doom (2016): The game starts with the Doom Slayer shackled on an examination table surrounded by dead bodies and an enemy shambling toward them. The Slayer/Player manages to free one hand, kill the enemy, arm themselves and kill more, find their armor in the next room, and then fight their way out of the facility. Only then does the title actually appear.
- The very first level of Unreal has the Player Character escaping from the Prison Ship they were locked in. The ship itself has crashed in a desolate planet, but the first level is spent trying to get the way out.
- The Unreal Tournament Game Mod Operation Na Pali begins with the Player Character being caught after landing on Na Pali. The first level is about getting out of the prison base.
- Wolfenstein series: The very first mission of both Wolfenstein 3-D and Return to Castle Wolfenstein (PC only) involve B.J. Blazkowicz escaping from a prison the only way he knows: by gunning down everyone porting a Nazi uniform.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom: The game starts off inside SpongeBob's pineapple house where the very first task is to collect enough Shiny Objects to gain access to his closet and collect a Golden Spatula to unlock his front door, thus going outside.
- Need for Speed: The Run opens with the protagonist waking up in a car that's in a crusher. The first thing to do is a Quicktime Event to escape the car before it's completely crushed.
- Dark Souls: The player is an Undead who has been locked in an asylum; the game begins when someone drops a key into your cell, allowing you explore the rest of the Asylum, defeat the first boss, and escape to explore the rest of the game.
- Planescape: Torment starts with you waking up in a locked room inside the Mortuary. Your first task is getting out of the room, then you have to get out of the Mortuary as well.
- Pokémon Insurgence: The first time the player becomes playable has them (with the help of Mew) attempt to escape the building that the Cult of Darkrai was holding them hostage in.
- Wizardry IV starts with Werdna waking up in a sealed room in his dungeon. And you need to escape. It was notable because the puzzle was so Nintendo Hard (Wizardry IV being arguably one of the hardest PC games of all time) that the solution to this first puzzle came packaged in the box. The player needs to summon clerics, go in random encounter until the clerics cast light (You can't make them cast anything, they decide what to do randomly) which then lets the player see the door and cross it.
- Apocalypse starts with Trey Kincaid's escape from the Reverend's prison in the first stage, where he managed to sneak his trusty machine-gun into his cell, raid the armories, and battle a huge tank in the prison courtyard before escaping to the sewers.
- The first stage of Twin Caliber, "Unlikely Partnership" is set in a prison with Sheriff Fortman bailing death row inmate Valdez from his cell. And then they realize the prison is overrun with zombies and decide to work together to kill their way out.
- HEPH: The game begins with the Player Character stuck in a small room with a locked door and no key. In order to escape from the room, the player needs to break down the objects in the room and use their basic components to make a key card.
- Dragon Quest Builders opens with the protagonist waking up in an underground room. There's a door but it's initially too high to reach; he has to first learn the basics of how to collect raw materials and craft and place items in order to escape.
- The Elder Scrolls:
- The Elder Scrolls: Arena starts off with the player character in the Imperial City prison. You're aided in escaping by the ghost of Jagar Tharn's apprentice, who was loyal to the Crown.
- The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion starts similarly, only this time you get out because the Emperor's escape tunnel leads through your cell, and His Majesty lets you tag along.
- Mass Effect:
- In Mass Effect 2, after the Prologue (which has you helping someone else escape), you wake up on a station under attack and have to get to a shuttle.
- Mass Effect 3 starts with the Reaper attack on Earth starting, and you having to get to an evac point.
Non-video game examples:
- In Escape Room (2019), the first challenge involves the participants escaping from the lobby, which is on fire.
- In Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), after the guardians are formed, as they all met in the space prison called the Kyln, one of their first objectives as a team is to figure out how to escape and rendezvous on Star Lord's confiscated ship.
- Lady Blackbird opens with the Player Party locked up in a brig of an Imperial patrol airship, with their first task being to get out of said brig so they can search for their own seized airboat.
- Scum and Villainy: The pre-baked "starting situation" for a Firedrake crew has them escape from the Isotropa Supermax space prison by stealing an impounded spaceship and making a break for it.
