Get to the exit. Simple enough, right?
It doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter what you've done. What matters is where you are, in a small, dark room adjacent to an arena filled with spinning blades and swinging axes. If the signpost to your right is to be believed, reaching the other side will win you your freedom. If you fail . . . let's not talk about that. Either way, the crowds will cheer.
An uncharacteristically dark platformer from jmtb02. Play it here
. Play the second game here
Tropes in Exit Path include:
- Big Brother Is Watching: Central has surveillance throughout the city and in the most unexpected of places, as seen in 2. As one of the signs say, "Everyone wins when Central knows."
- Bottomless Pits: Littered all throughout the game, and as deadly as one would expect of a bottomless pit.
- Bloodless Carnage: If you hit a trap, your character, being a plain stick figure, will break apart in a not-so gruesome manner.
- Bread and Circuses: The main theme of the first game, with your competing in the initial set of obstacle courses being overseen by hundreds of people in a large stadium.
- Bullet Time: "Flow," charged up by running in one direction for several seconds.
- Character Customisation: The runner's primary and secondary colors, headware, and handware are all customisable.
- Checkpoint: The start of every level, as well as any flags you hit in the middle of a level, are all this.
- Computerized Judicial System: Halfway through the second game, Central captures you, and runs you through an automated jury system, which instantly deems you guilty. The whole process has shades of Kangaroo Court as well.
- Condemned Contestant: The player is a criminal or dissident of some kind, forced to run through a deadly obstacle course for the entertainment of the masses with the vague promise of freedom at the end. They're referred to as a "runner."
- Couldn't Find a Pen: The sign immediately preceding the 'Freedom' path has "THERE IS NO FREEDOM" painted over it in blood.
- Death Course: Every single level is filled with lethal obstacles. This is justified by the premise of the game, as explained under Condemned Contestant.
- Dystopia: Conveyed almost entirely through signposts. The unnamed city is controlled entirely by Central, who keep the city in line through a combination of Sinister Surveillance, Bread and Circuses, and Kangaroo Courts that hand down harsh punishments for breaching their complex laws. Any personal initiative, desire for freedom, or acting outside of your Central-assigned role is considered dangerous if not criminal.
- End-Game Results Screen: The first game gives your total time and a nickname after the Mini-Game Credits.
- Energy Weapon: Large turrets are emplaced in several levels; if you're not behind cover, they'll fire a red laser beam and slowly auto-aim at you, killing you on contact.
- Footnote Fever: There's an asterisk on every signpost that has text, and the smaller message tends to reveal that the larger one isn't entirely accurate.
- Ground by Gears: One of several different ways you can get offed.
- 100% Completion: There's a caution sign to collect in every level.
- Kangaroo Court: Central has an automated jury that, when you're caught, immediately finds you guilty with no differing opinions, and they leave you to be shoved into a series of saw blades (but that's never stopped you, even without flow). The surprise is lost a little if you managed to glance at a sign further back that says "All citizens are guilty unless proven innocent!"
- La Résistance: Downplayed. By the time of Exit Path 2 a small community of escapees from the city has formed underground and survive by stealing food from above, though they don't do much resisting of Central's rule. This is probably because Central is either Running Both Sides or outright created the community as part of their "Anarchist Studies" programme.
- Loads and Loads of Loading: The sequel suffers from this, with loading screens appearing in between levels that are usually short, but some levels can take about nearly a minute to load.
- Mission Control Is Off Its Meds: Central, a faceless government organization that communicates to you wholly through signs. These signs gradually become increasingly sinister or even outright malevolent as the game goes on, ending in them actively trying to kill you.
- Multiple Endings: In the sequel, which ends with you sabotaging a power plant, you can choose to escape alone in the Self Destruct sequence that follows or take an alternate exit where you are given a chance to free several prisoners on your way out. The difference is mainly an aesthetic one, with the latter showing a brighter sunrise and a group of other prisoners gathered around the player on a hillside.
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Nintendo Hard: You are going to get sliced into little pieces many, many times before you beat this game. - Ominous Latin Chanting: In the "Judgement" track when you're captured, and remixed for the endgame in "Collapse", when you blow up the power plant.
- Riddle for the Ages: What got the protagonist imprisoned and forced to run the exit path? The game never explains why they were imprisoned by Central at the start of the first game.
- Running Both Sides: Either this or very close to it in the sequel - Central has enough control of the rebellion that they can "randomly" assign specific rebels to try and steal food. They know exactly who'll be sent and exactly when they'll be sent, so they can capture any rebel who gets too inconvenient.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Your character has the power to immediately rewind to the last checkpoint upon death.
- Speed Echoes: The runner has several grey version of himself behind him while using the flow ability.
- Spikes of Doom: The course is veritably littered with spikes, spiked wheels, spiked crushers, etc., all of which will instantly kill you if touched.
- The Cake Is a Lie: Central was never intending to set you free, even if you survived the Stadium and completed your audit.
- The Reveal:
- "THERE IS NO FREEDOM" — the 'Exit Path' you were promised actually leads to a set of spiky gears above a Bottomless Pit, which Central has been using to exterminate any runners that complete the Stadium and Audit phases.
- La Résistance is at least partly run by Central, with any inconvenient rebels being sent on "Food Collection" duties (in truth, a Suicide Mission rigged to leave them at the mercy of Central's Kangaroo Court.)
- Timed Mission: Towards the end of the sequel, you must sabotage a power plant to disrupt Central's operations. Then you have one minute to escape the ensuing Self Destruct sequence alive, and this sequence repeats until you complete it successfully.
- Too Fast to Stop: Frequently the cause of your demise - the game keeps track of momentum, so moving too fast makes it very likely you'll skid off a platform and fall into a Bottomless Pit when you land.
- Video Game Caring Potential: In the sequel, you can choose to save some prisoners during your evacuation of the power plant after you've sabotaged it to melt down in one minute, and then get a Golden Ending where they get to join you watching the power plant explode from a safe distance.
- Win Your Freedom: The premise of the game is that the runner has to run through a Death Course; if they survive, they're granted amnesty and set free.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: The arena's ten levels long. The game has thirty levels. Unsurprisingly, the player has to go through a mandatory audit followed by an escape sequence before the game is done.
