I haven't beaten this. Dunno if that means it's impossible because I suck at puzzle games, I just wanted to say that the concept and mechanics of this one are AWESOME. The graphics and sfx are great too and everything just meshes together really well. Wonderful job!

Nice game, very fun and creative, the mechanics and the concept are very innovative and nice, and the graphics and sfx are very neat! Unfortunately I suck at puzzles, so I couldn't complete it. Anyways, great work!

Great concept here :)
The first level is quite hard and a more progressive beginning would be welcome, but when you get the trick the game turns into something really interesting and challenging.

The game looks like an arcade at first look, but in fact, it's definitely a great puzzle game!

I played it but had to beat the game due to time with only 13/16 diamonds and missing an item. I think it must be possible to get all the diamonds, but I wonder if it's possible to save all the prisoners as well.

so hard!

Nice game!! Too hard too :P

Love this one, although it took me a little while off the bat to figure out what was happening. I'm also not so sure about the dark rooms, feels to be working against the games greatest strength. Other than that I love the game, characters and animations are awesome, and it's really cool that it is an adventure / puzzle.

Really really cool, but extremely hard. Get's a bit tedious after failing a few times.

The first level was a very good introduction to the concept. The rest made me feel stupid. I just couldn't thing enough steps in advance to avoid getting screwed.

Fantastic game. Its rare that you see a tile based puzzler that seems to be something new. Nice idea and expertly executed. Good job.

That's a great game I've played for fun, yesterday.
I confirm, it's finishable.
The four items are catchable :
Key (A must have :p)
Steak ?!
Flashlight
Pick Axe (Not necessary, but that's cool !)

You don't need to save all the prisoners ... They are used like ... shields ... Three of them must die to finish the game.
And ... Sorry, I didn't get all the diamonds ...

(I wish I'll take a printscreen, next time ...)

Nice idea and concept and execution! Really top notch!

But it really is too hard, from the beginning. (Or it isn't too hard but just "too much" - try to reduce the amount of blocks in the first levels, that should help.)

Gorgeous, fun game! Very well done.

Brilliant idea with wonderful attention to detail. Outstanding work on design, implementation and polish. Sound a bit weak, though, in an otherwise incredible effort.

This was definitely a solid gem to play and probably a top runner for the competition. Needing to both push and break blocks in proper order was an amazing mechanic.

First of all, let me say this is an amazing game.

But I encountered a weird bug that crashed it. I was walking around with a prisoner in-tow, and he walked on top of a solitary block. Well, I needed to push that block, and when I did my character and the prisoner we on the same tile. The game didn't like that very much and froze.

Very nice game! Can't believe I just spent an hour playing this...

This is great! Love the thought that went into the level design.

Nice work! Graphics are cool, gameplay is punchy, and effects fit.

This is, however, badly in need of some balancing. You spend a lot of time failing and trying to figure out what to do.

top notch, a very compelling and fun game. Really well done and feels very polished. One of the best so far, I liked how hard it was, failing a lot was ok because of the check points, with out them it would be unplayable. High scores all round.

This game is great! I agree with the previous comment that tension between destroying blocks and saving them to be pushed is great. The large levels are fun. It would be nice to have some instructions about goals and how the other prisoners work, but I figured it out pretty quickly. Great game! 5 stars!

Like the art style and love the idea, main character is funny. It's a puzzle game though and nor central to the theme. Would really love an undo button.

Great game. Quite challenging but really well designed.. Cheers!

This might be my favorite game of the compo. I'd buy it if it were a mobile game.

Nice arcade feel. Good work! :-)

Difficult, but really cool. Love the graphics, animations, the style and the gameplay mechanic! Brilliant stuff!

Surprisingly difficult, but also soo much fun! Very nice, polished little gem. Congrats!

Beautifully polished game, but I'd definitely need some simpler levels to start with!

How did you go about deciding the blocks for each of the levels? I can tell that some blocks were placed at very deliberate places but at places that just kind of have a random fill, were those done randomly or was every single block placed with intent?

Very cool game!

How didn't I find you game before!! Great concept!

Lovely idea. But I can't get out of level 1! Hit blues to get into the other cell. If I move the greens or reds more than a space, I get zapped. I go digging into the bit at the top, and whatever I do from there, I eventually encounter an inverted-L of greens that completely blocks my path. If I dig at that, I get zapped.

Unless I'm missing something, I can't see how to get to the top of the screen... Hints?

*sigh* Never mind. Idiot. Push blocks to fill gap.

@moogthedog the first level is way too hard, I was not able to see that in the 48h...

@none some blocks are placed randomly, you can check this in the map on this post-mortem http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2011/08/23/i-could-not-escape-leveldesign/

@all thank you for the comments, I will try to make a better difficulty curve next time ! ^__^

I finished the game with all of the diamonds. This game is brilliant! I didn't have any problem with the difficulty curve, except perhaps with the initial difficulty of understanding which blocks would be affected when I destroyed one, but that wasn't too hard to figure out eventually. I love this game and you can bet I'll be back to play it again - maybe this time I can free all the prisoners too? :)

I loved it!
But I don't know... it definitely was challenging, but not too hard!
I got the key after 2 hours straight gaming... maybe because the key was my only target!
I also got the steak, 6 diamonds and "used" 4 prisoners... they were awesome to get along with some pretty tough situations!

did I do something wrong? I don't know! :)

ah, and I also got the pick axe! :D

Nice! I helped myself by drawing a map, collected 14 diamonds, picked torch, steak, axe and key and made it to the exit. But I "used" all the prisoners - poor bastards...

great concept!
i left jail after 20 min playing, i dont think its hard.

would be lovley if you create more levels with harder puzzles
thumbs up

Great Game ... Solved it ... no big problem though ... never had to think more than 30 secs, got zapped two times 'cause of not being cautious enough ... one time only 'cause I tried to put the flashlight in the middle of the screen for a screenshot ... didn't free any prisoners 'cause the game crashed once when one of them got in the way ... so I had to leave one diamond with one of them ... nobody needs to be killed as a shield to solve the puzzle.
Now I have a screenshot of the maze but can't post it here ... Only thing you need is the key ... the axe speeds up the hitting ... be carefull after grabbing it ... W/o the flashlight of course the dark levels would be tricky ... Wonder what the meat was for :-) ... Fun to play if you like Sokoban and Bolder Dash ...

First: I finally was able to leave Jail with all four tools, sixteen diamonds and eleven prisoners, and not a single alarm raised!
It took several attempts to find out the optimal strategy for each chamber. And it was an advantage that the fields that were intended to be randomly filled always look the same instead.
Second: There ramain a few problems in the program.
One must not move while the follower does, or that one might step on places where he should not (other prisoners, coloured stones).
Some chanbers can be left at places where the adjacent chanmer has a wall on the other side. This turns these walls into ground.
If you pass a door several times it fills up with red stones one by one.