Escape By Spoon Looks Like Shawshank Redemption Meets Cuphead and I Need It
A two-person studio is building a prison escape game where your only tool is a spoon. The 1930s rubber hose art style and run-based digging loop already have press buzzing.
The pitch is absurd in the best way. You are a prisoner. Your only tool is a spoon. You dig down, loot what you find, sell it back in the prison yard, upgrade your gear, and dig again. Each run takes you deeper into increasingly strange underground landscapes. Guards patrol above. Creatures lurk below. And the whole thing is drawn in 1930s rubber hose animation, the same visual language as Steamboat Willie and Cuphead.
That is Escape By Spoon, and it grabbed more press attention in its first week than most indie games get in a year.
What Makes This One Stand Out
The obvious comparison is Cuphead for the art style, but the gameplay loop is closer to Dave the Diver. You alternate between the surface (your prison cell, the yard, the black market) and underground expeditions where you dig, fight, and scavenge. Each run is a gamble. You manage stamina, light, health, sound level, and inventory space. Make too much noise and the guards investigate. Run out of light and you are digging blind.
Paiband Game Studio describes it as blending action, digging mechanics, and light horror. The horror comes from tension rather than jump scares. As you dig deeper, the environments shift from packed dirt to increasingly surreal biomes. The cartoon art style creates a jarring contrast with the dangers underground, which only makes the suspense hit harder.
The progression loop ties it all together. Sell your loot, upgrade your spoon (yes, you upgrade the spoon), buy better equipment, and push deeper on the next run. It is the kind of “one more run” design that makes games like Dave the Diver so addictive.
A Two-Person Studio with a Decade of History
Escape By Spoon comes from Paiband Game Studio, a small indie team. Their other project, Restore Your Island, is a cozy island restoration sim launching on Steam this week. Escape By Spoon is a sharp pivot into something darker and more action-oriented, but the craftsmanship in the trailer suggests they know exactly what they are doing.
The studio explicitly states on the Steam page that the game was created without the use of generative AI. In the current climate, that is a statement worth noting.
When Can You Play It?
Escape By Spoon is listed as Coming Soon on Steam with a target of late 2026. No price has been announced yet. A demo is expected at a future Steam Next Fest, though no specific date has been confirmed.
The game will launch on Windows. It is already localized in 16 languages including English, French, Japanese, Korean, and Simplified Chinese, which is ambitious for a small studio.
Why This Is On Our Radar
The combination of a proven gameplay loop (dig, sell, upgrade, repeat), a striking art style that immediately sets it apart, and a pitch you can explain in one sentence makes Escape By Spoon the kind of indie game that builds a massive wishlist before it even has a release date. IGN, GameSpace, and nearly a dozen outlets covered the trailer within days of its reveal. That level of organic buzz is rare for a small indie studio.
If the final game delivers on what the trailer promises, this could be one of the standout indie releases of late 2026. Add it to your Steam wishlist now and keep an eye on it.
Escape By Spoon is coming to Steam late 2026. Wishlist it on Steam.
Written by
Florian HuetiOS dev by day, indie game dev by night. Trying to give life to GameDō Studio.
Building games and talking about the ones I can't stop playing.
