Escape from a Video Game: Mystery on the Starship Crusader

by Dustin Brady, Jesse Brady (Illustrator)

Overview

Blast off into an out-of-this-world mystery where YOU decide what happens next!

From Dustin Brady, the best-selling author of Trapped in a Video Game, comes the second book in the Escape from a Video Game series—an interactive, twist-filled adventure packed with danger, puzzles, and more than 30 possible endings (plus a secret bonus quest!).

This time, you are dropped into a high-stakes challenge inside a video game. The rules? Survive to the end, and you’ll win a million dollars. But there’s a catch: someone on your starship isn’t who they seem. As crewmates begin disappearing one by one, it’s up to you to uncover the traitor before it’s too late. Fans of Among Us will love this space-age whodunnit!

More than just a story, this pick-your-path adventure keeps readers engaged with nonstop action, brain-teasing puzzles, and big surprises around every corner. Once you finish the main quest, the fun isn’t over: Track down every possible ending to unlock a hidden code and reveal a secret online story.

Perfect for kids who love video games (or claim they don’t love books), Escape from a Video Game: Mystery on the Starship Crusader is a fast-paced, screen-free adventure that builds problem-solving skills while keeping readers hooked until the very last page. Whether you’re new to Dustin Brady’s books or already a fan, this is one mission you won’t want to miss.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781524858841
Publisher:	Andrews McMeel Publishing
Publication date:	04/20/2021
Series:	Escape from a Video Game , #2
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.60(d)
Lexile:	590L (what's this?)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Dustin Brady writes funny, action-packed books for kids. Although he regularly gets locked out of his own accounts for forgetting passwords, Dustin still remembers the Super Mario Bros. 3 game genie code for infinite lives. It’s SLXPLOVS. Dustin lives in Cleveland, Ohio, with his wife, kids, and a small dog named Nugget.

Editorial Reviews

2021-03-17
Space adventure meets murder mystery meets video game meets puzzler.

After the reader chooses “yes” in answer to the question “Do you want to play Pemberton’s game?” the second-person protagonist is pulled into a book and wakes as a video game lizard named Dr. Iz. (Choosing “no” lands them on the final page of an Amish romance called The Cheesemaker’s Daughter.) Most people on the titular spaceship, apparently, are other players in the game. One of them, they all learn, is a traitor, and the first successful detective will receive $1 million. It’ll be tricky for the constantly bickering players to work together, though. The stereotyped player characters come from a range of backgrounds: the mom who hates video games, the teenage girl constantly poking at a phone, the condescending professional gamer, the 6-year-old (whose dialogue would better match someone older). Male players are all male aliens in-game, female players’ characters appear as human females illustrated with a variety of skin colors, and the second-person protagonist is male. The mystery is a branching narrative with story choices and puzzles to solve, but most choices lack interesting consequences. Many simply lead the protagonist into another room where he’s able to see a clue before the story branches rejoin, seemingly without consequence. In the climactic reveal, however, long after those apparently arbitrary choices, a summation of a solved mystery involves clues that were only revealed in some of the possible forks. Puzzles are mostly simple spot-the-differences brainteasers while a more complex puzzle does not work, presenting myriad functional answers.

Some well-paced geeky humor is marred by broken or dull puzzles and inconsequential story choices. (Science fiction. 8-11)

Kirkus Reviews