Cube Escape: The Cave

As a free title, I was impressed at how much The Cave was able to feel like another Cube Escape game while still effectively following up the amazing premium title that preceded it. When I played Rusty Lake: Roots, I found it to be the best game in the series so far, and The Cave doesn't beat it out. However, for a title that will inherently have less content, it still managed to wow me!

The Cave managed to connect the story from Roots to the world developed in the rest of the series, cementing the premium game as a must-play. This game made my investment feel even more valuable, as the plot really moved forward here, and I would have been confused beyond belief if I hadn't given in and spent the couple dollars. But even as a standalone, this is a fantastic title. I wouldn't recommend playing it without having played the games that came before, but its puzzles are some of the most cleverly designed in the whole franchise. They were all intuitive and fun, with a couple of them worthy of expansion into their own little puzzle games. The second half of the game (which, by the way, was like a whole additional Cube Escape built right in) started to feel a little slow, but the promise of more story bits (and boy oh boy are they good ones) was enough to keep me going.

With this game and the premium title before it, it's started to feel like the folks over at Rusty Lake have really hit their stride. Not to say the earlier entries weren't enjoyable, but these two really went above and beyond. Because of how closely the story here ties into Roots, this game almost feels like a free DLC or something like that. I wouldn't ever recommend playing it without playing the other games, because you definitely won't appreciate it correctly. However, if you've made it this far in the series already, please don't stop now!

The game is available on Steam here (as of 3/28/21): https://store.steampowered.com/app/1292940/Cube_Escape_Collection/
The game is available for iOS here (as of 3/28/21): https://apps.apple.com/us/app/cube-escape-the-cave/id1209468207

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