Cube Escape: Paradox

Cube Escape: Paradox managed to achieve a lot of firsts for the series, offering a level of production previously unprecedented in the world of Rusty Lake. The biggest addition here is an absolutely fantastic short film based on the game, offering a more atmospheric dive into the mysterious world that we've come to love. Paradox is also the first Cube Escape title to offer DLC, letting you have both the usual full-size game for free and a more substantial second chapter for a little less than a Rusty Lake title. I honestly loved this approach, as I still got the game that I was expecting, and, as an excuse to support the developers more, I got an even better game to top it off. 

Because Paradox encompasses two chapters and a short film, all of which take place in the same room, I found its premise to be very clever. Our favorite detective, Dale Vandermeer, returns to the spotlight as he attempts to learn the secrets of the room he's trapped in with the hope of eventually escaping. However, no matter how many times he manages to get out, he eventually finds himself waking up in the same room again. This seemingly endless cycle means that all three versions of the story, as well as their alternate endings, can be simultaneously canon to Dale's experience in the lake. Said alternate endings were also rather interesting, as they require you to watch the short film for clues to use in the two chapters. The differences are somewhat minor, but they feel important to the story and were fun to unlock.

In terms of actual gameplay and puzzles, Paradox is, in my opinion, the best-crafted Cube Escape game yet. A lot of different factors led to this conclusion, but the biggest was the quality of the minigame-style puzzles. The Cube Escape series tends to have two different varieties of puzzles that I refer to as environmental and minigame, respectively. Environmental puzzles involve interacting with the environment, often with items, in order to progress, whereas minigame puzzles involve playing a small game to acquire a new item or trigger an environmental change. While minigame puzzles can be fun, they were all too often long-winded or boring in previous titles. Paradox fixed this, with a few exceptions, by paring down the length of the minigames and increasing their variety. A few of them even seemed directly inspired by Professor Layton and the Curious Village, which I definitely appreciated.

It's clear just from the menu screen that Cube Escape: Paradox is a very ambitious game, at least relative to the rest of Rusty Lake's titles. As a free game, a premium game, and a short film in one neat package, I often felt like I was working towards this title as some kind of final reward while I made my way throughout the rest of the series. Don't get me wrong, the earlier games were all fantastic experiences, and I believe my reviews attest to that point, but Paradox managed to be so much more for me. The limited story flowed well, the puzzles were engaging, and the replayability was surprising. The developers put everything they had learned over the years into this title, and it shows. However, you'd be lost if you skipped the rest of the series to play this, so don't do that. Instead, consider this the game to work towards. It will be well worth the wait.

The game is available on Steam here (as of 6/5/21): https://store.steampowered.com/app/909080/Cube_Escape_Paradox/
The game is available for iOS here (as of 6/5/21): https://apps.apple.com/us/app/cube-escape-paradox/id1372021096

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