Samsara Room

As a game made to celebrate the fifth anniversary of Rusty Lake and with a name separated from the Cube Escape branding, one would expect a pretty grand new experience from this game. Instead, Samsara Room feels like a Cube Escape game released five years ago. Sure, there are some quality of life improvements over the first games in the series, but the relative simplicity of the rooms and the absence of any minigame-style puzzles leaves this game feeling unexpectedly basic.

After the impressive depth of story and gameplay found in the previous five entries in the series, I was surprised by how much of a step back this game was. However, overlooking that disappointment for a bit, I do remember loving the older Cube Escape games more for their eerie world than their puzzles, and Samsara Room is just as enjoyable as those older titles for generally the same reasons. It's also not very fair of me to complain about a completely free game. What it does, it does well. This is especially evident in the story. With the groundwork of the world built up five years strong, the developers were able to return us to the shoes of a character that hasn't been in the limelight for a long time. In that same vein, we are given a new look into an extremely important event in the Rusty Lake narrative, which I very much appreciate.

To celebrate five years of Rusty Lake, the developers took us back to the start. Samsara Room isn't what I was expecting, nor was it what I was hoping for, but it's still a respectable entry in the series, and it didn't cost me a penny. I don't think I'd ever recommend skipping one of these games, as the story is always far too important, and that isn't going to change with this one. Maybe this is the least important game in the series, next to Arles, that is, but it's still a fun little distraction.

The game is available on Steam here (as of 7/13/21): https://store.steampowered.com/app/1281800/Samsara_Room/
The game is available for iOS here (as of 7/13/21): https://apps.apple.com/us/app/samsara-room/id1504447910

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