The Past Within Lite

What do you do when one of your favorite mobile game developers releases a unique demo for their upcoming co-op-only game? You charge up one of your old phones and double-fist that sucker, obviously. At least, that's what I did. I love the Rusty Lake series and the world it's slowly crafting l, but finding another person to play with (without committing to some stranger on Discord) is a pretty big hurdle at this point in my life, so it was just easier for me to play both of the game roles on my own. Honestly, I might even recommend that for other introverts or lonely folks, since it makes The Past Within Lite feel just like the previous Cube Escape games, just with two screens.

Keeping in line with the series motif that "the past is never dead, It's not even past," The Past Within Lite has players begin by choosing whether they will play in the past or the future. Players in a cooperating pair must choose a different time from one another, as puzzles in one time can usually only be solved with hints from the other. While this is a neat concept on paper, I have to hope that it is executed better in the full game. Puzzle-solving in Rusty Lake games usually requires analytic skills and intuitive thinking, but the puzzles here almost all came down to merely following very specific or obvious instructions. When you're actually playing with two players, this might be nice so that nobody is twiddling their thumbs while they wait for their partner to figure out the next clue, but it made all of the puzzles feel pretty stale and took away most of the usual sense of accomplishment that accompanies a successful solve. Fortunately, the Rusty Lake series is a very strong foundation to be built upon and holds even this limited experience up.

Despite the puzzles' shortcomings that become extra apparent when playing alone and the unsurprising absence of any real story elements (it is just a teaser), The Past Within Lite is still somewhat fun. I think it comes down to the novelty of it. Playing with two players (or two screens) is uncharted territory for the franchise, and it's honestly pretty unique for the genre in the first place. As a teaser, this has definitely gotten me even more excited for the full game, but once that releases, I can't see myself ever recommending this alongside the complete experience. The Past Within Lite may have unique content, but that content is so insubstantial that this cannot be considered an essential entry in the series.

The game is available on Steam here (as of 11/2/22): https://store.steampowered.com/app/1515210/The_Past_Within/
The game is available for iOS here (as of 11/2/22): https://apps.apple.com/au/app/the-past-within-lite/id6443761523

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