amphibious_ReViews

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 especi

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

  Continuing exactly where the previous entry, Cube Escape: Birthday , left off, Theatre welcomes us into another strange and twisted adventure into the mind of Dale Vandermeer. As expected, all of the usual motifs are present, bringing back recognizable characters and callbacks to previous entries in the series. However, as one of the more straightforward Cube Escape titles, this was a breeze to finish, and kind of left something to be desired. As I played through Theatre , I was glad to see some familiar faces, and I really enjoyed how clever some of the puzzles were. Unfortunately, most of the game is spent focused on just one place, being the theater stage, making the whole experience feel somewhat bare bones in retrospect. On top of that, the story doesn't really seem to advance at all through this entry, which felt especially weird after how big the steps seemed in Birthday . Though the plot technically advanced, this title felt more like filler than actual new content. Desp

As the first Cube Escape title following the premium game, Rusty Lake Hotel , Cube Escape: Birthday wastes no time in showing players the previous title's importance. As characters introduced or developed in Hotel fill important roles in this entry, I think I would have been really confused if I skipped it. However, the gameplay is exactly what I have come to expect from the series, and with Dale Vandermeer in the spotlight again, I felt right at home with this game. The developers seemed to have upgraded their engine in this title, which made the gameplay a little smoother and the puzzles a little more unique. I got stuck a couple times in this adventure through Dale's past, but the addition of in-game hints definitely helped me out. The story was just as supernatural and strange as I'm used to, but very few questions were answered here, making this a little less satisfying to beat than some of the other entries in the series. As another quick but exciting entry in the

  Following in the footsteps of Case 23 , Cube Escape: The Mill does a fantastic job of developing the Rusty Lake universe by fleshing out a recurring character and connecting itself to events from previous titles. Like each game in the series, you walk through an eerie supernatural world by way of puzzle solving. Unlike the previous titles, the protagonist is someone who fully understands Rusty Lake , so instead of trying to solve a mystery, they are just doing their job. This was interesting, as it provides the unique opportunity to learn about the world naturally. I found the puzzles in The Mill to be more streamlined than some of the previous games, which I thought made the progression feel even more natural. It felt more believable that I was living a day in the life of Mr. Crow, rather than being an omniscient puzzle-solving onlooker. This made the story more exciting, and helped me to better recognize the connections to the parts of Rusty Lake that I already understood.  Bui

This is where it really gets good. This is like the Captain America: Civil War of Cube Escape games. It's not the grand culmination that we can look forward to in Infinity War , but everything we have seen so far is starting to come together and make some sense. Plus, new revelations about the game's universe are abundant (and gladly accepted!). With the best puzzle structure so far, and a story that creates as many new questions as it answers, Case 23 is an absolutely phononenal title. Playing as detective Dale Vandermeer, you are tasked with investigating a murder (the victim happening to be the protagonist of Seasons ), but you soon figure out there is something much more serious going on. That's when the real juice of the Rusty Lake universe starts being revealed. Recognizable locales, characters, and motifs appear, all within a bundle of well-designed puzzles and a delightfully eerie story. Case 23 embodies exactly what I love about the Cube Escape series, and it

I think Harvey's Box is a hilarious representation of the Rusty Lake Universe. However, where Arles suffered in world-building, this title suffers in puzzles. Playing as the pet of the protagonist from the first two games was understandably delightful, but the puzzles often felt like they were trying to be annoying. That's not to say every puzzle was terrible. There was still plenty of Cube Escape magic to enjoy, and the now-familiar eerie atmosphere is still extremely engrossing. With the weakest puzzles in the series thus far, Harvey's Box is not the best in terms of gameplay, but it helps to develop the world in a unique way that I think can't be missed. It was also pretty short, as Cube Escape games tend to be, so the struggle with a few bad puzzles won't last too long. Overall it was an enjoyable little game, and it has my recommendation. The game can be played online here (as of 9/4/20): http://www.rustylake.com/room-escape-games/cube-escape-harveys-box.

After the Rusty Lake  series had thoroughly hooked me with its first two titles, I had to find out what was next. To my surprise, it was a Cube Escape  game based around Vincent Van Gogh. The gameplay that I was expecting was all present, and everything was just as eerie as before, but it felt almost world-breaking to make Van Gogh the protagonist instead of further developing the unique  Rusty Lake  world. I enjoyed the return of motifs from the series up to this point, and the puzzles were on par with the previous titles, but I never felt myself getting as excited with the game's contribution to its world the was I did with the other titles. Because of that, I think Arles  was worth playing my first time through the Rusty Lake  games, but I don't think that I will be revisiting it. The game can be played online here (as of 7/19/20):  http://www.rustylake.com/room-escape-games/cube-escape-arles.html The game is available for Android here (as of 7/19/20):  https://pla

Although it was technically released before Cube Escape: The Lake , I believe that Seasons  really shines as a sequel. It's longer, it's deeper, and it's far more confusing. However, it "calls back" to The Lake  in perfectly subtle ways that both answer questions and create more, in a way that Seasons  feels like the first chapter in a story with The Lake  as it's prologue. Like all of the other Cube Escape  games, Seasons  is a room-escape style hand-drawn horror game. I use horror lightly though, as it is less scary and more unnerving. The game had a way of making me feel on-edge while still keeping me wanting more. The puzzle gameplay is also engaging, with each new discovery feeling like a true accomplishment. Unfortunately, this is still a rather short title, and it left me wanting more. On the other side of that coin, it is part of a pretty lengthy series, so I will have no shortage of follow-ups! The game can be played online here (as of 5/11/2

This was the first Cube Escape  game that I played, as it was recommended to me by the Google Play Store  when I was looking for something to pass my time. It only took about 15 minutes to beat, but I was immediately enthralled in the world of Rusty Lake, and I began to nosedive into the depths of the series. There are over a dozen games taking place in the Rusty Lake universe now, most following the same hand-drawn-horror-room-escape-puzzler genre established by the first game. The formula works fabulously, but just like the TV show Lost , I find myself asking more questions than I had answered by each entry. I believe that The Lake  is the perfect starting point for anybody looking to delve into the creative and exciting world being created here, as it isn't afraid to throw you into the deep end. The connection that this game holds with Cube Escape: Seasons  was perfect for helping me to understand the unification of the games in the series, while also introducing me to most