Remember the gruesome detective named Dale Vandermer from the previous chapters of Rusty Lake? He used to unravel intricate murders and run brilliant investigations of other people’s past. Now he is preoccupied with this own. In Cube Escape, the character is busy digging in himself, a reflection with a smack of schizophrenia. Returning to the dossier of the murdered Laura Vanderb, with whom it all began in the Seasons, he plunges deeper and deeper into the abyss of the past, discovering that the answer and exit he found were definitely not such. Reality is spreading, it turns out to be imaginary – and it needs to be combined: past, present, future, all together.
“The past is never dead”, – this unofficial motto of the studio’s games has become some sort of a clue for solving another task. Of course, those who haven’t played the previous episodes won’t understand the references and Easter eggs filling the room where Vandermer needs to get out of. What is this song the parrot likes so much, and who is this parrot? Why are there creepy shadows in the mirror and in the keyhole, and why does a talking raven the size of a person offer a psychotherapy session? Are finger-puffs of the detective’s parents seriously in his memoirs? However, the story itself, as it should be, is complete and understandable even without knowledge of the “background”.
As for the puzzle component of the game, it again pleases with its proprietary filigree refinement and the absence of any illogicality. There are a couple of moments that give away the search for hidden active points, as well as the repetition of situations with the determination of the phone number or frequency of the TV channel. But in its own way, the tasks on laying a route on a map of the area and especially a puzzle with a labyrinth in the form of a head are masterpieces.
Mannered and detached, like ice, the abnormality of our actions in chapter one is almost not felt, until maybe the very end. The second chapter is another matter: the detective dispassionately alternates the brains of his past, present and future selves inside his skull. He actually does it literally putting his brain into the jar of water (that we’ll later scoop up to water a tree). Of course, his equanimity is caused, among other things, by the fact that implicit prompts for a good half of the actions are in the room. You can participate in this wacky adventure and help the hero out playing Cube Escape online!
