Cube Escape: Paradox

About Cube Escape: Paradox

Cube Escape: Paradox is a point-and-click puzzle game from Rusty Lake, released in September 2018 alongside Paradox: A Rusty Lake Film, a live-action short film it connects to in many ways. It is the tenth Cube Escape game and is not part of the Cube Escape Collection, which gathers the nine before it.

Detective Dale Vandermeer, who follows the Rusty Lake mysteries through the series, wakes up in a room he does not know, with no memory of his past. He soon learns he is a player in a strange game run by an old enemy, and the only way out is to solve the room's puzzles and piece together who he is.

You play it as an escape room: click around each wall of the room, look closely at objects, pick things up, combine them and work out codes and mechanisms. The game has two chapters. The first is free, the second is a paid chapter, and Rusty Lake states that they have multiple endings. The paintings are by Johan Scherft, the music by Victor Butzelaar, and the voices are by Bob Rafferty and lead actor David Bowles.

The unease comes from the calm, wrong details: a crow-headed man sitting in an armchair, a television showing Dale's bloodied face, a map of rooms inside a human head. It suits anyone who likes puzzle games with a dark, surreal story, and is a good free way into the Rusty Lake series.

How to play Cube Escape: Paradox

1. Look around each wall of the room and click on objects to look closer.
2. Pick up items and use or combine them where they fit.
3. Work out codes and mechanisms from clues hidden around the room.
4. Follow what you learn of Dale's past to the way out.
5. Play again to find the other endings and secrets.

Tips

• Write down numbers, colours and symbols you see; they often unlock something on another wall.
• Turn and zoom into everything twice; small details often hide a clue.
• Watch Paradox: A Rusty Lake Film too; Rusty Lake made the two to connect.

Questions