Cube Escape: Paradox (hereinafter referred to as Paradox) is an escape room (point-and-click puzzle) game developed by Rusty Lake. It is available to play on both PC and mobile devices.
Paradox holds a 98% positive review rate on Steam. Interestingly, some positive reviews are not solely directed at the game itself—they also mention the fourteen other games in the Rusty Lake series, a short film, and David Lynch’s Twin Peaks. Regarding negative reviews, some players complain that this work relies too heavily on external information.
Figure: Steam User Reviews (Positive vs. Negative)
Combining the aforementioned reviews with my own playthrough experience (completing it in 2.5 hours), my view on Paradox is this: for players familiar with the Rusty Lake world-building, it is a brilliant narrative work; but if external information is excluded, the narrative of this work will seem confusing. The reason is that Paradox embeds evocative information into its puzzles. Its core story is not about a “detective escaping a locked room,” but rather the clues related to previous works presented by the “puzzles,” and how they resonate with the player’s context knowledge. Therefore, the most suitable audience for Paradox should be fans of the Rusty Lake series. It is not an appropriate “entry-level work for the series.”
I played the Rusty Lake series games (Hotel, Roots, Paradise) many years ago, but had forgotten a lot of details. In Paradox, I encountered a puzzle: finding five pieces of evidence to place in the Case 23 notebook. During the collection process, looking at those photos and newspaper clippings, I felt the vague information in my mind gradually being retrieved. Because I vaguely remembered that Laura (the deceased in the case) was connected to Mr. Owl (an eerie NPC) and had once stayed at Rusty Lake for treatment. So, when seeing this information piece together into a case report, my speculations were echoed by the puzzle mechanics, and I felt a great sense of accomplishment. But if players have absolutely no knowledge of this background information, this experience might just seem like simple “clue gathering”, which is somewhat dull.
Figure: Contents of the Case 23 Notebook
Another puzzle shares similar characteristics: players need to connect nodes on a map. In the player community some people relished this puzzle: because all the place names on the map had appeared in previous works, and this map demonstrated the positional relationships of these places, giving players the thrill of “connecting the dots.” But for players who do not know these place names, this is merely a puzzle testing spatial imagination, lacking any obvious narrative function.
Figure: Contents of map puzzle
Architectural design
As an “escape room” game, the room’s architectural design in Paradox is closely related to the narrative. This dimly lit room with green wallpaper has three versions: Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 within the game, and the short film outside the game. As shown in the pictures, the furnishings of the room in the same scene are largely consistent, but with subtle differences. I watched the short film before playing the game, and the scene in the film where a drawer is opened to reveal a fish left a deep impression on me. However, in Chapter 1 of the game, I opened all the drawers and found no fish. This gave me a subtly eerie feeling: Is the room I am in now the same one as in the film? The suspense created by this “difference” became my motivation for exploration (rather than directly replicating the protagonist’s actions in the film), and it simultaneously told a story: the protagonist is trapped in a loop; even if he escapes temporarily, he will eventually return to this room.
Figure: The same scene with subtle differences, focusing on the paintings and the red cloth (Top Left: Chapter 1; Top Right: Chapter 2; Bottom: Short Film)
Furthermore, the architecture design in Paradox excellently utilizes surrealism. In Chapter 1, there are no fish in the drawer, and a pigeon cage is under the red cloth—there are no surrealist designs, the puzzles generally follow the laws of physics, and there are no obvious logical gaps. But in Chapter 2, a fish appears in the drawer, and an eerie hand reaches out from the red cloth: this reminds players that it “requires extreme lateral thinking or strange leaps of logic to win.” Consequently, the puzzles become more wildly imaginative. For example, “empty your mind” prompts the player to use a scalpel to extract the brain (now it truly is empty). Paradox uses architect design to hint at the transition from a “traditional detective story” to a David Lynch style, preparing the player to shift their mindset.
Figure: Empty Your Mind
Accessibility
Paradox does not provide an accessibility mode, but there are still some accessibility designs: for example, the game has no purely auditory puzzles; all audio is presented in the form of text. The game has no obvious color-vision puzzles; although the story involves a “red potion” and a “blue potion,” players do not need to choose between them (only one is presented at a time, accompanied by text instructions). However, even though all sounds in this game have subtitles, not all text is voice-acted, which might pose a challenge for players with reading disabilities. If an accessibility mode were to be developed, this is a direction worth considering.
