The game I played was Cube Escape: Paradox by Rusty Lake. The game is intended for older teenagers and above who enjoy mystery games. The game is available on steam for both windows and mac. I played the game on mac for about two – three hours, as was able to “escape”.
Similar to the previous game I played, monument valley, the puzzle in the Cube Escape: Paradox is the narrative itself, since we play as Dale Vandermeer who must solve puzzles in order to recover his memory and escape. The game is an embedded narrative and the player finds clues through environmental story telling as they solve puzzles, and the game is played in first person creating the feeling that the player is part of the story.
In Cube Escape: Paradox the main mechanics are switching between rooms and clicking on the objects within the rooms to interact with them. Within each object there are smaller mechanics that allow you to interact further usually clicking or dragging on the object. These mechanics create the dynamic of exploration. When I first entered the game, the first actions I took were to see every room without clicking on any of the objects, and then when I returned to the first room I began to click on all the objects seeing if there was anything I could interact with for any hints. This Dynamic leads to the aesthetics of Discovery, as the player finds new clues and pieces of the narrative, but also challenge for the player to piece together all the clues they find. Additionally many of the clues are locked in drawers or require another objects to use, for example the project screen which can only be used after the player has found the tool to drag it down. The game architecture causes many of the clues to be concealed until the puzzle requires it. I thought that this actually limits the game a little since at times it was less of a puzzle and more of a click everything until something works. This could be from me simply missing a clue that I needed, but if not I think a solution to this problem would be having a couple objects that act as red herrings, that won’t be used but will force the player to think about which objects are necessary and which are useless,
The first person perspective of the game was also very interesting. Many of the puzzles involve interacting with the character you are playing as you look into a mirror. For example drinking a red vial in front of the mirror which gives you a key. This perspective also made the game feel a bit more creepy and mysterious. It makes the player feel confined and especially during the scenes where the player is facing another character such as the woman or the monster, the first person perspective makes them feel close and you are locked into looking at them.
We see Dale looking in the mirror from his perspective
Another design detail I liked was the cuts between the cartoonish art style to the more realistic audios and cutscenes such as on the television and the cassette tape. The change in style to become more realistic makes the events feel more serious compared to the previous cartoonish style, combined with the static effect makes the sudden change unsettling to the player.
The TV cutscene containing more realistic visuals
One critique I have of the game is that I didn’t fully understand the story of the game. I felt like I never truly understood who the woman or the mysterious person was and why Dale was trapped in the first place. This could be since there are other games made by the same company which are meant to connect, but even if there were other parts of the game that could add more insight, the narrative in Cube Escape: Paradox was too confusing and felt random.
The game does well to aid people with hearing issues providing subtitles for the clues that require hearing such as the cassette tape and the TV cut scenes. The game’s movement is also very simple, only requiring the player to move the mouse and click. While the game does well to help players get around motor and hearing barriers, a lot of the game requires visual abilities and memorization of symbols and objects to solve puzzles. This can cause barriers for players with poor eyesight or learning disabilities such as ADHD or dyslexia.
One of the puzzles that requires memorization of symbols
