Should you ever need to feel bad (or just worse) about your level of productivity, consider this fact: developer Rusty Lake has already made 15 games in its five years of operation. The team’s latest room-escape-ish adventure game is actually a remake of an
older
title, released a couple of years before the studio was established with
Cube Escape: The Lake.
Updated with new art, music, more puzzles and ties to the lore of the
Rusty Lake
series,
Samsara Room
is a must-play if you enjoy poking at tactile puzzles.
Themes of life, and death, and rebirth, and having a fish for a head lie at the heart of this puzzle game, whose best feature is its surreal, Twin Peaks-y atmosphere. It may take place inside one room, but you’ll test that premise to its limit by turning the contents upside down, by filling it with water, and by getting a worm’s-eye view of your environment. It’s room escape taken to a fantastical extreme: a spiritual journey, as you escape the realm of the dead.
Puzzles are everywhere, satisfyingly tactile, hard but not too hard. Just when you think, “Oh, I’ve finally found a shit one,” you locate a pattern that unlocks the solution - Samsara transcends the frustrating trial-and-error often packaged with pure puzzle games like this.