History VideoGame / CubeEscape

* TomatoInTheMirror: [[spoiler: In case you can't figure out from the get-go that something is seriously wrong, once you open the clock in ''Seasons'' you are left with no doubt.]]
** [[spoiler: In ''The Mill'' you are Mr. Crow, engaging in putting the woman's memories into the lake and [[{{Callback}} talking with Dale about Fate]].]]
** [[spoiler: In ''The Cave'' you are once again Mr. Crow.]]
** [[spoiler: In ''Paradise'', the game ends with the protagonist becoming Mr. Owl and Paradise Island becoming the site of Rusty Lake Hotel.]]

** ''The Cave'' reveals this is also true for [[spoiler: Mr. Crow and Mr. Owl themselves. They were once humans who were transformed into their current forms as a side-effect of [[ImmortalityInducer the Elixir of Life and Death]]]].

* AdultFear: Emma Vanderboom in ''Roots'' loses her son while he's still very young [[spoiler:and only learns of his actually being alive after she kills herself from the grief]].

* EverythingsBetterWithCows: In ''The Mill'', even if it's not addressed just how it got ''up'' there.

* SurrealSymbolicHeads: [[spoiler: Mr. Crow and Mr. Owl]] are [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin exactly what they say on the tin.]]

* AnachronicOrder: ''Seasons'' takes place in 1964-1981, ''The Lake'' in [[spoiler:1969]], ''Arles'' in 1888, ''Harvey's Box'' in 1969, ''Case 23'' in 1971-1972, ''The Mill'' most likely in 1972, ''Birthday'' in 1933, ''Theatre'' in 1971, ''Hotel'' in 1893, ''Roots'' in 1860, ''Cave'' in 1972, ''Paradise'' some time in the late 1700s or early 1800s, and ''Paradox'' in 1972 [[spoiler:at the same time as ''Cave'']].

* ChekhovsGunman: The man in the police station who unexpectedly becomes Corrupted in ''Case 23'' appears to be just a one-off JumpScare. Then comes [[spoiler:''Theatre'', in which he's an important character and turns out to have had a close relationship with the murdered woman...]]

* ImmortalitySeeker: James in ''Roots'' tries to create the elixir of immortality in his later years. [[spoiler:He successfully creates it, but the elixir has a 50% chance of causing instant death instead of immortality. His dog takes it without any ill effects, but James himself is not so fortunate.]]

* PermanentlyMissableContent: ''Hotel'' gave one shot per room to get a perfect rating, ending the room as soon as you obtain the meat even if you didn't find the other ingredient. Also, one of the ingredients (white beans from Mr. Rabbit) couldn't be obtained if you used an item too early. An update in April 2021 allowed replaying rooms and thus said content is no longer missable.

** In ''Roots,'' you discover you are [[spoiler:playing as William Vanderboom's Corrupted Soul]] by looking in a mirror.

* MisplacedWildlife: RustyLake contains sharks, pufferfish, octopi, and deep-sea fish like anglers and viperfish. This is the least of your worrie, however.

* YouKeepUsingThatWord: The word 'binoculars' is consistently used to describe an inventory item that is very clearly a ''mon''ocular telescope. [[https://rusty-lake.fandom.com/wiki/Binoculars The series wiki even notes this problem.]]

* AdultFear: Emma Vanderboom in ''Roots'' loses her son while he's still very young, [[spoiler:and only learns of him actually being alive after she kills herself from the grief]].

* AmbiguousSituation: [[spoiler: Even as things become clearer, there's still a lot that remains unknown, including how much of what the player sees is even real (as versus an elaborate metaphor).]]

* AndNowForSomeoneCompletelyDifferent: You play as a different character in several games, the biggest standouts being Creator/VincentVanGogh in ''Arles'' and a bird in ''Harvey's Box''.

* AnyoneCanDie: If you encounter a living being, the odds are it's living on borrowed time. [[spoiler: However, since TimeTravel is involved, [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong it doesn't always take.]]]]

* ArcSymbol: Quite a few, as you can expect from a surrealist work

** Two of them in ''Hotel''. In Mr. Boar's room, there are three cymbal monkeys. But the inaccuracy is that the cymbal monkey toys we know of weren't invented until the 1950s in Japan, decades after the year the game is set in: 1893.
** There is also the radio in Mrs. Pigeon's room, but radios weren't commercially available until 1900. And the year the radio was first invented still comes after the year the events of ''Hotel'' were happening.

* BigScrewedUpFamily: The Vanderboom family in ''Roots''. Although most of them would probably have been fine if not for [[spoiler:Albert]].
** The Eilander family of ''Paradise'' aren't much better, having formed a cult of sorts involving Rusty Lake involving [[spoiler: HumanSacrifice]].

* CainAndAbel: In ''Roots'', [[spoiler:Albert kills his brother Samuel and Samuel's wife Ida (who he secretly [[IfICantHaveYou pined for]]) and also indirectly causes his sister Emma's death by trapping her son Frank in a well, which caused her to eventually hang herself out of grief. He eventually gets his comeuppance when Frank strangles him]].

* ChekhovsGunman: The man in the police station who unexpectedly becomes one of the Corrupted in ''Case 23'' appears to be just a one-off JumpScare. Then comes [[spoiler:''Theatre'', in which he's an important character and turns out to have had a close relationship with the murdered woman...]]

** Several objects from previous games, including a matryoshka from ''Case 23'' and Dale's bowler hat and the empty blue vial from ''Paradox'' appear in ''The White Door''.

* DisproportionateRetribution: Albert kills Frank, Emma's son, simply because she laughed him when they were children. Although little does Emma know, Frank actually survived.
* TheDogBitesBack: The baby bird that Mrs. Pigeon keeps for electric torture in her room in ''Hotel'' ultimately assists in her death.

** ''The Cave'': [[spoiler:Here, it is revealed that the blonde woman, or Laura Vanderboom, slit her own throat with a knife after suffering from mental illness for what is implied to be years]].

* {{Fauxshadow}}: Occurs in ''Paradise''. [[spoiler:With the island suffering from the ten plagues of Egypt, and the various black cube flashbacks to first-born son Jakob's family being willing to sacrifice him, one would assume that the game would end with his death. Instead, the circumstances leading up to certain demise end up transforming him into Mr. Owl.]]

* GlowingEyesOfDoom: The Corrupted Souls are entirely black, with two glowing orbs of white where their eyes should be.

* HumanPincushion: [[spoiler: Mr. Rabbit in ''Hotel'' dies as this when a magic trick involving three swords goes wrong, and he is fatally stabbed.]]

** [[spoiler:This is also a case of [[HistoryRepeats his family history repeating itself]], as his uncle William also died this way. However, William's brother Aldous was luckier, becoming Mr. Crow instead]].

* JigsawPuzzlePlot: In spite of the copious amounts of MindScrew and SurrealHorror elements clearly just there to be surreal horror, the series does seem to be gradually piecing together some of its biggest mysteries. ''The Mill'' in particular drops some heavy suggestions/reveals about the true nature of Rusty Lake, its Humanoid Abominations, and the black and white cubes that keep recurring. Also, ''The Cave'', which tells us the name of the blonde woman ([[spoiler:Laura Vanderboom]]), and shows us more about the nature of Mr. Crow and Mr. Owl's state, and what is under the Lake.

* KidsAreCruel: In ''Roots'', Samuel and Emma knock down a beehive onto their brother Albert's head and then laugh at him. This is implied to be one of the reasons for Albert harboring a ''[[CainAndAbel very]]'' deep grudge against them, even when they're adults.

* MagicSkirt: At certain points in ''Case 23'', ''The Mill'', and ''The White Door'', the Woman's dead body is held up in the air by the ankles. Her hair falls down, but strangely, her one-piece dress ignores gravity and stays at her knees. This is despite the fact that it has no support, and was actually seen gently blowing in the breeze in an earlier scene in ''Seasons''.

* OnceMoreWithClarity: ''The Mill'' replays a phone conversation you had as the detective of ''Case 23''. It doesn't ''entirely'' clarify things, but it does show you who was on the other end and the plot events the conversation set into motion.

* SealedRoomInTheMiddleOfNowhere: Almost all of the games use this, although in ''Case 23'' Chapter 1, it's not exactly sealed-- you just can't leave until you find all the evidence.

** [[spoiler: In ''Paradise'', the game ends with the protagonist becoming Mr. Owl, and Paradise Island becoming the site of Rusty Lake Hotel.]]

* WasOnceAMan: ''Seasons'' hints at this, and ''The Mill'' confirms that [[spoiler:the shadowy {{Humanoid Abomination}}s are dead people who were corrupted by Mr. Crow's memory-extracting machine, or by some other method of removing their memories, as shown in ''Theatre'']].

* WouldHurtAChild: When Frank finds himself clinging to a bar over a well, Albert hands him over his teddy bear, then turns the crank to let the poor child fall in.

There are also four pay-to-play installments, which are set in the same universe as the free-to-play games but are lengthier and more difficult (or, in TWD's case, more narrative-focused); these games typically serve to fill in the backstory of the series, as well as make sense of some of the more MindScrew-y aspects of the series. The paid entries are also available on Steam.

The individual games have quite varied settings and objectives, but which are all linked by mysterious black and white cubes. As the story progresses, the nature of the cubes and their relationship to the mysterious location known as Rusty Lake are gradually revealed.

** Mr Boar in ''Hotel'', as he will keep eating sandwiches in his room.

* BirdPeople: Mr. Owl and Mr. Crow are commonly depicted as having human bodies and bird heads. That said, Mr Crow sometimes has FeatherFingers, and [[spoiler:at the end of the secret level in ''Roots'', Mr Crow sprouts a pair of wings from his back]]. [[spoiler: Harvey appears in a similar form in the secret cutscene in ''Birthday''.]]

* CreepyCathedral: It's actually just a small shrine, but the church on the Lake is still an intensely unsettling place.

* DeityOfHumanOrigin: Sort of. [[spoiler:Mr. Crow and Mr. Owl used to be humans who successfully drank an elixir of immortality that transformed them into BirdPeople with the power to extract others' memories and ''Theatre'' uses a picture of Mr Crow to represent the Sanskrit phrase for "demi-god realm".]]

* TheDogBitesBack: The bird that Mrs. Pigeon keeps for electric torture in her room in ''Hotel'' ultimately assists in her death.

* DrowningMySorrows: The man at the bar in ''Theatre'' only cares about getting drink after drink. This is heavily implied to be because [[spoiler:of his guilt over the murdered woman, who he used to be in a relationship with. Some of his comments hint at the fact that he was there at time of her death, as he claims to not remember what happened, and that it's all his fault]] (although ''The White Door'' would later confirm that [[spoiler:he had nothing to do with it, but he still blames himself anyway]]).
* EarAche: Van Gogh cuts off his ear with a knife in ''Arles''.

** Inputting the secret code you receive by getting OneHundredPercentCompletion in ''Hotel'' into the snowglobe in ''Birthday'' shows a bonus scene of [[spoiler:the corrupted animal souls escaping their prisons inside the hotel and attacking Harvey. Harvey also shows up perched at the top of the tree in the ending scene]].

* EldritchLocation: Rusty Lake is referred to throughout the games as some kind of mental health facility. [[ExactWords It will affect your mental health, alright.]] The recurring settings of the small apartment and the cabin by Rusty Lake are almost certainly such locations as well.
* ElectricTorture: You take control of the switch that electrocutes the poor little bird in Mrs Pigeon's room in ''Hotel''.
* ElectrifiedBathtub: [[spoiler: Mrs Pigeon dies this way in ''Hotel''.]]

* FaceMonsterTurn: [[spoiler: Mr Rabbit uses this trope to justify his actions in ''Birthday''. He explains that he was forced into murdering Dale's family as it is his only chance of "escaping this state".]] Of course, [[spoiler:''Paradise'' reveals that [[SubvertedTrope he was plenty monstrous even]] ''[[SubvertedTrope before]]'' [[SubvertedTrope becoming Mr. Rabbit]]...]]

* HumanoidAbomination: The Corrupted Souls (the shadowy figures stalking and occasionally killing characters) certainly qualifies; [[BlueAndOrangeMorality Mr. Crow and Mr. Owl]] aren't much better.

* ImmortalitySeeker: James in ''Roots'' tries to create the elixir of immortality in his later years. [[spoiler:He successfully creates it, but the elixir has a chance of causing instant death instead of immortality. His dog takes it without any ill effects, but James himself is not so fortunate.]]

* KidsAreCruel: In ''Roots'', Samuel and Emma make a beehive drop on their brother Albert's head and then laugh at him. This is implied to be one of the reasons for Albert harboring a ''[[CainAndAbel very]]'' deep grudge against them, even when they're adults.

* MachineMonotone: If you pick up the phone, expect to hear this. [[spoiler: Revealed in ''The Mill'' to be the voice of Mr. Crow himself...or at least one of them, since he's later revealed to be able to speak normally when he wants to.]]

*** Blue Vial Ending: Dale drinks the blue vial [[spoiler:and transforms into a corrupted soul; he then escapes from the room and kills Laura himself, leading to the creation of a black cube [[StableTimeLoop containing the memory of Chapter 1]]]].

* MysticalPregnancy: [[spoiler:Emma Vanderboom in ''Roots'' becomes pregnant through the seeds of a magical flower, causing her to give birth to her son Frank]].

* SamusIsAGirl: It is revealed very quickly that Harvey the parrot is a female bird, since she lays eggs.

** In ''Birthday'', [[spoiler:Dale's parents are murdered and assembling his birthday present allows him to turn back time far enough to save them]]. The game further implies that [[spoiler: it is possible to turn the bad black cubes into good white cubes, if the memory- or indeed the event- gets adjusted, hinting that Rusty Lake might have a chance to become uncorrupted one day.]]

* SurpriseCreepy: With the exception of ''Case 23'', which opens on the detective investigating a murder scene, all of the games in the series start off as cheerfully illustrated, well-made but standard {{Room Escape Game}}s. And then things start to get increasingly weird and dark as you piece the puzzles together.

* TalkingTheMonsterToDeath: The climax of ''The Mill'' sees the protagonist, [[spoiler:Mr. Crow]], imploring a newly created corrupted soul to back down and leave the premises. [[spoiler: Eventually, it does.]]

* TarotMotifs: In ''Roots'', six tarot cards show up as part of Ida's fortune telling and each card represents a character or major event in the game: the Devil for [[spoiler:Albert, the perpetrator of the other Vanderbooms' misery]]; Death for [[spoiler:Samuel's gory death at the hands of Albert]]; the Hanged Man for [[spoiler:Emma who hangs herself after her son Frank "disappears" due to Albert]]; the Hermit for [[spoiler:Frank who is trapped alone in a well by Albert for many years]]; the Star for [[spoiler:Emma's letter to Frank to find her in the constellations]]; and the Empress for [[spoiler:Rose who helps resurrect her granduncle and is shown holding him as a baby on the ending screen]].
* TheToothHurts: Mrs. Crow's puzzle involves ''ramming her teeth into her gums'', then pulling out her one gold tooth.

** [[spoiler: In ''Paradise'', the game ends with the protagonist becoming Mr. Owl, and Paradise island becoming the site of Rusty Lake Hotel.]]
* VisualGag: [[spoiler:Following a surreal journey inside his own severed ear, Van Gogh encounters a puzzle involving a hammer, a drum, an anvil, a stirrup, and cochlea: all structures found inside the ear.]]
** The area you find thyme in Ms. Pheasant's room in ''Hotel'' is [[spoiler:on top of the clock, which keeps time]].

* WhatHaveWeEar: Mr Rabbit makes a playing card appear from behind his own ear.

* WouldHurtAChild: When Frank finds himself clinging on over a well, Albert hands him over his teddy bear, then turns the crank to let the poor child fall in.

* NoAntagonist: There is no character in the plot who's obviously causing any conflict among the others.

** ''Paradise'' has you make a burger for Gerard. But hamburgers weren't invented until 1900. Doing the math and considering what year this game is set in (1796), the invention of the hamburger in this game is 104 years too early.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Two of them in ''Hotel''.
** In Mr. Boar's room, there are three cymbal monkeys. But the inaccuracy is that the cymbal monkey toys we know of weren't invented until the 1950s in Japan, decades after the year the game is set in: 1893.

** ''Hotel'': [[spoiler:Implied with Ms Pheasant, as the player hands her the gun she uses to kill herself]].
** ''Roots'': [[spoiler:Emma Vanderboom who hangs herself after her son disappears/is presumed dead]].

* NeverMessWithGranny: Gender-inverted example. [[Spoiler:It's Dale's grandfather who shoots and kills Mr. Rabbit in ''Birthday'' after future Dale goes back in time to save them.]]

** Several objects from previous games, including the Laura matryoshka from ''Case 23'' and Dale's bowler hat and the empty blue vial from ''Paradox'' appear in ''The White Door''.

* EarAche: In ''Paradise'', Gerard loses an ear after a haircut from his blind niece Elizabeth.

* MinorCrimeRevealsMajorPlot: While investigating Laura's death, Dale quickly realizes there's a lot of other stuff going on with Rusty Lake.
* MirrorScare: In both the game and film for ''Paradox'', Laura suddenly appears in the mirror behind Dale.

*** Red Vial "Ending": Dale drinks the red vial, coughs up a key, and uses it to unlock the door to the room, escaping into the woods at the bottom of Rusty Lake; he then finds his way to the surface of the lake, where he witnesses [[spoiler:the corrupted soul slit Laura's throat]]. He then finds a black cube containing a memory of what just happened; in the film this seems to lead into a GroundhogDayLoop, while in the game it marks the transition to Chapter 2.

* NoNameGiven: ''Cave'' finally [[AvertedTrope names the blonde woman]], who has been in nearly every game since ''Seasons'', as Laura.

* SealedRoomInTheMiddleOfNowhere: Almost all of the games use this, although in ''Case 23'' Chapter 1, it's not exactly sealed but you can't leave until you find all the evidence.

* SurpriseCreepy: With the exception of Case 23, which opens on the detective investigating a murder scene, all of the games in the series start off as cheerfully illustrated, well-made but standard {{Room Escape Game}}s. And then things start to get increasingly weird and dark as you piece the puzzles together.

* TamperingWithFoodAndDrink: [[spoiler: In ''Hotel'', Mr Deer is killed after drinking a poisoned Bloody Mary.]]

* TimedMission: The ending of Case 23 is timed, unlike the rest of the game. Better get that elevator working fast...

On April 29th, 2020, a full remake of ''[[http://www.rustylake.com/room-escape-games/samsara-room.html Samsara Room]]'' (a standalone game made prior to ''Seasons'') was released for free on Steam; this remake adds extra content which connects the events of the game into the Rusty Lake universe.

* ''The White Door''

On April 29th, 2020, a full remake of ''Samsara Room'' (a standalone game made prior to ''Seasons'') was released for free on Steam; this remake adds extra content which connects the events of the game into the Rusty Lake universe.

* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''Samsara Room'', an earlier game made by the same dev team- one could even mistake ''Samsara Room'' as being part of this series as the play style, surreal setting, certain themes and even various art assets originated with that game, though it seems so far that it's not officially considered part of the series.

** ''The Cave'': [[spoiler:Here, it is revealed that the blond woman, or Laura Vanderboom, slit her own throat with a knife after suffering from mental illness for what is implied to be years]].

* JigsawPuzzlePlot: In spite of the copious amounts of MindScrew and SurrealHorror elements clearly just there to be surreal horror, the series does seem to be gradually piecing together some of its biggest mysteries. ''The Mill'' in particular drops some heavy suggestions/reveals about the true nature of Rusty Lake, its Humanoid Abominations, and the black and white cubes that keep recurring. Also, ''The Cave'', which tells us the name of the blond woman ([[spoiler:Laura Vanderboom]]), and shows us more about the nature of Mr. Crow and Mr. Owl's state, and what is under the Lake.

* PlotCouponThatDoesSomething: The cubes that you need to collect to advance the plot in every game seem to just be random items at first, but later games reveal that there's a deeper significance to them. They're actually [[spoiler:the memories of various deceased characters. The black cubes are negative ones, the white cubes are positive, and the blue cubes can change time. ''The Cave'' introduces golden cubes, which apparently have the power to change the future]].
* PlotTriggeringDeath: ''Seasons'', ''Case 23'', and ''The Mill'' all center around the mysterious death of a blond woman.

** In ''Case 23'', a detective named Dale appreciates [[Series/TwinPeaks a damn fine cup of coffee]]. The influence of ''Twin Peaks'' on the series becomes even more obvious with [[spoiler:the murdered blond woman's name turning out to be Laura]] and ''Paradise'' showing the statement "THE OWLS ARE NOT WHAT THEY SEEM" on a wall.

** Ms. Pheasant from''Hotel'' has a miniature puppet theatre in her room, featuring Punch and Judy.