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Hi! I'm Bart Bonte, a Belgian independent game designer and bontegames.com is where I blog about new interesting browser and mobile games. My own games are all in the left column (or at the bottom of this page on mobile). More info about me and my games on bartbonte.com.
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April 29, 2020

samsara room [mobile, download]

You find yourself in a strange room with some odd objects you don’t recognize. It seems there is only one way to escape... become enlightened. Rusty Lake just surprise released a new free escape the room game Samsare Room to celebrate 5 years of Rusty Lake.
You might remember the original Samsare Room flash game from 6 years ago, the predecessor to the Rusty Lake universe, but this one is completely re-assembled with brand new puzzles, story, graphics and music.
You can get this free game for mobile from the Apple app store or the Google play store, or as a downloadable game from Steam or Itch.io.

7 comments:

wyatt (leslie on FB) said...

thanks for the heads up, bart ...
loading it into my kindle now :)

Anonymous said...

Anyone found the secret room mentioned at the end of the game?

Nat R. said...

Haven't played this one yet (I still have to play The White Door, I'd hate to break order), but I'm glad they returned to this. A lot of the Rusty Lake themes came from the original Samsara Room, and playing through the series, I kept seeing new references to it all the way up to Paradox.
Plus, they said they're going to release a Cube Escape anthology on paid platforms, so those games will still be supported! I wish everyone did that. (Neutral is apparently thinking about doing Unity remakes, but we won't see those for a while.)

Here's a list of the main reused themes that I can remember (SPOILERS I guess).
Visually, corrupted souls obviously came from "I feel fuzzy."
The concept of dealing with cubes while inside a cube, and then merging the two.
(Not done quite so much in Rusty Lake, but clearly formed the cube memory concept.)
Animal people, but also, the concept of the bird people being "enlightened" or more wise/powerful.
The specific art for things like the clock and the telephone. A lot of the item designs stayed the same too, like the matches. They kept using the same clock all the way up until Paradise, and I was sorry to see it go in Paradox.
Also, the corpse inside the clock, and being able to enter it, which they reused in Roots with almost exactly the same corpse graphic.
Sea life appearing where it shouldn't/fish in a drawer. I was particularly amused to catch a fish in a bear trap on dry land at one point.
Pentagram-esque item placement, basically just in The Lake. (Not to mention the many similarities to Seasons.)
Finally, this may be a bit of a stretch, but the brain thing in Paradox made me think of the animal thing in Samsara; basically, doing something to your body to alter the way you perceive and interact with reality.

Nat R. said...

Oh yeah, almost forgot (SPOILERS again):
The main reference in Paradox, which was the corrupted soul appearing behind Laura and killing her with a knife.

That was actually the main source of my dislike for Paradox; in my view, not only did the story seem completely unrelated to the previous games (no, the Chapter 2 secret didn't really help), but it ruined Laura's death. It was supposed to be her own soul that stabbed her, meaning she committed suicide, and despite all the weird time travel in Seasons, it was basically a fixed event in the timeline. Paradox made it a murder, removed all concept of her depression, and made it a cyclical thing that seemed less real and more like a symbol or motif, something that was meant to happen again and again. Made for a cool mood, but annoyed the heck out of me.

Nat R. said...

Wait, no, not a Samsara Room reference. Never mind my entire rant. I should have commented it on the Paradox post anyway.

Anonymous said...

Have you ever looked up the word Samsara ?

Unknown said...

Outstanding

 

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