The latest installment in Rusty Lake's wildly popular point-and-click horror adventure series has arrived in the form of Cube Escape: Case 23, also free for iOS and Android, and right away its apparent that this already surreal series is getting even darker. As it opens, you're investigating the murder of a young woman, someone who may look a little familiar to you if you've played Cube Escape: Seasons and Cube Escape: The Lake, and this isn't your cut-and-dry homicide. Hope you've got your sunglasses ready and puns all thought out. To play, just click the tiny black arrows at the edges of the screen to move around, and the cursor will change whenever it passes over something you can interact with. You can click an item in your inventory to hold it to try to use it somewhere, or you can scroll through it using the white arrows or by dragging up and down on that side of the screen. You're looking for evidence as you examine this grisly scene, but this house has some seriously weird secrets, and it's going to take a gumshoe who can think outside the box to make sense of things... if, that is, there is sense yet to be made, and that's just the tip of an adventure that continues to add up the puzzle pieces from the previous games. Settle in, folks, this is a long one... and get ready for a jump scare or two.
Cube Escape: Case 23 is strange... which, I guess, is about what we should be expecting by now. The series as a whole is full of odd, recurring imagery, and you'll recognize a lot as you play through this installment. The mood is, as usual, unsettling, with a low soundtrack and general vibe of wrongness aided by the signature visual style that's full of heavy black lines and subtle noise distortion. While the gameplay tends more towards the clever than not, sometimes Cube Escape's tendency to hold your hand as little as humanly possible can come back to bite it simply because of how strangely implemented some of the puzzles are. In a few cases, it isn't apparent when you're making progress with something, and a lot of the game will simply come down to experimentation to try to uncover the dreamlike logic of it all.
Which isn't to say Case 23 is without its good, old-fashioned detective work, but others feel more like they're solved simply by running through your options more than any sort of logical reasoning process, and the pictures in chapter three are a little bland by comparison. Figuring out what you're supposed to do in a game when you haven't been given any instruction is always satisfying, but when you get stuck in Case 23, you can get stuck hard, particularly when it comes to some fussy clicking to interact with certain things. Despite all that, Cube Escape: 23 is still an appealingly macabre and otherworldly experience, one where you can feel that the creators have taken pains to put meaning in every aspect of its construction, and certain pop culture influences will be even more obvious this time. And it's a lot of construction, too, since, like Cube Escape: Seasons, Case 23 is a pretty big game, and an extremely creative one at that, packed to the gills with all kids of puzzles and surprises. Rusty Lake continues to dazzle and disturb in the best possible ways, and while you won't get all your answers here, and we're really hoping they can pull it all together at the end, you'll be waiting for the next installment to come in a big way.
Cube Escape: Case 23 (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad)
Android:
Cube Escape: Case 23
Walkthrough Guide
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Walkthrough
Chapter ¼ - The Murder Scene
Start off by checking the victim. Move her hair and open her mouth to let a bug out, then unzip her dress to get a piece of paper.
Crossword Puzzle
Painter of Lady of the Lake
Go to the matryoshka on the bookshelf and take all the dolls out. Each object corresponds to a doll, starting with the rose. After placing an object into a doll, close the doll and open it to get the new item.
The rose goes into the first doll, the fish bones into the fish, the drop of blood into the queen and the egg into the parrot.
With the newfound key, unlock the bottom right locker and get the jar of flies. Put a fly into the fish bowl and use the algae to guide it into the shell and then into the fish’s mouth. Unlock the drawer on the same table and examine the folder. Click on the name to get the answer for the puzzle.
Parrot
Check the picture of the parrot above the table with the phone. Click on “Psittacus” to get the answer.
Neobuxbaumia
A type of cactus. Find it above the book shelf and grab the sign behind it.
Bedroom in…
Check the (familiar) picture above the fish bowl table. Click on the tag “Bedroom in Arles” to get the 4th answer After you’ve found all the answers and placed them on the crossword, tear off the highlighted “fate”.
Books Puzzle
All 16 books need to be lifted up. To do this, each next book you pick up must contain a symbol/color which the previous one did. There are more than one ways to do it, so here is one of them:
From left to right: 15-7-16-1-4-10-2-8-3-5-14-13-11-12-6-9
Shelf and Phone Puzzles
To solve the shelf puzzle, 4 pieces of paper and the folder from the locked drawer are required. To get the folder, see “Crossword Puzzle” -> “Painter of Lady of the Lake”
Paper I – can be found by unzipping the victim’s dress.
Paper II – located under the couch pillows.
Paper III – Already on the board above the couch.
Paper IV – Check the victim’s mouth. A bug should come out of it. Follow the bug until it goes on the table and smash it with the iron (pick up the iron and click on the bug). Use the key to unlock the left locker on the bottom of the bookshelf. The paper can be found inside.
Once you have all 4 papers put them on the board and notice the red markings on each one. All 4 pictures are parts of “The Lady of the Lake”, found inside the folder. If you open to the next page, you’ll notice the strange markings on the back. The 4 signs on the bookshelf should be the signs behind each picture. For example, for “I” we have the cube and the eye symbol right behind it. To make your life easier, grab the cigar from the ashtray and simply make holes in the painting. The combination should look like this
eye symbol, upside-down triangle, sun symbol, square.
Once you open the lock the phone number of Rusty Lake will appear and it is
024355
4-digit Safe Lock
Once you’ve had the phone talk, turn around and click on the victim until butterflies start coming out. Look at the ceiling to find the code for the safe, which is
1421
Chapter 2/4 – The Investigation
Start off by checking all the cupboards and drawers. When you’re done, you should find yourself with coffee, coffee filter, a map, numbers on paper, a razor, a screwdriver and a marker.
Making some coffee
Put the filter in the coffee machine and some coffee in it. Use the empty coffee pot to get water and pour it into the tank. Then put the pot back in its place, turn on the machine and watch the 70s magic happen. Pour some coffee into the cup and drink it. You’ll find a number for the TV:
247
Make sure you go to the window after this to have a look at the pleasant view and grab a black cube.
Map Puzzle
Take a look at the pictures on the board. They are positioned according to the map in your inventory. Remember the locations of a, b and c, put the map on the projector and turn around. Use the marker to make the same lines (or just mark points a, b and c). Put the paper with the numbers on the projector, and check the numbers for each point:
a-7; b-4; c-6
Give yourself a refreshing shave using the razor in front of the mirror. Turn on the water in the sink and click on the remaining hair until it turns into a young crow. Above the projector, there is a closed ventilation tube. Use the screwdriver to open it and feed the crow to the cat. Click on the cat until its eyes turn black, turn around and comeback to grab an egg.
Go to the TV and use the numbers from the map to turn it on. Give the creepy lady the egg and she will reward you with a white cube.
Typing Machine Puzzle
First off, you’ll need two pieces of paper. One can be found behind the TV and the other one, behind the projector. Put the 3 pieces of paper together and notice the highlighted words. Go to the typing machine and type each of the highlighted words, staring with “man” (make sure you click on the black dot afterwards). The words should be in the following sequence:
man; walked; lake; mill; stopped; numbers.
Go to the TV and put in the numbers
392.
Use the black and white cubes and look up. Turn on the fan to proceed to the next chapter.
Chapter 3/4 – The Chapel
Start off with the left picture puzzle to open the door to the statue.
Statue Puzzle
To complete the statue puzzle, simply rotate the head to get the marks shown. For the first one we have a cross on top, big nose face, and a widely open mouth. Rotate the head accordingly and click on the mouth to get the eye. Do the same for the other 2, but remember to put the eye and the diamond on top of the head.
Lockers Puzzle
Green lines locker – Open the unlocked one and adjust the switches according to the green lines.
Top left locker – complete the picture puzzle on the bottom left locker and take the key inside. Put the eye from the statue on the bird skull and take the key for the top left locker. Open the fetus jar and put in the ink from the top right locker.
3-digit locker – the number can be found on the bottom of the statue and it’s
148
Shell locker – complete the statue puzzle to get the shell and put it in the slot.
Door Puzzle
Complete the right picture puzzle and grab the black cube from the middle painting. Put the cube in the door and click on the black dots to break the wall.
Signaling the man on the boat
Use the candle to light up the torches. The pattern can be seen above the door. Using the oil to fire up each burning torch, we have
left, right, left, left, right, right.
Cut the old man’s mouth open using the scissors.
Chapter 4/4 – The Cabin
You have to be very quick on this one. After you tried not to panic and failed a few times, here’s the list of things which need to be done.
Starting – grab the cog behind the lockers open them both, getting everything inside. Click on all the loose planks you see on the walls (2 on this side).
Window side – Grab the cog above the window. Click on the loose plank on the right and open it. Put the tubes in an order which would allow liquid to get from the top to the bottom tube.
Box side – Take the cog from behind the locker and take the other one plus the crowbar. Grab the matches from the box and click and open the loose plank. The cogs should be placed in the following order:
top left – medium, 2x small on the right, medium below, big one on the lower left and a small one next to the yellow one.
Go back to the starting side and use the crowbar to take the rest of the loose planks down. Use the matches to light up the mechanism and get into the elevator. Don’t panic. Just press the red button and the door will close, allowing you and the black figure to stare at each other. When you’ve seen and heard enough just press the white button to go down.
Posted by: Stinky
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August 11, 2015 11:06 AM