Whether you like to visit space, indulge in an RPGs or a grand adventure, get spooked by horror or get uber techy with hacking, the chances are that there's also a puzzle game for you - hence our list of the best puzzle games on PC. The queen genre straddles many others, so our list of the 25 best puzzle games has all that we just mentioned and more. Take a look to find a new favourite puzzle game today.
]]>Sequels are often contentious, but I feel like video games can get away with being a part of a long-running series – and, crucially, still be good while they’re at it, well past the point where a book or movie franchise would have outstayed its welcome.
The thing is, though, when it comes to GOTY lists like our Advent Calendar, it’s a much bigger task to convince your fellow voters of the merits of your new favourite game when it’s the third, fourth, or maybe even sixteenth in its series. I’m adamant that those games deserve their share of recognition at the end of the year, which is why my honourable mentions celebrate 2022’s new entries into some of my favourite ongoing series.
]]>The next instalment in the mysterious Rusty Lake puzzle series arrives today, and it takes things in a different direction than past games. A time-travelling conundrum that requires one person to play in the past and another in the future, The Past Within is the series’ first co-op puzzler. It’s also the only Rusty Lake game so far to include 3D environments. You can snag a glimpse of the timey-wimey, multidimensional eeriness by watching the trailer below.
]]>Eerie two-person adventure The Past Within is turning the Rusty Lake escape room series into a co-op experience on November 2nd. If you’re easily spooked like me then you’ll need to pester a friend or family member to play along with you, as one person plays in the past while the other plays in the future. Watch the trailer below, and stop checking your shadow.
]]>We’re 15 games and a movie into the Rusty Lake series, a shared universe made up of dark puzzle games and creepy adventure clickers. The 16th* has just been announced. The Past Within is an ambitious entry into the often simple series, a two-player co-op game with time-travelling puzzle solving.
]]>I was talking to a friend of mine recently, who told me that quarantine is full of "bad days and medium days." I think that's a pretty glass-half-full way of looking at it: aim any higher, and you'll be disappointed. Shoot for medium, and you might be pleasantly surprised. I hope your quarantine is averaging out to medium, and you're pullin' through.
Here, for your medium (or more) enjoyment, is your weekly dose of free games. It's a collection of games about magic, the magically real, and the mundane for when you need a little extra.
]]>The Rusty Lake series continued yesterday with the launch of The White Door. The new adventure game puts you in the shoes of Robert Hill, a man who wakes up in a mental health facility having lost his memory, and it's up to you to recover it through his dreams.
This one is a bit different from previous Rusty Lake games, with a new split-screen perspective to illustrate the game's mysterious puzzles, as well as a focus on a more personal story.
]]>E3 is over, and we've got all that mega-budget fluff out of our system, so let's get weird again. There's a big summer sale on over on Itch, which has rapidly become my favourite games store. While the bulk of the discounts run until July 1st, there's also the Itch.io Summer Selects Bundle available for one week only. It contains six hand-picked games for $9, which, all but one, I can vouch for the excellence of. While SUPERHOT may be the headliner, it also includes low-fi unsettler Paratopic and anti-fascist gay disaster road trip adventure EXTREME MEATPUNKS FOREVER, which has to be written in all caps. Below, some videos, thoughts and other picks.
]]>I'm calling it: Halloween season starts now. I've just hung a spooky lantern in the hallway and the spooky-ooky Rusty Lake gang today released not only a new altogether kooky adventure game but a live-action short film too. Ghost time is go. Cube Escape: Paradox is out now, offering its first chapter free so we can all try on the shoes of a detective trapped in a weird room across parallel universes, and the Paradox film is free and all. It's pretty nifty too, as transmedia crossover tie-ins go. Have a watch below:
]]>The next Rusty Lake game would be creepy enough without entwining itself with a live-action film, but I'm glad it is. Both Cube Escape: Paradox and Paradox: A Rusty Lake Film will come out on September 20th, telling a criss-crossing story about a detective who gets trapped in a room by an ominous crow. The film and one version of the game will be free, but there's a paid-for premium version too - though no details yet on how that'll differ.
The Cube Escape games are point and clickers set in Rusty Lake, a surreal world populated by anthropomorphic horrors. Think Twin Peaks, dialled up to 11.
]]>You might have noticed that RPS is rather fond of the Rusty Lake series. A collection of free room escape games, and so far three longer adventure games, each introduces aspects of a deeply bizarre and unsettling tale. Twin Peaks meets Ancestry.com. Now the two guys behind the prolific series are making a movie/game crossover for the series, and Kickstarting the project.
]]>The Rusty Lake universe absolutely fascinates me. Consisting of nine free room escape oddities, and three longer premium puzzling adventures, each adds clues and confusion to a deeply creepy and unsettling mystery surrounding the eponymous lake. With the recent release of the superb Rusty Lake Paradise, I wanted to speak to the two-man development team to find out how it got started, where it's going, and how they've managed to keep going while making so many properly free games. So I did.
]]>The long-running saga of Rusty Lake continues in Rusty Lake: Paradise, and I'm pleased to report this is one of its finest outings. I wasn't sure at first, but by the end I was deeply embroiled in its Lynchian psychic dystopia, once more tangentially exploring the lives of a creepy family, crow-faced creatures, and that fuzzy black man-thing that haunts my dreams.
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day, perhaps for all time.
The Rusty Lake games are beautifully macabre creations. Hotel is my favourite, I think, though Roots is perhaps more ambitious. If you haven't played them, you should play both. Here's why...
]]>Returning to work after the holidays and looking over upcoming releases, oh! A new Rusty Lake game is out real soon! Rusty Lake Paradise, as it's named, will continue the creepy adventure-o-puzzler series that I know our John and Adam have both enjoyed. It's coming next week, on Thursday the 11th, and will visit a spooky island seemingly suffering those ten terrible plagues. Personally I'd be up for for frogs galore and three days of darkness, though I suppose boils, lice, and death are a bit of a bother. Here, have a peek in this trailer:
]]>Rusty Lake Hotel [official site] is a game I have meant to write about on RPS for so long. I missed its release, and found it by luck on my phone when searching for interesting escape-the-room games. And wow, did I find interesting. And not only did I discover the incredible Rusty Lake Hotel game, a dark and devastatingly creepy murder mystery adventure, but also their catalogue of remarkably unsettling and often brilliant free Cube Escape games. Each release fits into a larger mythology that feels ominously huge and yet barely understood, awful stories of gruesome deaths and mysterious looming bird-headed figures, time-bending weirdness, and an overriding notion of cruelty that's hard to quantify. In short, they're completely wonderful. So I enter Rusty Lake: Roots [official site] with a great sense of anticipation. Here's wot I think:
]]>"Our never reviewing the utterly incredible Rusty Lake Hotel is our greatest failing," John declared yesterday after seeing the follow-up Rusty Lake: Roots [official site] hit PC. Hey, don't look at me - I only write news. Speaking of: Rusty Lake: Roots is now out, bringing more slightly eerily adventure-o-puzzling antics. It's exploring one man's family tree, playing through key moments of people's lives, which seems to include more than a few dark secrets.
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