This past year I have been playing through all the various games that make up the Rusty Lake series. Within the lore, Rusty Lake is a possibly supernatural lake that has had many weird things occuring around it for the last couple of hundred years at least. The White Door is the fourteenth game in the series (following on from Cube Escape: Paradox) and is said to be the first true spin-off, something the title attests to, due to not following the format of the others. While the game is perfectly fine, it is also nearly completely bereft of horror elements.
The White Door takes place within a psychiatric facility in the 1970's, and follows a patient, Robert Hill, who has ended up there after losing his memory. Taking place over seven days, each day you get Robert to go through his daily schedule, while at night he slowly dreams back his missing memories.
To begin with, I did like the style the game is presented with. Much like its title, the game during its daytime sections is all black and white. It occurs (mainly) in the one room which contains everything Robert needs. A schedule on the wall tells you in which order you need to do stuff. This isn't an escape room though, you may be locked in one but that is as part of your treatment. Things like eating breakfast and personal hygiene are achieved by going to the appropriate location in the room and clicking on things. The only vague challenge comes from the computer in which simple puzzles must be completed each day, and the recreation box that must be used each day. There is a solitary day that becomes more of an escape room, but other than that you are following a set format. One annoying aspect was that puzzles take place on the right side of the screen, with the room presented on the left. Should you accidentally touch the left side while trying to solve puzzles, it will cause Robert to walk away from the puzzle, automatically cancelling and resetting it on the right, very irritating!
The dream sequences are more linear and provide blocks of memory for Robert to remember. This is when the links to other games occurs as it swiftly becomes clear that Robert at one time had dated the deceased woman who first appeared in Cube Escape: Case 23. I had hoped there would be some startling revelations here, as the memories are presented out of order. That didn't really turn out to be the case. The horror was barely a thing, one nightmare sequence when Robert wakes up mid-dream one night, and a few days of an evil version of the character inhabiting the same room, but other than that the story is more aiming for sad realism than any type of supernatural horror.
I did enjoy The White Door, I liked the art style, the restrained use of colour, and I did like the time period it was chosen to occur in. I also however couldn't help but be disappointed by the lack of a particularly exciting story being told. To me it felt slightly like a bit of a wasted opportunity. There is the next entry in the Rusty Lake series due out later this year, I have heard it is multiplayer, so I'm unsure how that will work, hopefully I will still get to enjoy it without needing to play it with others.
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