THE WHITE DOOR
Once again, I played The White Door with a distinct lack of prior knowledge. Rusty Lake is both the name of the game’s developers and the surreal world they are creating via a wonderful collection of puzzle-adventures. I now have their bundle. But, last things first. The White Door is their most recent release and I had no idea these characters and events were so deep until I started playing the rest, later. As a standalone game, The White Door is (kinda) a love story, (kinda) an exploration of (possibly) psychosis and definitely a puzzle game.
Mechanically, it opens like Florence, by Mountains Games. You’re tapping to consume bitesized donut chunks and pulling a toothbrush back and forth across your teeth. You’re also confined to a white room, following a daily schedule of tasks; breakfast, selfcare, memory tests and so on. A health worker asks your age, which you can figure out from a calendar and the date of birth on your file. It’s disorienting to not know basic details of your life and to have to observe your surroundings to figure them out. The character’s name is Hill.
Delightfully, you play through a collection of dream sequences (framed as memories) which are told in retrospect. So Hill says, “I took a sip,” and that’s your cue to drag a Bloody Mary to your character’s lips. Later, he’s sad, and you’re literally pulling tears from his eyes. I found interacting in this way made Hill very sympathetic. If you’re sensitive to suicide, however, there is a moment where you’ll have to participate in a version of this. It’s a (relatively) small part of the game, but you may wish to give the entire experience a miss. There’s no way to avoid it.
After a couple of days in the white room, things start to get weird. If this is a health facility, why are they feeding Hill donuts? Soon, you’re given a clue which reveals a myriad of other clues that had been hiding in plain sight. Incredibly, after the ending, you can unlock achievements which allow you to play as another (hardly ever seen) character. What they did in the white room changed my entire understanding of what the game was about. This wasn’t finished. I wanted to know more. And so, I started at the beginning, with the Cube Escape series.
These short (and plentiful) experiences are like escape room/ adventure game hybrids, immediately thematically linked to The White Door. There’s birdseed, music notes, dominoes, moths, and all of the things that had been so (recently) meaningful to me. The episode called “Case 23” blew my mind, because the dress a woman was wearing had the same pattern as (something very important) at the end of The White Door. And the Russian Doll, wow. You don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m not entirely sure I do. It’s an incredibly intricate narrative.
In fact, I’m amazed by how this massive series is so internally coherent. Each is its own game, yet links to many others. One is set in a hotel. Others are earlier (and earlier) prequels. You often have to figure out who the player character is, too. I haven’t finished all of these, as yet. (There is an exorbitant amount of content for $20.) But The White Door functions beautifully as either your first game or your last. I’m glad I played it first because, although the art and puzzles are highly engaging, it was caring about Hill that prompted me to learn more.
If this is a health facility, why are they feeding Hill donuts?