The White Door News

[h3]The Steam Summer Sale begins with a hot wave of discounts at Rusty Lake and Second Maze![/h3][p][/p][p][/p][p]Join Robert Hill and retreat from the heat wave of summer at The White Door institution, now 40% OFF in the Steam Summer Sale! Can you survive the routine?[/p][p][/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][p]Ps, While browsing our premium Rusty Lake titles featured in the Steam Summer Sale, make sure to check out and play our 10 year free-to-play anniversary release The Mr. Rabbit Magic Show! 🪄[/p][p]
[dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][p]And if you look closely while playing The Mr. Rabbit Magic Show you might discover the teaser to our upcoming premium game Servant of the Lake! 👀[/p][p]Make sure to ✨ Wishlist Servant of the Lake ✨to stay up to date with our development progress and any news regarding our next Rusty Lake game! 👇[/p][p]
[dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][p]And make sure to pre-order our exclusive anniversary merch in collaboration with the amazing Lost in Cult 🃏 You can pre-order our Premium Card Deck, also featured in The Mr. Rabbit Magic Show, our first ever vinyl Rusty Lake: Sounds of the Lake, a very special re-release of our Paradox Comic Book or a bundle of all 3 anniversary items! 🃏💿📘✨[/p][p][/p][p][/p]

[h3]Happy 10 years of Rusty Lake![/h3] 🥳 And what better way to celebrate a decade of Rusty Lake than with:

• A new free-to-play game: The Mr. Rabbit Magic Show - hat tricks, sleight of hand, and a few unexpected reveals you don’t want to miss;
  
• An early look at our upcoming premium Rusty Lake game
• And special Rusty Lake anniversary merch in collaboration with Lost in Cult - available to pre-order right now;
  
• A week-long platform-wide discounts of up to 66% OFF on all our premium games, including hosting our very own Rusty Lake Anniversary Steam Sale Page

Of course, the sale includes The White Door, which you can now download and play for 66% off! Can you bring colour back to Bob's life among the monotony of his daily routine?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1145960/The_White_Door/

And don't forget to check out our new magical puzzle game: The Mr. Rabbit Magic Show. A free-to-play short but magical game filled with enough secrets and unexpected twists to put you in a celebratory mood!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3472550/The_Mr_Rabbit_Magic_Show/

Keep an eye out for secrets while playing The Mr. Rabbit Magic Show, and you might just find an early look at our next Rusty Lake adventure! Wishlist now to stay up to date!

As a special thank-you for your continued support over the past 10 years, we’re excited to further delight you with some special Rusty Lake anniversary merch in collaboration with Lost in Cult available to pre-order as of today, April 30th:

• 🎵 Rusty Lake: Sounds of the Lake 10th Anniversary Vinyl Collection - 20 of Rusty Lake’s Greatest Hits performed by Victor Butzelaar.
  
• 🃏 A mysterious deck of cards (perfect for your own magic tricks) - designed by Maarten Pelders, inspired by the series’ surreal symbols and characters.
  
• 📖 A re-launch of our fan-favourite Paradox Comic Book by Lau Kwong Shing
  

Whether you’ve been a part of our Rusty Lake universe since the first launch of a Cube Escape title back in 2015, or you’ve joined our journey during our later years, we’d like to share a heartfelt Thank you! from the whole Rusty Lake team!
Thanks to you and your incredible support, we’ve had an amazing 10 years, and we’re as excited as ever to continue exploring the mysteries of Rusty Lake with more video games, short films, tablet-top experiences and much more! We hope you’ll stick around for what’s to come!

The past is never dead.

✨ The Steam Spring Sale is here, which means all our premium games are now 33% OFF 🙌



So book yourself, or your loved ones, a stay at our mental health facility, The White Door, now 33% OFF for the whole duration of the Steam Spring Sale!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1145960/The_White_Door/

It’s hard to believe it’s been five years since we released our first ARG, The White Door’s Mental Health and Fishing.


We were eager to try something entirely different after the crossover with Cube Escape: Paradox and the Paradox short film. One of our prototypes stood out and became The White Door- a game with a unique style in the Rusty Lake universe: split-screen, mostly black-and-white graphics, no inventory and a focus on creating an emotional narrative. In the game, you play as Robert Hill, a man with severe memory loss who checks himself in a mental health facility. Explore his dreams and help him uncover forgotten memories while navigating the facility's strict routine. The White Door was also the first game co-published by Second Maze, our new label to help publish and fund other indies with their passion projects.


Halfway through development, in the Summer of 2019, our intern, Romane, pitched the idea of an ARG to amplify the release of The White Door. We loved the concept of adding an extra layer of immersion, so we quickly decided to go for it. Our base idea was to hide a telephone number within the game and that players who called them would be led to a secret website.
On January 23, 2020, 2 weeks after the digital release of The White Door, the website: mentalhealthandfishing.com went live. This 90’s inspired website set the stage for an intense puzzle hunt triggered by fans who already got the URL from the telephone number. Players had to “hack” the site, find physical cubes in real-world locations, and connect them with the game to unlock The White Door’s secret Basement ending.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1145960/The_White_Door/

It became one of the most stressful yet exciting events we’ve ever experienced. We had to carefully plan and set up everything: the website, a video to kick off the event and additional social media accounts for characters you uncovered throughout the ARG. What we didn’t anticipate was just how many people from all over the world would jump into the ARG and participate in the physical cube hunt. We expected it to take at least a month to solve…but events transpired quite differently! The puzzle-solving power of our community, particularly on Discord, was mind-blowing. Watching it unfold was impressive, but it also meant we had to rush to wrap up the event in a satisfying way.


Nearly 20,000 people participated. The website crashed at launch, and in no time, players were racing across the globe to find black cubes in cities from San Francisco to Tokyo. Fans in South Korea were searching for a cube in a local barber shop, and in China, where COVID-19 just hit, we had to caution players to stay safe and not travel too much. Funnily enough, the final cube was hidden in Amsterdam. Mr. Crow revealed the last cube, and all locations were made visible on the world map on the website. Players who filled up our contest form and the winners of the cubes were added to the Mental Health and Fishing Hall of Fame.


This ARG was one of the highlights of our community engagement, and we want to, once more, thank everyone who took part. You all did an incredible job that day, and who knows… your help might be needed again in the future!

5 years ago we released Rusty Lake’s The White Door! What is your favorite memory of the game? ▪️▫️🚪

Please check our socials or Discord to win a The White Door t-shirt!