The Forest

**The Forest** is a minor recurring location in the Rusty Lake series, appearing in many of the games, though rarely as a major playable location. It is mostly filled with tall silhouettes of trees, and seems to appear in two forms: a calm, white version, and a more sinister, red version. It is located under Rusty Lake.

## Cube Escape: Seasons

The Forest appears on the television in its red form during the Fall, as the player changes channels, prompting the player to switch to Channel 2. While it is on screen, the Egmont Overture Op. 84, Laura's favorite music, will play.

If the player goes back to the Fall after loosening the water pipe in the Summer, interacting with the damp patch on the floor will flash up an image of the red forest for a moment, along with another shot of music. The same will happen in the Winter, when the mushroom juice is removed from the blender.

## Rusty Lake Hotel

The Forest appears at first in the room of Mr. Boar. After the player has given him an opium pipe, the room fills with smoke that obscures the screen with every move. Eventually the white cloud turns into the Forest, in the calmer white setting. A number of crows sit on the branches, disappearing with a squawk when clicked on. After all of them have been dismissed, Mr. Crow will appear and give the player a knife, declaring "*You know what to do*".

The Forest then appears at the end of the game, as the Corrupted Souls of the five Hotel guests wander around between the trees, along with a number of cubes. Along with the trees is a distant elevator shaft that rises up, containing Dale Vandermeer. The camera then pans upward to reveal that the forest is in fact beneath the surface of Rusty Lake itself.

## Cube Escape: Theatre

During "*The Signs*", the second of the six plays at the Rusty Lake Theatre, the stage contains a number of puzzle pieces that must be placed together to form the eponymous signs. All of the pieces have part of a picture of the Forest on its front, and when the puzzle is completed, an image of the full Forest will appear, similar to when interacting with the mushroom in Seasons.

On one wall of the Theatre are six pictures, each representing one of the plays performed, and one of them depicts the Forest. Once "*The Signs*" has been completed, a light will shine onto the image, projecting the Sanskrit word "*naraka*", meaning Hell.

## Cube Escape: The Cave

This is the first game in which the Forest is an explorable location, though exploration is limited to piloting a submersible due to the aquatic nature of the environment. During the second act of the game, the player, as Mr. Crow must navigate the Submarine to various points under the lake to collect Cubes. Once all the cubes are collected, Mr. Boar's Corrupted Soul attacks, causing the window of the craft to break, which drops the player outside. Among the trees of the forest there is also a large white cube, which can be entered as a room. Inside this room are Dale Vandermeer and the Corrupted Soul of Laura, as well as an elevator to Rusty Lake Hotel and a machine for creating the rare golden cubes, the amalgamation of the three other cubes.

## Rusty Lake Paradise

The Forest is faintly seen whenever one of Caroline Eilander's memories plays out. Also, during the Tenth Plague, the deeper parts of the Forest underneath the Lake appears when Jakob enters the Lake through the fount.

## Cube Escape: Paradox

When the player leaves the Paradox Room, they are left to wander the Forest, followed by a Corrupted Soul who decapitates a deer and attempts to attack them. There is a locked gate opened by four statues, which leads to the surface of the Lake. Laura stands in the water, and is killed by the Corrupted Soul leaving behind a black cube. After the player becomes a Corrupted Soul, they must walk through the Forest again, this time encountering multiple Dales. Passing through the gate a second time the player sneaks up on Laura and slits her throat, leaving behind a black cube.

## Soundtrack

* When the Forest is visited at the end of Cube Escape: The Cave, the track "The End" is played from the full soundtrack.
* The excerpt of Egmont Overture Op. 84 is played while the Forest is shown on the television in Cube Escape: Seasons.
	+ This sound is played whenever the Forest appears after touching the damp patch of mushrooms in the Fall. It is an excerpt of the Egmont Overture played in reverse.

## Trivia

* A forest also appears in the pre-Rusty Lake game Samsara Room, though it is very different to the canonical one.
* The Forest is briefly featured at the start of both Cube Escape: Birthday and Cube Escape: Theatre, as Dale rises up the elevator shaft, through the cubes that make up his memories.
* As shown in Cube Escape: The Cave, the trees in the lower depths of the Forest are shorter, darker-colored and more twisted in shape than the straight, tall trees that make up the upper levels of the Forest.