OUT OF THE BOX

About

Out of the Box is a cooperative puzzle game where players work together to escape a series of rooms. Each player has a unique perspective that affects their view of the puzzles, requiring communication and teamwork to solve them. The game features a variety of challenging puzzles and a compelling narrative that unfolds as players progress.

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player Play through the game's story or campaign solo

72%

Audience ScoreBased on 93 reviews

story27 positive mentions

grinding5 negative mentions

The game features an engaging story with interesting characters and multiple endings, providing a captivating narrative experience.
The art style is colorful and charming, adding a unique aesthetic that appeals to players.
Gameplay mechanics are reminiscent of 'Papers, Please', offering a fun and challenging experience as players manage who gets into the club.

The gameplay becomes repetitive and tedious quickly, leading to a lack of engagement over time.
Technical issues such as unresponsive controls and bugs detract from the overall experience, making it frustrating for players.
The game is criticized for being overpriced, especially considering its simplicity and the fact that it feels more like a mobile app than a full PC game.

story
57 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
47%
47%
5%
The game's story has received mixed reviews, with some players finding it engaging and well-developed, particularly appreciating the character depth and moral choices that affect the narrative. Others criticized it as ordinary and repetitive, lacking significant plot twists or variation in gameplay. Overall, while the story has its captivating moments and offers multiple endings, it may not appeal to everyone due to its linearity and some tedious mechanics.
- “The story is engaging enough and the characters are great (Liz, Torres, and Warren are intriguing characters).”
- “Usually I'm not into gang-related stories, but this one was captivating - I really wasn't expecting such a dark, engaging plot with likable and not one-dimensional characters.”
- “The art style is beautiful and the story gives you several moral choices that can lead to various consequences.”
- “The story is a typical gangster drama plot where you have to decide between staying loyal to your criminal boss or turning him in.”
- “Dumb story drags on too long between actual gameplay which makes it insanely boring.”
- “It doesn't have many ways it can significantly branch from the linear storyline, so unless you enjoy the ticket checking side of things, replayability is limited.”
gameplay
37 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
27%
54%
19%
The gameplay is heavily inspired by "Papers, Please," featuring similar mechanics that can become repetitive and tedious over time, particularly due to excessive text cutscenes and limited variety in tasks. While some players appreciate the engaging story and art style, many criticize the game for its lack of innovation, frustrating controls, and gameplay-breaking bugs, leading to a mixed reception overall. Despite its challenges, the game offers a familiar experience for fans of the genre, though it may not meet everyone's expectations.
- “The gameplay mechanics become more challenging as you progress through the game, with special events adding unusual rules on specific days.”
- “Absolutely fantastic - immersive, interesting gameplay (sometimes kinda tedious, but it really works for the story).”
- “The gameplay is fun and challenging throughout as the plot advances with new situations.”
- “The developers failed one of the most basic, fundamental requirements of game design: 'show, don't tell.' You'll spend a huge amount of time not playing the game, but clicking through endless lines of poorly written visual novel text cutscenes because the developers couldn't work out how to relate their narrative through the game mechanics.”
- “As the game progresses, there are too few new game mechanics to add variety, so each day becomes repetitive very quickly.”
- “I experienced some gameplay-breaking bugs several times, making me replay lots of days again.”
graphics
27 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
37%
52%
11%
The graphics of the game receive mixed reviews, with some praising the art style as beautiful and reminiscent of titles like "Papers, Please," while others criticize the overall visual quality as low and simplistic, failing to meet modern gaming standards. Although the cartoonish aesthetic appeals to some, it is often described as jarring and not well-matched to the game's tone. Overall, while the visuals have their charm, they are seen as lacking depth and sophistication, particularly for a PC audience.
- “I love the art style; this is a little like 'Papers, Please.'”
- “The characters feel fairly well-rounded, the art style is gorgeous, and the multiple endings part keeps you coming back for more than one playthrough.”
- “The comic style graphics looked nice and the soundtrack is good, probably the best thing about the game.”
- “It's unclear if this is due to a lack of budget to arrange someone who can create graphical assets properly, or a lack of talent.”
- “Regardless, the overall visual quality of the game is very low, beneath what PC gamers have come to expect in this era of cutting-edge photorealistic 3D graphics.”
- “While there are options to change the resolution for the mobile app, all this does is scale up the simplistic 2D art assets used to make the mobile app, which makes little or no difference to the graphics quality.”
music
11 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
45%
27%
27%
The music in the game has received mixed reviews, with many praising the soundtrack as a standout feature, while others found it inconsistent and sometimes overwhelming. Players appreciate the variety of music styles that change with in-game events, but some expressed disappointment over the lack of access to high-quality versions outside of gameplay. Overall, the soundtrack is seen as a strong point, contributing positively to the game's atmosphere.
- “Best part is definitely the soundtrack.”
- “The comic style graphics looked nice and the soundtrack is good, probably the best thing about the game.”
- “Surprisingly good soundtrack.”
- “Unfortunately, there isn't really a way to listen to a high-quality version of the soundtrack without listening to the tracks in-game, so that was a bummer.”
- “Music is mainly from the club and is changing depending on the day.”
- “Depending on the event at the club, the music changed from rock to goth or house.”
replayability
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
50%
The game offers some replayability through its four different endings and various achievements to unlock, appealing to players who enjoy exploring different outcomes. However, its short playtime of under 10 hours and a linear storyline with limited branching paths can lead to repetitiveness, ultimately restricting its overall replay value for some players.
- “There's four different endings plus some other achievements to unlock, which adds quite a bit of replay value.”
- “I haven't completed it 100%, since the story branches out which adds quite a bit of replay value.”
- “The game has different endings depending on what you do, so it has also great replay value.”
- “Sadly this one is short too - about less than 10 hours and 50% achievements to reach the better final - and lacks replayability, because the concept can't support prolonged sessions.”
- “It doesn't have many ways it can significantly branch from the linear storyline (so far the majority I tried don't make a lot of difference or cause you to hit dead ends (sometimes literally), so unless you enjoy the ticket checking side of things, replayability is limited.”
- “My main complaint with it is that it does get a bit repetitive and has limited replay value.”
grinding
5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Players find the grinding aspect of the game to be initially engaging but quickly devolving into repetitiveness and tedium. While some appreciate the story elements that help mitigate the monotony, many express frustration with slow dialogue, unskippable sequences, and the overall repetitive nature of tasks.
- “It was interesting in the beginning but gets repetitive and tedious quickly.”
- “Aside from that, the game also tends to get extremely tedious and repetitive, and the slow-moving dialogue and unskippable game start-up logos get really annoying.”
- “Rough: misclicks, spelling errors, tedious dialogue.”
humor
5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The humor in the game is highlighted as engaging and entertaining, with comparisons to "Papers, Please" for its gameplay and a narrative that becomes increasingly interesting. Players appreciate the funny dialogues, particularly with unique characters, and find the overall experience to be a delightful blend of humor and storytelling. The visuals and animations also contribute to the game's lighthearted tone.
- “Game description key-points: a funny job sim, nice story and repeatable process that goes well and entertaining!”
- “Good visuals and animation, cute content and funny short story with playable and indeed enjoyable content.”
- “Its narrative gets more and more interesting and some dialogues are really funny (especially with VIPs and other freaks).”
emotional
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The emotional aspect of the game is mixed; while it offers a wholesome experience and a satisfying connection to its small development team, it falls short in creating deep emotional engagement compared to similar titles like "Papers, Please." Players appreciate the unique premise but feel that it lacks the emotional depth needed to truly resonate.
- “It satisfies the under-saturated market of 'Papers, Please'-like games, but you play as a bouncer in this one. It was a surprisingly enjoyable experience, and it gave me a wholesome feeling during the credits seeing the small dev team all represented as in-game characters.”
- “While 'Papers, Please' really got you conflicted, 'Out of the Box' fails completely in getting you involved emotionally.”
stability
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game suffers from several stability issues, including frequent bugs that cause text screens to freeze, requiring level resets. Additionally, users have reported quality-of-life problems such as unskippable intro videos and scene transitions, as well as glitches like infinite dialog loops.
- “Several times I ran into a bug where the text screen freezes, and there is no choice but to reset the level.”
- “I should also point out a few quality-of-life issues: the game language at first launch defaults to Spanish for some reason (hint: pick the default language either from the Steam settings or the system locale, and if both fail, just ask the user), unskippable intro video, unskippable scene transitions, the day select screen is annoying to navigate, and a few glitches here and there (like dialogs getting stuck in an infinite loop).”
monetization
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The monetization of "Out of the Box" has been criticized as a cash grab, with users noting that it feels like a mobile app poorly adapted for PC rather than a genuine game. The comparison to "Papers Please" highlights its lack of originality and depth, further emphasizing the perception of exploitation by its developers.
- “Out of the box is a mobile app that's been dumped on Steam as if it were a real PC game. It's a cash grab from greedy mobile developers. This mobile app is essentially a ripoff of 'Papers, Please', except instead of the dour pixel/text interface and Orwellian theme, we have a colorful, cartoony Orwellian nightclub bouncer theme.”