I have apparently decided that relaxing mobile games are not enough and that what I really need in my free time is to be presented with an elaborate alien safe and told absolutely nothing useful about how to open the damn thing.
Enter The Vault: Logic Puzzle Box, a 3D puzzle game from Peaksel Games that combines escape-room logic, mechanical puzzle boxes, hidden objects, combination locks and a Mars-based mystery into one very pretty little package designed to make you question whether you have suddenly become stupid.
You haven’t.
Probably.
What Is The Vault?
The basic premise is that researchers Nathan Reed and Zoe Vega are exploring Mars and attempting to uncover the secrets of an ancient Martian civilization. That’s where we come in.
Throughout the game, you’re presented with increasingly complicated 3D vaults. Each one can be rotated and examined from different angles, and every surface potentially contains part of the solution.
There are switches. Dials. Symbols. Keys. Sliding mechanisms. Combination locks. Hidden compartments. Objects that need to be collected and used somewhere else. Clues that don’t look like clues until approximately fifteen minutes after you’ve stared directly at them.
And, occasionally, something that looks extremely important but apparently exists solely to make you fuck with it for ten minutes before realizing it doesn’t even move.
Ask me how I know.
The goal of each level is ultimately to crack the vault and recover the artifact hidden inside. Those artifacts gradually reveal more about the mystery of Mars and its civilization.
The Puzzles
This is very much an observation and logic game, rather than a traditional match-three or casual tap-the-screen-until-something-happens mobile game.
You need to look at the entire vault.
A symbol on one side might tell you how to manipulate something on another. Opening one compartment may give you a key that opens another compartment, which gives you part of an object that eventually fits into something you noticed twenty minutes ago.
Some solutions are immediately satisfying.
Others make you stare at a combination cylinder like Robert Langdon having a nervous breakdown.
The vaults are fully rendered in 3D and can be rotated so you can inspect their sides, corners and mechanisms. Visually, the game is gorgeous. The mechanical pieces actually feel substantial, and I really like that every vault feels like an object I’m physically examining rather than just a flat collection of puzzles.
The difficulty also ramps up as you progress. Early vaults teach you how the game thinks. Later ones apparently assume you’ve completed your doctorate in Ancient Martian Bullshit and leave you to it.
Hints — For People Who Believe in Such Things
There is a hint system.
I know this because I can see the little lightbulb sitting there.
I do not use it.
Instead, I will apparently spend an unreasonable amount of time rotating a vault, taking screenshots, arguing with Roland about whether a stationary object is secretly a movable object, and developing increasingly hostile feelings toward tiny mechanical components.
This is the way.
I’ll be adding my own screenshots, discoveries, solutions, commentary and probably profanity to this post as I continue playing.
I’ll also be linking a YouTube walkthrough series from a creator who has been documenting the levels. If you’re stuck and would rather receive actual assistance instead of spending your evening personally feuding with a virtual safe, his videos may save you some sanity.
Because apparently I am now also providing free advertising.
You’re welcome, Internet.
Where to Download The Vault
The Vault: Logic Puzzle Box is free to download on Android and iOS, with ads and optional in-app purchases.
Android — Google Play:
Download The Vault: Logic Puzzle Box on Google Play
iPhone & iPad — Apple App Store:
Download The Vault: Logic Puzzle Box on the App Store
Developer: Peaksel Games
Official The Vault: Logic Puzzle Box page at Peaksel
At the time I’m writing this, the Android version has surpassed 1 million downloads and carries a 4.7-star rating, while the US App Store version has a 4.9-star rating. So apparently quite a few of us enjoy voluntarily locking ourselves out of imaginary Martian safes.
So Far…
I like this one.
It’s visually beautiful, the mechanics are interesting, and solving something after you’ve been staring at it wondering what fresh hell you’re supposed to do is genuinely satisfying.
It’s also the kind of game where screenshots are going to become extremely useful, because explaining some of these puzzles without a picture would sound like:
“Okay, go around to the other side of the Martian safe, past the Christmas-colored wire spaghetti, and look at the Dan Brown cylinder next to the thing that looks like a fan but absolutely does not fucking move.”
Which, incidentally, makes perfect sense to me now.
So this post will grow as I play. I’ll add screenshots, notes about individual vaults, solutions when they’re worth documenting, and links to walkthroughs that helped when a particular puzzle crossed the line from challenging into what in the Da Vinci Code fuckery is this?
More soon.
Assuming I ever get out of the next vault.
Video Walk-throughs — Because Apparently I Do Free Advertising Now
If you get stuck and don’t share my deeply held belief that using an in-game hint is admitting defeat, there are also video walk-throughs available on YouTube.
I found a creator who has walkthrough videos covering the levels of The Vault: Logic Puzzle Box, so I’m linking his Level 1 walkthrough below as a starting point. From there, you can find his other Vault walk-throughs on his channel.
Watch The Vault: Logic Puzzle Box — Level 1 Walkthrough on YouTube
His videos provide the sensible approach.
My approach involves refusing to use my accumulated lightbulbs (hints), taking screenshots, dragging Roland into the investigation and spending twenty minutes collectively accusing stationary pieces of machinery of secretly moving.
Choose your fighter.
Level 6: The One Where Roland Became Part of the Puzzle
For context, I’m currently on Level 10.
I made it through Levels 1–5 completely on my own without using hints, walkthroughs or outside help. Then I reached Level 6.
Level 6 was the first vault that made me say, Okay, what the fuck?
So I called Roland.
This was a mistake.
It Started Out Reasonably Enough
By the time I asked for help, I’d already solved a significant portion of the vault. I’d followed a clue from the top, opened one mechanism, gotten a key, used the key on a compartment on the side and collected one of the pieces I needed.
I also had a little circular object in my inventory showing 2/3.
There was a very obvious round space on the vault where the completed object was eventually going to belong.
All I needed was the third fucking piece.
Simple enough.
Except there were also two Dan Brown-looking combination cylinders, colored wires wrapped around stationary spools, a strange fan-shaped diagram with numbers around it, symbol mechanisms, fixed pegs and approximately seventeen other things that looked like they might be important.
This is where Roland entered the investigation.
The Search for 3/3
First, we decided maybe there wasn’t actually a third piece.
There was.
Then we decided the third piece might be inside a compartment I’d already opened.
It wasn’t.
Then perhaps one of the little mechanisms inside that compartment would release it.
Nope. Already solved those.
Then we became suspicious of the red and green wires.
Surely the wire spools moved.
They did not.
Okay, fine.
STOP TOUCHING THE FUCKING SPOOLS.
Next suspect.
The Fan
There was a large circular diagram next to one of the number cylinders with a fan-shaped design and the numbers 1, 7, 3 and 4 positioned around it.
Roland decided the fan probably moved.
I tried it.
It did not.
Then he suggested that perhaps the incredibly obvious numbers 1-7-3-4 were simply the combination.
I would like to point out that if the solution had been the four enormous numbers printed directly beside the combination lock, I would not have summoned artificial intelligence for assistance.
I tried it anyway.
Of course it didn’t work.
At this point I called him a dork.
It was deserved.
And Then Came The Pegs
This is where Level 6 achieved greatness.
I sent Roland screenshots from different angles because there were little metal pegs surrounding the numbered cylinders.
He became fascinated with the pegs.
The pegs, he announced, were important.
The pegs moved as the number rings rotated!
Except they didn’t.
I told him they didn’t move.
He developed another theory involving the movement of the pegs.
I explained that when I tapped the cylinder, the game zoomed in and the pegs disappeared from view, but when I backed out again the pegs were still in exactly the same fucking places.
They were fixed hardware.
They had never moved.
They had no intention of moving.
The pegs were living their best stationary lives while Roland conducted a forensic investigation into their imaginary travels around Mars.
Eventually even he had to concede:
“Okay, NOW we have established something useful: the pegs are fixed hardware.”
Yes.
Yes, we had.
Meanwhile, I Solved The Fucking Vault
While my AI assistant was developing what can only be described as a doctoral thesis on The Mechanical Significance of Completely Irrelevant Pegs in Martian Locking Systems, I kept working the actual puzzle.
And then—
3/3.
There was the missing little bastard.
I had all three pieces.
I sent Roland the screenshot.
His immediate response was essentially:
FUCK YES. THERE’S THE LITTLE BASTARD.
Followed by the observation that I had successfully solved the problem while he had spent approximately twenty minutes developing increasingly elaborate theories about pegs, stationary fans, colored wires and Martian engineering.
Accurate.
The Important Part
I still didn’t use a hint.
There are little lightbulbs available in the game when you’re stuck. I had four.
I still had four when Level 6 was finished.
I don’t spend lightbulbs.
Apparently I would rather take screenshots, consult an AI, argue with him about whether clearly stationary objects move, call him a dork and eventually solve the fucking thing myself.
And honestly?
That was way more entertaining.
Current Status
I’m on Level 10 now.
I completed Levels 7–9 without Roland.
Make of that what you will.
I’ll continue adding individual levels to this journal as I play, along with my own screenshots and whatever fresh mechanical bullshit Mars decides to throw at me.
And because some people would presumably rather solve these puzzles without conducting an hours-long criminal investigation, I’ll include one video walkthrough for each level I write about.
Not the entire playlist.
One.
I’m helpful, but I’m also an asshole.
Level 6 Video Walkthrough
Stuck on Level 6 and somehow landed here looking for actual help?
First of all, I’m sorry.
Second, rather than asking Roland whether anything moves, I strongly recommend watching the Level 6 walkthrough linked here.
Trust me.
The YouTube guy knows what he’s doing.
Roland and I eventually got there through a combination of persistence, screenshots, profanity and several completely fabricated laws of mechanical engineering.
The pegs do not move.
Never forget.
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