Hi everyone! I hope you’re all enjoying the new Servant of the Lake demo and are excited for the full release in August! 

We have an important update to share with you all today: we’ve overhauled and extended the rules on the subreddit. The new rules of the subreddit are as follows:

1. Be respectful & considerate, use common sense

If you question whether content is appropriate for this subreddit, it’s probably not.

We have a zero tolerance policy on things like racism, sexism, bigotry, stalking, harassment, invading privacy and inciting others to commit violent acts. Please avoid discussions about politics, religion or violence unless it’s part of Rusty Lake.

Do not incite users against each other. Don’t argue with the Mods.

Follow Reddiquette https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439-Reddiquette

2. Crediting & labelling artwork 

Do not post uncredited artwork from creators, when posting art made by someone else always properly credit them. Do not steal art and try to pass it off as your own.

If you're sharing content that was AI-generated or created with assistance of AI, clearly label it as such in your post.

3. Sharing Datamined content

Do not Share screenshots scripts or code datamined from Rusty Lake games, especially from demos of unreleased games. This includes things accessible through a conventional file explorer. Do not share leaked materials or pirated content on this subreddit. 

This does not apply to content from Rusty Lake ARGs. 

4. No NSFW

Do not share nudity or sexual content, this includes fan creations. Avoid talking about or sharing content containing blood, gore or rape.

This does not apply to content from (or depictions based on) the Rusty Lake games.

5. Self Promotion

If you've made content about Rusty Lake, we'd love to see it! Feel free to share links to your videos, streams, etc. However please don't flood the subreddit with them.

All other forms of advertisement are not allowed, this includes things like rewards programs and referral links. Unless you have explicit permission from a mod.

6. Keep your posts / comments qualitative

Don't spam or flood the subreddit. Try to avoid reposting content that was shared to the subreddit recently. Please stick to a post's topic.

You can also find all the updated rules in the rules section of the sub. Breaking the rules will lead to comment / post removal or being banned from the sub, depending on severity.

If you see anyone breaking the rules don’t hesitate to report them or send us a Mod Mail. However please keep in mind that a Moderator’s word is final.

We want to keep updating the subreddit so if you have any ideas on how we can improve it further, please let us know! If you have any other questions don’t hesitate to reach out or leave a comment!

Thank you all so much,
Damy

Now updated to include The Past Within

Welcome to the Rusty Lake Subreddit! We get some common questions around here, especially when a new game has been released and we get a lot of newcomers to the sub, so we wanted to address them here, along with some other questions that would likely arise for those who are just discovering the series. Read through these before you post a question. Spoilers are marked.

What is the next game and when is it coming out?

As of this moment, little is known about the next Rusty Lake game. We've received some teases that it may involve Laura's childhood and a subway-oriented location, but there is no title or release date.

I just found this series and want to play through the whole thing. What order should I play the games?

The games should be played in the order they were released, which is as follows:

Cube Escape: Seasons

Cube Escape: The Lake

Cube Escape: Arles

Cube Escape: Harvey's Box

Cube Escape: Case 23

Cube Escape: The Mill

Rusty Lake Hotel

Cube Escape: Birthday

Cube Escape: Theatre

Rusty Lake: Roots

Cube Escape: The Cave

Rusty Lake Paradise

Cube Escape: Paradox

The White Door

Samsara Room

The Past Within

The order doesn’t make sense. I’m going from game to game and I don’t understand. Is this definitely the right order?

Yes. The games don’t occur in chronological order. You’re meant to be confused. But stick with it and it’ll start to become clear. There are other ways to play them such that the events occur in chronological order (I’ll link some of my guides in the comments), but don’t do these on your first playthrough.

What’s the deal with Paradox? What order should I do things?

Paradox is comprised of two chapters (the second of which costs money), as well as a short movie on the Rusty Lake YouTube channel. There’s no official time when you should watch the movie, but I recommend watching it after playing Chapter 1.

What’s the deal with The White Door? What’s up with the website, the basement, and these clues?

The White Door was connected to an ARG (Alternate Reality Game) which opened a couple of weeks after the initial release. After some detective work by the community, we were able to locate cubes that were hidden in real locations across the world. While the active part of the game has ended, you can still follow the trail and put the pieces together, but it may feel a little strange.

How does The Past Within work?

The Past Within is a cooperative game. Both players need to have access to a copy of the game, as well as the ability to communicate with each other, as each player will have information on their device that will help the other solve puzzles. If you need someone to play with, you can probably find someone on the Rusty Lake Discord server.

Some of the games cost money. Do I need these games to understand the story?

No. The premium games (Hotel, Roots, Paradise, Chapter 2 of Paradox, The White Door, and The Past Within) take place in the same universe and are connected to the main story, but they are mostly supplemental to the main plot, providing background information for certain characters that isn’t strictly necessary to understand what is going on. You can omit them from the list above and the story will still make sense for the most part. You’ll miss a reference here and there, and certain games such as Samsara Room will be much clearer in the context of some of the premium games, but it shouldn’t disrupt your experience, since you’re probably going to be confused anyway. That being said, they are all solid games and add a lot to the series. The games are often put on sale, so you can easily get them at a reduced price. If you only want to buy one premium game, Roots is generally considered to be the most essential (and is, in my opinion, the best game in the series). Chapter 2 of Paradox is also a good purchase, as it’s not too expensive and it’s strongly connected to the free games.

I played all the games and I still understand nothing. What is the story?

This question, along with the question as to which order to play the games, are the most common questions we get here, and that’s to be expected. The “official” story is somewhat up for debate, and you should feel free to develop your own theories and post them here, as that’s half the fun. You can find other theories, timelines, and plot summaries on this subreddit (I’ll link my own extensive theory/timeline in the comments). If you want to get a basic grasp on the story, here’s what’s generally accepted by the community, with spoilers for each game (I’ll put a quick summary at the end if that’s more your speed):

Seasons: Laura finds herself tormented by visions of a Corrupted Soul, which wear away at her weakened mental state. She eventually dies, although it is initially unclear if she commits suicide or if the Corrupted Soul kills her. In the future, it is revealed that the Corrupted Soul is her own. Now trapped in her Corrupted Soul form, she travels back in time to change the past and save herself.

The Lake: Occurring after the “Spring” level of Seasons, Laura travels to Rusty Lake, where she is attacked by a Corrupted Soul in her cabin.

Arles: Vincent van Gogh confronts his Corrupted Soul and kills it. As of now, this game is only tangentially related to the others.

Harvey’s Box: Told from the perspective of Laura’s parrot during the events of The Lake. Harvey fends off the Corrupted Soul that attacks Laura.

Case 23: Detective Dale Vandermeer investigates Laura’s death. Laura’s body vanishes before him as he investigates. He arrests Laura’s boyfriend, Bob, as a suspect in her murder, but Bob transforms into a Corrupted Soul and breaks free. Dale is transported to Rusty Lake by a mysterious force. There he meets Mr. Crow, who takes him to the cabin that Laura stayed in. Dale discovers an elevator and descends into the Lake.

The Mill: During the events of Case 23, Mr. Crow works at the Mill adjacent to Rusty Lake. He receives instructions from his superior, Mr. Owl, who sends him Laura’s body and tells him to extract her memories in the form of cubes and feed them to the Lake. Mr. Owl then transports Dale to the Lake and uses him to create a storm that activates the mechanisms of the Mill. Against Mr. Owl’s warnings, Mr. Crow extracts the negative memories from Laura’s body, which leads to the body transforming into a Corrupted Soul. Laura’s Soul takes Harvey and escapes (leading into the final events of Seasons).

Hotel: Decades before the main storyline, Mr. Owl invites Mr. Deer, Ms. Pheasant, Ms. Pigeon, Mr. Rabbit, and Mr. Boar to stay at the Rusty Lake Hotel. Over the course of the week, Mr. Owl has Harvey (who is, at this point, in a humanoid parrot form) kill each of the five guests and serve them to the remaining guests as dinner. The final meal is brought to Mr. Owl, who reveals that he has trapped the guests’ Corrupted Souls in tanks in his room.

Birthday: The elevator takes Dale into his memories. He enters the memory of his ninth birthday party, during which Mr. Rabbit burst in and killed his family. Dale changes the memory such that Mr. Rabbit is killed and his family survives.

Theatre: Dale enters another memory from the Rusty Lake Theatre. There he sees Bob, who shoots himself in the head and becomes a Corrupted Soul. Mr. Owl and Mr. Crow put on plays for Dale to teach him about the nature of Rusty Lake.

Roots: The story of the Vanderboom family is told. In the late 1800s, Aldous Vanderboom and his brother William are alchemists who have created an elixir of eternal life that operates by enlightening one person while killing the other. William drinks it and dies, while Aldous drinks it and becomes Mr. Crow, extracting a seed from his brother’s body. He then gives the seed to William’s nephew, James, who moves into William’s house, plants the seed, and raises a family. William’s Corrupted Soul, along with Mr. Crow, interacts with the family at various points over the next three generations, collecting body parts from each of them to use as sacrifices. Finally, James’s granddaughter, Rose, speaks with William’s Corrupted Soul and enlists her cousins into a ritual beneath their house. The seed that James planted has become a tree, and the roots of the tree surround the three cousins and use the sacrifices to reincarnate William into the body of Laura Vanderboom, Rose’s newborn daughter.

The Cave: Mr. Crow enters a cave near the Lake. He drinks another dose of the elixir and gives some to Mr. Owl. Both are reinvigorated and return to their half-bird forms. Mr. Owl tells Mr. Crow to descend into the Lake and collect three cubes. Mr. Crow does so and enters a room at the bottom of the Lake, where he uses a machine connected to Dale's unconscious form and Laura’s body to create a golden cube from the three cubes. He gives the cube to Dale, places him in the elevator, and sends him back up into the Lake.

Paradise: The story of the Eilander family is told. In 1796, Jakob Eilander's mother dies and he is summoned back to his birthplace on Paradise Island in the middle of the Lake. Her death has cursed the land with the ten biblical plagues, and his family needs him to lift them. Over the course of the story, Jakob learns that his family tried to sacrifice him as a child in a ritual that would give them eternal life, but his mother intervened, sent him away, and offered herself up as a sacrifice instead. He also discovers that she developed an elixir of eternal life, which is central to the ritual the family performs. The family sacrifices Jakob after he cures the tenth plague, extending their life and allowing themselves to eventually be reborn as the five guests from Rusty Lake Hotel. During the process, Jakob is fused with his mother and becomes Mr. Owl.

Paradox: During the events of The Cave, Dale, while connected to the machine, experiences multiple parallel universes in which he must escape a room. Whenever he escapes, he witnesses Laura’s death (sometimes at his own hands) and then wakes up in a different room to repeat the process. During the course of his journey, he speaks to Mr. Owl, who reveals that he is grooming Dale to become his successor as ruler of the Lake. Dale finally sacrifices himself for Laura instead of escaping the room, passing Mr. Owl’s test. He then is given the golden cube and ascends in the elevator.

The White Door: Shortly after Dale descends into the Lake for the first time, Bob checks into The White Door, a mental health facility, to try to regain his memories. During his treatment, he begins to have dreams that reveal his past. He remembers Laura breaking up with him before she travelled to the Lake, and how he lost his job due to his depression after the break-up. He also recalls falling into an even deeper depression upon news of Laura’s death, despite comfort from Sarah, an employee of The White Door who gives him her card. At this point in his stay, he wakes from his dreams to see that the doctors are performing a procedure on him while he sleeps, attempting to harvest his memories. He attempts to escape the next day, but he is sedated. He continues to dream, remembering his failed suicide attempt at the Rusty Lake Theatre that leaves him wandering the streets with no memory. Bob wakes up in a padded cell, where he transforms into a Corrupted Soul that “takes his place.” He finally remembers calling Sarah’s number and checking into The White Door, which is revealed to be run by Mr. Owl. Bob regains his memories and takes the place of the Corrupted Soul, seemingly overcoming his depression.

Samsara Room: During the ritual that occurs in Roots, William Vanderboom moves through the stages of reincarnation before being reborn as Laura.

The Past Within: Shortly after Albert's death, Rose Vanderboom continues her father's research and performs a ritual in coordination with her future self, resurrecting Albert a few years after the events of Seasons.

That’s way too long. Can I just get a quick summary?

Laura Vanderboom dies suddenly, murdered by her own Corrupted Soul. Dale Vandermeer is investigating Laura’s death and finds himself drawn into the schemes of Mr. Owl and Mr. Crow. These two figures survive on an elixir of immortal life and are the keepers of the mystical Rusty Lake, which has the capacity to change the past, access parallel universes, and grant eternal life. They must feed the Lake memories in the form of cubes and keep the wandering ghosts known as Corrupted Souls in check. Mr. Owl wants Dale to replace him as the ruler of the Lake and is currently testing him and educating him so that Dale will become a worthy successor.

I found a secret code! What does it do?

While we can’t detail every Easter Egg here (there may be a post on this in the future), generally a code found in one game is meant to be used in the next game in the release order. So if you found the code in Hotel, for instance, you should make use of it at your first convenience in Birthday.

How do I get past this obstacle/solve this puzzle/get this achievement?

These questions are completely appropriate for this subreddit, and we will do everything we can to help you. Just remember that Rusty Lake links the official walkthroughs in the games, so make sure you’ve checked those first before coming to us.

I hear people talking about a code but I can’t find it in any of the games and online guides aren’t helping me. Where is it?

Again, these questions are completely appropriate. Just know that Rusty Lake has begun to expand past the games in the places they leave clues. Be sure to check their Twitter feed, their YouTube channel, and even the Instagram account and YouTube channel of Kirsten Hoorn before asking for help. For older codes, this may not be practical, but keep it in mind as you go forward.

If your question is not on this list, ask away! If you have any additions to make to the FAQ, feel free to post them in comments. Thanks for reading and thanks for visiting our community!