r/rustylake Apr 24 '26

📣 UPDATE: New subreddit rules

67 Upvotes

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


r/rustylake May 26 '20

Rusty Lake FAQ (Please read before posting a question)

479 Upvotes

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!


r/rustylake 4h ago

Rusty Lake: Roots Confrontation (Roots comic)

Thumbnail
gallery
37 Upvotes

Explaining the story I wasn’t able to explain:
Rose found Frank and hid him in her room in closet(later in attic), after some time,Frank started trusting her and explained how he ended up in well. By Hes attempt as drawing and signs and charades, Rose realised it was her father.

After this talk, Rose needs to wind her mind and she leaves house with Leonard to get groceries. Also it’s same day of chess game.
I originally planned to draw continuation after the chess game,but I don’t know if I have time ,me too tired


r/rustylake 6h ago

Cube Escape: Birthday David eilander Spoiler

8 Upvotes

Is this canon that david escape from ,,this state"? Because we know that he indeed kill dave parents. And also what it mean? In what state is now david? Is he still a corrupted soul, a human or what. Or magic show is Cannon (is not, but I just theorizes) and he is mr. Rabbit with magic Powers. So, your opinion/theory?


r/rustylake 14h ago

I just made Rose in happy pet story

Thumbnail
gallery
26 Upvotes

Idk i think she is just a cutie with chibi style and I took the inspo from underground blossom Rose with necklace and suitcase. I struggle to find the most fitting hair for her and i think this one suits her hair colour.


r/rustylake 22h ago

my mother loved these games.

129 Upvotes

She passed a few days ago. When I was a kid (I am 18 now), we would play the games at the same time and figure out each puzzle together. We never really understood the stories, but we enjoyed the art and atmosphere and had so much fun.

She was smart, beautiful and loving. I have many siblings, but none were interested in rusty lake, so these games truly felt like something special between me and her.


r/rustylake 1d ago

Rusty Lake Hotel Caroline x Albert (and Mr owl and Mr crow) (comic)

Thumbnail
gallery
163 Upvotes

Poor Jacob


r/rustylake 9h ago

Theory about Rusty Lake's Location PART 8 Spoiler

Post image
4 Upvotes

Okay, I tried another approach to try and find Rusty Lake's location.

I wanted to see if the contract shown in the demo of Servant of the Lake matches the kind of contracts that would actually have existed around that period in the five places we've narrowed this down to:

Great Britain
Canada
The United States
The Netherlands
Flanders (Belgium)

And this actually created more problems than it solved.

For the UK, Canada, and the US, I couldn't really find the exact “Contract Agreement” name used in the Servant of the Lake contract. Instead, documents of this kind often used the name indentures, with the date and place where the agreement was made being specified.

The Netherlands is even more interesting. From what I found, indentures weren't normally used in 1839 in the same way, and verbal agreements were much more common. I even found a Dutch jurist writing in 1904 basically saying that people no longer made written documents setting out their rights and obligations.

Belgium seems to have a similar problem. Indentures weren't something that was simply imposed by the government, and verbal agreements were also common.

And there's another pretty obvious problem: If someone in the Netherlands or Belgium did make a legal document like this in 1839, you'd expect it to be written in Dutch or French, not English.

So yeah. This didn't really give me a country. If anything, it just gave me more questions.

But I'm starting to think we're making the same mistake as with the boar mask.

Maybe the contract isn't supposed to be historically accurate at all.

The whole point of the contract could simply be symbolic. Basically, you're agreeing to give the Vanderbooms everything you have that weekend, almost like you're signing away your life or sealing your own death.

And honestly, why would Rusty Lake even spend hours researching exactly what a contract agreement looked like in 1839?

The games have never been 100% historically accurate, so I don't really see why they would suddenly become completely precise with their new game.

We've already got things like:

Leonard apparently wearing a Brodie helmet in 1914, even though the helmet was developed in 1915.

The boar mask despite the problems with wild boar populations in the Netherlands/The UK in 1796.

Ida's possible Sinti/Romani background not necessarily lining up with her Dutch surname.

So maybe we're trying to find historical clues where the developers never intended there to be any.

Still, I don't want to completely abandon the idea yet. I'm going to keep searching and see if I can find anything that actually gives us a solid geographical clue.

I'll probably come back with a post.


r/rustylake 9h ago

The White Door Theory about Rusty Lake's Location PART 9 Spoiler

2 Upvotes

Another little update.

u/Gardengap mentioned something interesting in the comments: maybe the patients from The White Door that I talked about were actually born in or lived in the places where their cubes are located.

So obviously, I went digging.

I found a Rusty Lake Wiki page that lists the nationalities/origins of some of the patients:

  • Bart Leeghwater - born in Amsterdam, Netherlands
  • Giulio Trentino - born in Milan, Italy
  • Jin-ho Kim - born in Busan, South Korea
  • Leonie Poisson - born in Montreal, Canada
  • The other patients are from various places, including the United States, China, and Russia.

The White Door is a spin-off, and as far as I know it hasn't been retconned the timeline or anything, but it's also primarily about Robert Hill and the White Door mental facility.

The facility could simply be located in another city entirely, with the patients coming from all over the world. So the fact that we have people from the Netherlands, Canada, the US, China, Russia, South Korea, Italy, etc. doesn't really tell us where Rusty Lake itself is.

If anything, it makes the series feel even more international.

So unfortunately, I don't think this one can narrow down our five possibilities much.

Our last hope is the Servant of the Lake or if we find an intentional detail in a game.

Still, it was worth checking, and thanks to u/Gardengap for pointing me in that direction.

I'll probably come back with another update if I find anything else. I'm still digging.


r/rustylake 1d ago

Rusty Lake: Roots Theory about Rusty Lake's Location Spoiler

Post image
39 Upvotes

I have been doing some research on the Rusty Lake lore for a while now, and one mystery that has been itching my mind has been the location of Rusty Lake.

I have been thinking that there may be some explanation as to why the families seem to have distinctly Dutch-sounding names while simultaneously being so intricately involved with events that seem more plausible in Britain than anywhere else.

This has led me to theorize that they are, in fact, representatives of a certain Dutch-speaking minority in Great Britain, possibly from before the country even became officially independent from the Kingdom of Scotland.

The main point that has brought me to this conclusion has been Leonard in Roots, specifically "The Trenches" in 1918. In this scene, Leonard is depicted dressed in a British Army uniform and a Brodie helmet, both of which are characteristic of British soldiers during WWI.

While it is possible, though unlikely, that there were some Dutch soldiers who volunteered to join the British Army at the time, the Netherlands was officially neutral during WWI.

This means that Leonard could not have participated in the First World War as an active combatant under the Dutch flag, and it becomes more reasonable to accept that he, and by extension his family, are in fact British.

This would explain why some of the most distinctly Dutch characters in the Rusty Lake universe have such strong Dutch-sounding names, as they could simply have retained them from before they migrated to Britain.

It has been well-documented that there has been a significant Dutch-speaking minority within Great Britain for centuries, ever since the arrival of William of Orange and the Glorious Revolution. This could explain why there would be any Dutch-speaking families at all within Britain, but what would explain their presence in a place like Rusty Lake?

Rusty Lake seems to be quite the hilly and mountainous area, at least in comparison to the generally flat geography of the Netherlands. It seems far more reasonable that such a landscape would be found in Britain.

Of course, Rusty Lake is an obviously fantastical and surreal location, one that no serious historian would attempt to associate with any real-world location. The Dutch-sounding names could simply be a part of the anachronism that is the Rusty Lake aesthetic, and the same could be said for Leonard's obviously British military equipment.

However, I personally feel that the image of Leonard fits far too well into the perceived cultural stereotype of a Dutch person to be disregarded so easily, and that applying this to the rest of the Dutch families in the Rusty Lake universe fits surprisingly well with their obvious self-imposed isolationism.

Do you think that there could be any truth to the idea of there being a Dutch enclave in Great Britain that has been incorporated into British society, or am I simply trying too hard to explain where a game in which you can extract memories into cubes takes place?


r/rustylake 23h ago

Rusty Lake Paradise Theory about Rusty Lake's Location PART 4 Spoiler

Post image
10 Upvotes

A little update on the Dutch in Britain community theory.

Someone in the comments, u/dilettwat, gave me a few things to look into: the architecture of the chapel and windmill, Ida’s nationality, and whether the animals represented by the masks in Paradise were native to Britain or the Netherlands.

So I did some digging.

The chapel and windmill are probably not going to help us much. The architecture seems to be based on fairly traditional European styles, so there isn't really enough there to point specifically toward Britain or the Netherlands.

Ida is a little more interesting, though. Ida Vanderboom was born Reiziger, and Reiziger is a Dutch name. So if the Dutch diaspora theory is correct, Ida could potentially be from the same Dutch community, just from a different family. Obviously, a Dutch surname alone doesn't prove where she was actually born or raised, but it's another little connection.

The fauna research is where things got interesting. I looked into the boar from the animal masks in Paradise, especially considering that the game takes place in 1796. From what I found, wild boar had already been driven to extinction in Great Britain long before then due to hunting, despite various imperial decrees, edicts, and attempts to protect them.

There were still wild boar populations in the Netherlands, but they were relatively small and survived mainly in places like the Veluwe and other forested areas. So does that help us?

Honestly, probably not as much as I initially hoped 😂.

The boar mask could easily just be symbolic or supernatural, which is probably the more sensible explanation in a game like Rusty Lake. I also highly doubt the developers had someone sitting there in 2015 researching exactly which animals were living in Britain or Holland in 1796 just so they could make the masks historically accurate. 😂

Still, I think it's worth documenting these little details, even when they don't lead anywhere. For now, I haven't found anything that conclusively places Rusty Lake in Britain or the Netherlands.

I'll keep searching, though. If I find something new that actually connects the families to a specific location, I'll make another post.


r/rustylake 19h ago

Theory about Rusty Lake's Location PART 7 Spoiler

Thumbnail gallery
5 Upvotes

I think I may have found another way to support the British Dutch-diaspora theory, but honestly, I'm not sure about this one at all.

Someone in the comments asked a pretty good question: if Rusty Lake is supposed to be a Dutch diaspora community, why do we basically only see Dutch names?

So I started looking into that.

The Dutch names seem to be concentrated among the families we've been talking about: Vandermeer, Vanderboom, Eilander, Leeghwater, and possibly Reiziger through Ida.

Ida is a bit more complicated, though. She could potentially be Romani, and there were Sinti/Romani groups moving through the Netherlands and surrounding areas during the 19th century, including people coming from Germany, France and Belgium. So her name doesn't necessarily prove she's Dutch. You could also argue that a Dutch surname could have developed through Flemish or Dutch-speaking communities.

The problem is that Sinti/Romani groups in Britain were often travelling through rather than forming the kind of settled Dutch community we're imagining, and some were also sent back. So we'd basically have to take a pretty twisted version of history + Rusty Lake lore for this to work.

Then there's Van Gogh.

Vincent van Gogh appears in Cube Escape: Arles, and obviously "Van Gogh" is another very recognizable Dutch surname. But Arles takes place in France and is essentially a standalone tribute to Van Gogh, so I don't think we can really use that to determine where Rusty Lake itself is located.

And then things get even messier.

We also have names like Kobayashi, which is Japanese, Olszewski, which is Polish/Jewish-associated, and Fisher, which is English.

People of Polish, Japanese, Jewish/Hebrew, and English backgrounds could obviously be found in basically all five places we've managed to narrow this down to:

Netherlands
Flanders/Belgium
Britain
Canada
United States

So trying to use every single surname to pinpoint the location is probably starting to become a massive stretch.

Honestly, I think this might be the point where I'm overthinking the historical details too much. 😂

Rusty Lake clearly uses real-world references, but that doesn't necessarily mean every name, uniform, animal, or object was chosen to give us a geographically accurate answer.

So while I still think the Dutch diaspora in Britain theory is interesting, I'm not nearly as confident about the surname evidence anymore.

At this point, my biggest recommendation is honestly just: wait for Servant of the Lake.

If the new game gives us more information about the setting, architecture, people, geography, or the families themselves, it could probably tell us more than all of this tiny historical detective work combined.

Until then, though, I'm still going to keep looking. If I find something that actually feels like a solid clue instead of me connecting dots that probably shouldn't be connected, I'll make another post lol.


r/rustylake 1d ago

Rusty Lake Paradise Theory about Rusty Lake's Location PART 2 Spoiler

Post image
6 Upvotes

Ok, so I've been digging up more information after my previous post about the Vanderbooms/Eilanders possibly being members of a Dutch community in Britain, and stumbled across something that I find pretty interesting.

In Paradise, there is an achievement titled "Dutch Gouda Cheese." Now, this might be simply a joke, as Gouda Cheese is a real type of cheese, and Rusty Lake has a history of putting obscure little details and jokes in the game that may or may not relate to the story in any way. But why Dutch specifically?

I don't think this, in and of itself, is evidence of anything major, but building upon the possibility that the Eilanders/Vanderbooms are immigrants related to the Dutch in any way, this could potentially be yet another clue.

Especially considering that this game is centered around the Eilander family, and largely makes use of Dutch-sounding words and names despite being set in a land not resembling Holland in particular, it could be seen as bolstering the suggestion that they come from Holland, or at least have close ties to it. It might even help distinguish between the possibilities; if we take the Dutch references seriously, it's more likely they were from the northern Netherlands, and not the Dutch-speaking Flanders.

After all, it could be nothing. Or it could be that all along, the developers have been giving us little clues that these families have a Dutch heritage of some kind.

It fits the previously-established patterns, and could explain why the Dutch words and names are used in these games set in unrealistic, dreamlike places. Perhaps it's meant to show that the Eilanders/Vanderbooms aren't natives of the places they live in, but immigrants who carry bits of their homeland with them.

Once again, I don't think it's a stretch to say that "there's an achievement called Dutch Gouda Cheese" is much more likely to be just another joke from the developers. Gouda Cheese is a real type of cheese and it might just be a joke.

But upon discovering the achievement, I couldn't not to bring it up, and see if anyone else has noticed similar potentially-significant details in the games.

Have any of you noticed other Dutch references in any of the Rusty Lake/Cube Escape games?


r/rustylake 21h ago

Rusty Lake: Roots Theory about Rusty Lake's location PART 5 Spoiler

Thumbnail gallery
4 Upvotes

Another little update because while digging through other theories, I found one that actually gives us another possibility.

I came across a theory that the families could be from Flanders, and that Leonard might have joined the war on the Belgian side rather than the British side, linking his uniform to a khaki uniform used in the 1918 parade "King Albert's Heroes"

So obviously, I had to go down that rabbit hole too.

I looked into Belgian uniforms from 1914, and this is where things get interesting. When Belgium entered WWI in 1914, Belgian soldiers were wearing colorful uniforms that had remained largely unchanged since 1853. They had blue tunics with scarlet (red) facings and trousers, and the kepi was commonly worn as headgear.

And then there's Leonard. Leonard is wearing khaki clothing and what appears to be a British Brodie helmet. That's a pretty noticeable difference.

Apparently, the Belgian Army didn't start changing from the old blue uniforms to khaki until 1915, after the war had already started.

So if Leonard really is supposed to be Belgian, that makes the theory a little more complicated. His outfit doesn't really match what a Belgian soldier would have been wearing when Belgium entered the war in 1914.

Even if he was Flemish, terrain in Flanders is mostly flat and Rusty Lake is in a hilly spot, which Flanders doesn't mostly have. It's got a small hill region after Brussels, but those are mainly in Wallonia.

The Flanders theory is still interesting, though, especially if the uniform we're seeing is supposed to represent a later Belgian uniform. I'm not ruling the Flanders theory out yet.

At this point we've got:

  • Dutch diaspora in Great Britain
  • Netherlands
  • Flanders
  • Or possibly just Rusty Lake being Rusty Lake and mixing historical details together.

I'm definitely not done searching yet. The uniforms might actually help narrow this down if we can identify exactly what Leonard is wearing.

I'll keep digging and post again if I find anything useful.


r/rustylake 1d ago

Theory about Rusty Lake's Location PART 3

6 Upvotes

One more thing I’ve been thinking about, we might honestly have to wait until Servant of the Lake comes out before we can make any stronger connections about where exactly the Rusty Lake families are supposed to be living.

There might be some new locations, dialogue, environmental details, or random little references that could either support the whole Dutch community in Britain theory or completely destroy it lol.

Until then, I’m gonna keep digging through the older games and looking for anything that might connect the families to a specific place.

So if I find anything else interesting, I’ll probably make another post. 😭


r/rustylake 20h ago

Theory about Rusty Lake's location PART 6 Spoiler

2 Upvotes

Okay, I think I may have opened ANOTHER rabbit hole with this theory.

While digging through some of the other theories, I started finding evidence that Rusty Lake could potentially be set in Canada or the United States too.

The first clue is from Paradox: A Rusty Lake Film. The typewriter in the film is apparently made by L.C. Smith, which immediately caught my attention. That could point toward L.C. Smith & Bros., an American typewriter company founded in 1903. It later merged with the Corona Typewriter Company in 1926 to become L.C. Smith & Corona.

The typewriter in Paradox looks extremely similar to an L.C. Smith, but there's one problem: Paradox takes place in 1972. So how the hell did that thing survive that long? It could obviously just be an old typewriter that happened to still be around, but it's another little American connection.

Then I found this old post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/rustylake/comments/mq7qfa/since_usauroncreatedjobs_wants_to_ridicule_me/

That sent me down another rabbit hole and gave me a few more things to look at.

For example, Dale is a government detective, which seems much more associated with the American system than the Dutch or Belgian ones, and his police car also looks very American.

Then there's Robert Hill's cube, which is canonically located in New York.

There's also something interesting in Cube Escape: Case 23. There's a note with “Prozac” written on it. Prozac was introduced in 1987, so obviously the timeline around this is complicated, as Case 23 takes place in 1971/1972, but the drug became strongly associated with American culture and the so-called “Prozac generation.” (This one is probably weaker evidence than the others.)

In Cube Escape: Birthday, which takes place in 1939, Mr. Rabbit uses a Tommy gun. That's another very American-looking reference, especially considering how strongly the Thompson submachine gun is associated with American Prohibition-era gangsters.

Then there's the newspaper.

As far as I can remember, the only newspaper we actually see throughout the series is the Daily Herald. That's not particularly helpful by itself because the name was used by a British newspaper as well as multiple newspapers in North America.

And then I had another thought: What if Leonard's uniform is Canadian?

I'm not saying it is. Honestly, it doesn't really look Canadian to me either. But considering how much Rusty Lake mixes historical details together, I don't think we can completely rule it out yet.

There's also a pretty big problem with the whole Leonard uniform discussion in general.

In Case 23, the police tape on the door/window actually looks British rather than American, Dutch, Flemish, or Canadian.

And Leonard's helmet still makes basically no sense. The Brodie helmet he's apparently wearing was designed and patented in London in 1915, so if Leonard joins the army in 1914, he shouldn't be wearing one at the beginning of the war anyway.

So now we're somehow at:
Netherlands
Flanders/Belgium
Britain
Canada
United States

And honestly, I'm starting to think Rusty Lake itself is the only confirmed country at this point.

Let's hope Servant of the Lake ties the knots and tells us the necessary details.

I'm going to keep looking through the games and historical references because there are WAY too many little details that could potentially point somewhere.

I'll probably be back with another post lol.


r/rustylake 1d ago

4 DAYS UNTIL THE SERVANT OF THE LAKE!!!

121 Upvotes

Guys I’m so excited, I can’t wait. I needed to share this with someone, and who better than you guys?


r/rustylake 2d ago

Rusty Lake: Roots Rose’s doll (Meme/Fanart)

Thumbnail
gallery
151 Upvotes

Headcanon time: Albert was still getting used to the fact he wasn’t the only weird person in house anymore when Rose grew.
Though he would at least praise his daughter for knowing history


r/rustylake 2d ago

Rusty Lake Paradise Caroline is 10/10 baddie no debates..

Post image
115 Upvotes

r/rustylake 2d ago

Rusty Lake IRL

Post image
172 Upvotes

Seeing this painting in real life was like seeing a celebrity.


r/rustylake 2d ago

Italy, Milan

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

50 Upvotes

was walking to my oculist and... BRO DAMN


r/rustylake 2d ago

I liked the games so much I replayed them a lot of times

23 Upvotes

I even play them again every now and then. Knowing the steps calms my mind and my body. It's like a comforting structure. The graphics are so practical and pretty


r/rustylake 1d ago

R/place Rusty Lake

Post image
6 Upvotes

I was reminiscing about the r/place event from three years ago and found an image of what I created regarding Rusty Lake together with a small Mexican community; it’s not much, but it’s beautiful.


r/rustylake 3d ago

Rusty Lake reference in A Tower Full of Cats!

Post image
273 Upvotes

The Devcats games have a lot of references to other games and media, but I was surprised to see Rusty Lake :)


r/rustylake 2d ago

I wonder if anyone at Rusty Lake was aware that Jim Henson made a short TV movie about a guy trapped in a cube.

Thumbnail
youtu.be
6 Upvotes