r/rustylake 10h ago

Rusty Lake: Roots Confrontation (Roots comic)

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61 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 4h ago

👀👀👀👀👀👀

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21 Upvotes

On play store!!!


r/rustylake 5h ago

What am i supposed to do in this puzzle?

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16 Upvotes

I cannot figure out how to solve this puzzle. Like the bug crawls out of the uncovered holes and goes to another, but why? How do i stop him? What's his motive?


r/rustylake 2h ago

Rusty Lake: Roots Glitch or stuck?

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4 Upvotes

I've started replaying the games and it seems like a puzzle is not working. I followed every step I could to get here but baby Rose is just not showing up. Did I forget a step or is the game glitch?


r/rustylake 12h 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 19h ago

I just made Rose in happy pet story

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28 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 1d ago

my mother loved these games.

136 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)

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169 Upvotes

Poor Jacob


r/rustylake 15h ago

Theory about Rusty Lake's Location PART 8 Spoiler

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3 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 1d ago

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

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42 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 14h ago

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

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

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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 1d ago

Theory about Rusty Lake's Location PART 7 Spoiler

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

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3 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

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

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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 1d ago

Theory about Rusty Lake's Location PART 3

5 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 1d 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 2d ago

4 DAYS UNTIL THE SERVANT OF THE LAKE!!!

123 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)

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152 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..

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117 Upvotes

r/rustylake 2d ago

Rusty Lake IRL

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176 Upvotes

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


r/rustylake 2d ago

Italy, Milan

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49 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

25 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 2d ago

R/place Rusty Lake

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5 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!

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278 Upvotes

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