We’re continuing our deep dive into Rusty Lake’s eerie escape game series with Rusty Lake Hotel. This death drenched puzzler was released between games within the Cube Escape Collection, specifically between The Mill, and Birthday.
If you didn’t see our previous post on Cube Escape Collection, you can read it here.
Rusty Lake Hotel has you helping esteemed guests fulfill their wildest fantasies, making sure they’re satisfied and ready for eternal rest. That’s right, we’re going on a killing spree.
This review contains spoilers for Rusty Lake Hotel.
These escape room games get dark quickly. There are themes of depression, trauma, and death. Depictions of dead bodies are not uncommon, and are sometimes included within the mechanics of the puzzles.
Rusty Lake Hotel
This behind-the-scenes look at the enigmatic Rusty Lake has you playing as a hotel staff member. Five high-class guests check in at the start, and if you’re clever enough to solve these puzzles, none of them will leave.
While Rusty Lake Hotel is distant from our main story about Dale & Laura, it’s still loaded with secrets. Almost every character can be found in the other games. That interconnectedness is one thing that I love about the series. With every game I find myself looking back at the one before it to explore all of the references.
Familiar faces are here to help. Mr.Crow is a staple character that we’ve played as before in Cube Escape: The Mill, and Mr. Bat made a brief appearance in Cube Escape: The Cave. Even the shrimp returns!
With their aid, you’ll be providing spectacular service to each guest. Every night you’ll head into one of their rooms meeting their needs. Normal hotel things. But of course, it wouldn’t be Rusty Lake if you didn’t slaughter them afterwards and then harvest their meat. So you will!
After each night, you’ll bring your ingredients to the chef and serve the esteemed guests dinner. Oh, sorry, I meant serve them as dinner. The other patrons will rate your delicacies based on how many optional ingredients you found.
The guests’ rooms are each an escape game of their own. After entering, you cannot leave until you have finished your job. Grant their personal wishes, then find the solution to ending their lives.
Let’s take a look at the characters & puzzles of Rusty Lake Hotel room-by-room.
Room 1: Mr. Deer
Our soon-to-be seasoned venison demands a bloody mary upon our entrance. Why his flask of vodka is stuffed behind his seat is beyond me. Clearly he’s been chugging it as he has nothing to say while we chop his own antler off to use the blood in our cocktail.
Mr.Deer’s room at the Rusty Lake Hotel shows he is a fan of science. You solve puzzles involving a Bunsen burner, lab jars, and even a Riker mount. His belongings only help you to make his favorite drink his last, of course.
Mr.Deer appears, albeit in a different form, in three other games. The first is the fantastic Cube Escape: Case 23.
The puzzles of this room are classic Rusty Lake. They’re mostly click-until-you-find-everything, though two stand out. There’s a scale with symbols for you to plug into a combination, which provides a fun level of player interaction. There’s also a variation of a classic brainteaser known as the Three-Bucket Problem, and I felt satisfied when I saw it and I exclaimed, “a-ha! I know what this is.” These games frequently grant that magic of a puzzle “clicking” in one’s head.
On the topic of magic . . .
Room 2: Mr. Rabbit
Mr. Rabbit has a few tricks left, and we have the honor of being his final audience.
His room is stuffed full of props and puzzles. He’s even kind enough to put up a chart that illustrates how to properly stab him to death. This is where I have to wonder if these aristocratic animals are aware of their doom.
Fans of the despicably dark Cube Escape: Birthday will probably associate this magician with his appearance in that game instantly.
The puzzles here are fun, and the consistent magician theme makes them seem even more diegetic. Connecting cards to symbols and playing a shell game is pretty simple, but I can’t call this room boring. While it’s a breeze, there’s still a good level of engagement for the player.
Room 3: Mrs. Pigeon
Mrs. Pigeon’s room at the Rusty Lake Hotel is the strangest, with contraptions associated with the cubes, which haven’t been mentioned so far. I associate it to Cube Escape: The Mill, somewhat.
This lovely dove is relaxed in her tub when we arrive. She requests corn as her final wish, casually not mentioning the tiny bird locked in her cabinet, bound to a shock torture helmet. Not to worry though, as we’ll help the little guy get his revenge.
You can catch a glimpse of Mrs. Pigeon in Cube Escape: Harvey’s Box.
The trick to this room is activating a power source, with the help of a resentful bird, to give Mrs. Pigeon a shocking end. The puzzle that stands out here is a table with a beetle that you have to trap and catch, using chips that you could place once at a time. I love the spiderweb puzzle from The Cave, and this hits the same part of my brain just right.
Room 4: Ms. Pheasant
This Lady in Blue is preparing her photo prints for her performances at the Rusty Lake Theater (yes, it is that same show our dear detective Dale witnessed back in Cube Escape Collection), and she needs our help setting up the perfect. . . shot.
Ms. Pheasant already has the camera and empty picture frames ready for us in her room. She also possesses a mini-theater for her puppets, which have prepared a macabre scene of what seems to be domestic violence for our entertainment. Her death is the most interesting, as she fires a bullet into her own head while you take one, final photo. Connecting this with Mr. Rabbit’s death lends more credence to the concept that the guests are prepared for their deaths.
Ms. Pheasant subtly returns for a deadly performance in Cube Escape: Theatre.
These puzzles are fairly simple, with strong player-interactivity. You draw different designs on the backdrop according to a key, and give Ms. Pheasant different costume pieces to wear. And it wouldn’t be a Rusty Lake escape room without a hand crawling in from a window and donating it’s blood to use as paint.
Room 5: Mr. Boar
This escape game should be called Sandwich Maker Simulator. Mr. Boar is the neediest of the bunch, and you’ll need to allow him his vices in order to set up the killing blow.
This glutton’s room is equipped with a personal toilet, which he makes use of plenty. You’ll make use of his disappearances by setting up an axe, dangling above his usual seat. Before that, however, you’ll give him one last surrender to his opium addiction. A plant and a pipe, and suddenly you’re both hotboxed in the foggy room. But actually you’re in the forest. No wait, you’re back in the room!
Mr. Boar’s visage appears again in The Cave.
The puzzles consist of being Mr. Boar’s personal caretaker while you figure out how to set up the butchering. The Jolly Chimps and the two-colored puzzle locks are fine. Putting together the sandwich, all disgusting ingredients included, loses its novelty quick, but it’s not a big deal.
Room 6: Mr. Owl
The final room of Rusty Lake Hotel is not an escape room. Here, the esteemed Mr. Owl gives us his appreciation for fulfilling our duties diligently. He calls us Harvey, revealing that we’ve been playing as Laura’s pet bird this whole time.
His room holds the skulls of the five guests, and it’s clear he’s reveling in this great success. Tanks with black cubes line the walls. Inspecting the cubes shows the dark entities they represent, and it makes sense now that these are the shadowy forms of the guests themselves.
We see the forest once more, with these corrupted creatures walking around, and then we spot an elevator. The elevator detective Dale Vandermeer is riding up, assumedly after the events of The Cave. This is the only brief connection in Rusty Lake Hotel that we get to the main storyline.
Final Thoughts
Rusty Lake Hotel is essentially a fun series of miniature escape rooms. It’s a side story with a chunk of lore for anyone willing to dig deep enough.
The atmosphere is almost whimsical in its nonchalant morbidity. Going from nights of poisoning and electrocuting guests to serving them dinner with an upbeat groove in the background is jarring in the best way.
The puzzles were good, though kept simple in favor of the story. The novelty of killing each guest at the end of their room was up front and center. Some puzzles stood out to me, such as in Mr. Deer’s and Mrs. Dove’s rooms, but most were standard.
All in all, Rusty Lake Hotel has me excited to continue with the rest of the games in the Rusty Lake series!
If you like the idea of an escape room that involves multiple murders, check out Fright Before Your Eyes, here at The Escape Effect!
