Rusty Lake Hotel

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Five guests, five dinners, and each one worth dying for.

Platforms: PC, Mac, iPhone, Android
Price: Paid
Rated: Overwhelmingly Positive on Steam (96% of 10,654 reviews); Metacritic 65 (PC); 4.8 of 5 on the App Store (1,562 ratings)
Players: 1
Made by: Rusty Lake
Released: 2016

Get it on Steam App Store Google Play Rusty Lake

What frightens A crow-headed staff welcomes five animal-headed guests, a deer, a rabbit, a boar, a pheasant and a pigeon, to a hotel on a still lake, and the owner wants every dinner to be worth dying for. You search their rooms and solve puzzles to prepare each meal, and what you prepare is their end. The hand-drawn rooms look polite and calm, which makes the bloody and grotesque turns more unsettling; several
Content: blood and gore in a cartoon style, killing of characters as part of the puzzles.

Rusty Lake Hotel is a dark point-and-click puzzle game from Rusty Lake. As the staff of a strange hotel on a lake, you serve five animal-headed guests over a week of dinners, solving puzzles in their rooms to prepare each meal, and each dinner is meant to be worth dying for.

About Rusty Lake Hotel

Rusty Lake Hotel is a point-and-click puzzle adventure by Rusty Lake, the makers of the Cube Escape series. It came out on Steam in January 2016 for Windows and Mac and is also sold on iPhone, iPad and Android.

The setting is a grand hotel on an island in a still green lake, run by staff with crow and bird heads. This week five guests are staying, each with an animal head: a deer, a rabbit, a boar, a pheasant and a pigeon. There will be five dinners, and the hotel's motto is to make every one of them worth dying for. You move through six rooms full of puzzles: switching mechanisms, codes, scales and chemistry sets, pin boards, moth cases and hidden objects, gathering what you need for each dinner.

Its horror is not about being chased. The hand-drawn rooms are tidy and the guests well dressed, and the darkness comes from what your work is for and from the grotesque, bloody moments the puzzles lead to. Players describe it as spooky but strangely cosy, surreal and at times disgusting, and a few found it too unsettling. Each room has its own theme music.

It is one of the earlier Rusty Lake games and ties into the wider story told in Rusty Lake: Roots, Paradise and the Cube Escape games. It suits players who like quiet puzzle adventures with a macabre streak more than jump scares.

How to play Rusty Lake Hotel

Buy Rusty Lake Hotel on Steam (Windows or Mac), the App Store or Google Play.
Start the week at the hotel and meet the five guests.
Click around each room to find objects and clues, and use items from your inventory on the scene.
Solve the room's puzzles to gather what is needed for that night's dinner.
Serve each dinner and move on to the next guest until the week is over.

Screenshots

A crow-headed boatman rows the animal-headed guests across the lake to the hotel

The five animal-headed guests sit at a long dinner table under a chandelier, a covered dish in the middle

A deer-headed guest in a striped suit lounges on a red sofa in his hotel room

A table with a chemistry set, a wooden cabinet and brass scales, part of a room's puzzle

Tips

Look closely at every wall, drawer and picture; many clues are small details in the background.
Hold on to items until you know where they go; some players found that using an item in one place cost them another goal.
Each room has extra secrets and achievements if you want to see everything.
If you like it, Rusty Lake: Roots and Rusty Lake Paradise continue the same world with larger stories.

Questions

Is Rusty Lake Hotel scary?

It is unsettling more than frightening. There are no jump scares or chases, but the story is about preparing deadly dinners for the guests, with bloody and grotesque moments in a cartoon style.

Do I need to play the other Rusty Lake games first?

No. It stands on its own, though it connects to the wider Rusty Lake story in Roots, Paradise and the Cube Escape games.

What platforms is Rusty Lake Hotel on?

Windows and Mac on Steam, plus iPhone and iPad on the App Store and Android on Google Play.

How many puzzles are there?

The makers describe six rooms full of puzzles and five dinners, one for each guest.