![]() Different games allow you to explore different places, although sometimes it takes a while to realize where you are but most importantly - who you are. Rusty Lake location where almost all the games take place, includes not only the Lake itself but also several more structures and buildings around it: a Cabin on an island, a Bridge, a Chapel, a Cave, a Mill, a Graveyard, the Vanderboom house, and a Forest. This type of narrative appeals to me greatly and even now, almost a year after I've played everything there is to play, it still occupies my mind. I'd say that Rusty Lake's story is very much a puzzle, with every game, be it a free Cube Escape episode or a big Rusty Lake game, giving you a few more pieces to connect to those you already have. Yes, all of these games are connected they share a cast of principal and secondary characters, tell different parts of one big intergenerational story and most of them happen in the same location - you guessed it - the mysterious Rusty Lake. ![]() Am I supposed to start with all the Cube Escape games? Should I break them up with the full-length Rusty Lake games? Are they even connected? You can probably see why I was so confused about the order I was supposed to play these games in. The next game, The Past Within, is scheduled to release in Q2 2022. Rusty Lake series also includes 4 full-length premium games: Rusty Lake Hotel (2015), Rusty Lake: Roots (2016), Rusty Lake Paradise (2018) and The White Door (2021). 10 Cube Escape episodes have been released to this date, with the latest installment being Cube Escape: Paradox (2018). The Rusty Lake games began in 2015 with Cube Escape: a series of free room escape Flash games that follow an investigation conducted by detective Dale Vandermeer. The Rusty Lake predecessor, Samsara Room, was their first room escape game developed in 2013 and then remade in 2020 to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the franchise. Rusty Lake is a series of point-n-click games developed by Rusty Lake - an indie game studio based in Amsterdam, founded by Robin Ras & Maarten Looise. However, since I will be talking about what makes the storytelling in these games so unique, I will inevitably have to touch on some elements of the story. SPOILER WARNING: I will not spoil any major plot points or reveal too much of the puzzles and characters. In this post I will focus on what impressed me the most in the way Rusty Lake narrates its story and what tools this game series uses to create its unique atmosphere. It's always important to me how exactly the game tells its story and what tools are used to elevate the narrative and make it coherent, especially if it is a point-n-click game that does not have a lot of dialogue or exposition and has a convoluted timeline. ![]() I received a lot of support and encouragement, for which I am most grateful, and I spent next ~2 months streaming all Rusty Lake games, having a blast with my viewers and enjoying every hour of the experience. I asked my tiny Russian community to help me out and tell me in what order I should play the Rusty Lake series. I played Rusty Lake Hotel, became really engrossed in the whole setting but at the same time ended up kind of perplexed because the story didn't make much sense to me and I wasn't sure it was supposed to. With game series, as with book series that have numerous installments I always want to start from the very first one but it's not always easy to find the first one especially if the story is not told in a linear fashion and the games have since been remastered or re-released. I had known about the Rusty Lake franchise for some time but never had the courage to explore it and, quite frankly, I didn't even know where to begin.
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