Rusty Lake Paradise Review

We’re back with yet another installment in the Rusty Lake franchise. This time in form of a standalone game, with heavy ties to the main series, and taking place before the rest of them – in 1796 to be exact. The game takes place on the island where the famous Rusty Lake Hotel one day will be built upon. Here, the Elianders lives, on the island that they call Paradise. The game starts with Jacob returning to the island to take part in the mourning of the recently deceased mother. Jacob decides to stay with his family for awhile, and ends up encountering a number of plagues. These plagues works as the chapters of the game. There are 10 plagues in total, all being very biblical in nature. After each of these plagues, Jacob gets a memory cube with his mothers memory. When he throws all the cubes into a well at the center of the island the plagues disappear. The plagues are as follows: Water turns into blood, frogs, gnats and lice, flies, diseased livestock, boils, hail, locust infestation, darkness and lastly, the death of the firstborn. After each cube is disposed of, the next plague is upon them. In the end Jacob learns of his mothers fate – she was sacrificed at a ritual. And at the very end – so are you.

Rusty Lake Paradise is a relatively short game, a bit over three hours average playtime. The puzzles are not super hard, but still as weird as the trademark of the series has been known for. Interacting with the family on Paradise island is immensely interesting, and they are all integrated parts of the puzzles. At the end of the story you get to see the family wearing animal masks – very familiar ones. A pheasant, a deer, a rabbit, a dove and a boar. The player enters a giant owl effigy, and is burned inside it. All foreshadowing the things to come on Paradise Island for the time come. The story ties nicely in with the series, and even as a standalone the story is great. It is very bizzare, and the visuals backs it up nicely with the well-known Rusty Lake aesthetics. The music is also, as always, a hit. It is a remarkably good point-and-click game, that anyone who likes the macabre (and the game genre) should play.