Rusty Lake - "Servant of the Lake"
- Matthew Lui
- 4 hours ago
- 3 min read
Photo above is property of Rusty Lake
Company: Rusty Lake
Game: Servant of the Lake
Country: Netherlands 🇳🇱
Language: English
Type of Game: Video Escape Game 📱
Genre: Mystery
Date Played: August 21, 2026
Difficulty (based on 1 player): 5/10
Time: Unlimited (Recommended 2-3 Hours)
Price: $7.99 (Steam)
🆃🅷🅴 🆂🆃🅾🆁🆈
Welcome to the Vanderboom estate! With the family members coming for a visit, you have been hired for the weekend to help at the house. You will be tasked with completing chores, preparing meals and performing sinister rituals. You know, the typical stuff. Be prepared to serve the Vanderbooms and meet all their needs.
Video above is property of Rusty Lake
🆃🅷🅴 🅶🅰🅼🅴 🅿🅻🅰🆈
Servant of the Lake is a point-and-click game with straightforward controls. The game begins with a simple tutorial and leverages its sliding feature more than the previous games I noticed. Among the neat additional features is a notebook function, which allows you to take notes and trace over elements in the game. However, this feature could be improved on by adding a "clear page" option instead of just a small eraser, as well as providing multiple notebook pages to write on.
The gameplay experience is the same for both Steam and mobile app versions, with both offering achievements that you can collect and continue searching for after your first play-through. The story unfolds over three days which is tracked through a weekend schedule and task list. Once you complete the game, you can jump directly between tasks to unlock any remaining achievements.
The game has a creepy, surreal atmosphere which matches the classic Rusty lake games with its animation and music, all created with detail and care. I really loved the hand painted art style featured in each of the transitions throughout the days.
Photos above are property of Rusty Lake
🆃🅷🅴 🅿🆄🆉🆉🅻🅴🆂
The game offered a nice variety of puzzles, ranging from simply follow the instruction tasks on one end to a few challenges where I am still not entirely sure how they were solved on the other end. Overall however, the majority of the puzzles were well designed and blended into the story quite well.
The hint system consisted of either going through a video walkthrough or reaching out to the Discord community for help. While it would be nice if the hints were tiered, knowing how the game works, that would be difficult to implement. One thing that I appreciated though was depending on where you are in the game, the hint video link would automatically open up to your current progress in the game.
Photos above are property of Rusty Lake
🅲🅻🅾🆂🅸🅽🅶 🆃🅷🅾🆄🅶🅷🆃🆂
What a messed-up family and a crazy story to add to the Rusty Lake lore. The game stays true to the typical Rusty Lake experience and when I say that, I mean it in the best possible way because it continues their winning formula and distinct feel. The puzzles blended into the narrative and the new achievements in the app provides a great way to return to the game for multiple plays. While longtime Rusty Lake fans will love serving the family, newcomers might not want to start here. Rusty Lake has plenty of free games to try before you purchase this one but if you do decide to plunge into the Lake, you will be glad you did.
(If you do decide to try this game, give us a shoutout or tag us on social media so we know you heard it from "ESCAPETHEROOMers"!)
Disclosure: We thank Rusty Lake for providing us with samples of the game. Although a complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever.
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