There’s something delightfully off-kilter about watching a rabbit in a tuxedo perform magic tricks. Even more so when you know, based on past experience with Rusty Lake games, that said rabbit might, at any moment, whip out a knife, sword, saw or… Tiger? Yet here I am, sitting in the front row of The Mr. Rabbit Magic Show, enjoying the latest free offering from Rusty Lake to celebrate their 10th anniversary.
Released as part of a suite of anniversary celebrations including platform-wide discounts of up to 66% off, a special merch in collaboration with Lost in Cult, and an exciting first look at Rusty Lake’s newest upcoming game Servant of the Lake, The Mr. Rabbit Magic Show is a treat for fans. It’s got familiar faces, nods to memorable moments in earlier games, and a peek behind the game dev curtain.
Warning: Spoilers ahead for The Mr. Rabbit Magic Show and Rusty Lake Hotel.
Having now played through the short hour-long game, what struck me most was how elegantly the game scales with its challenge. The Mr. Rabbit Magic Show isn’t meant to be difficult, and at the start I found it almost a little too easy. You wave your magic wand, pop balloons, rearrange flowers, and pull a rabbit from a hat and- wait a second, what is Mr. Rabbit doing in there? But then the real magic begins a little before the halfway mark when the performance takes an unexpected turn. In a brilliant fourth wall break, you find yourself suddenly in the Rusty Lake offices, face to face with the developers themselves on the morning of their birthday celebration. Oh hi Robin and Maarten! You want me to go make you a cup of tea? No problem.
It’s a twist that feels both intimate and celebratory, making this entry in the Rusty Lake series even more charming than it already was. If you can’t visit in person, here’s a 2D replica of their real-life offices to point-and-click your way around. And hey- does this mean the Rusty Lake office itself is now canon in the series? There’ll be a race to write the Wiki entry for “Crazy Cool Cakes” as developers’ favourite cakes, mark my words.
Jokes aside, even as the magic show concludes, the game has so much more in it than the one-hour gameplay mark would suggest. Achievements, hidden collectables, and subtle nods to Rusty Lake games past and future. For a birthday gift, it’s an absolute treasure trove.
But let's not take the limelight away from Mr. Rabbit, about whom this puzzle game is for. We first meet Mr. Rabbit in Rusty Lake Hotel where, as a guest of the hotel, he diligently prepares for his magic show. Through our puzzle solving, we get a glimpse of his performance, which - turns out - isn’t a million miles from The Mr. Rabbit Magic Show.
Sadly, the events of Rusty Lake Hotel don’t exactly end in the happiest way for Mr. Rabbit. After a trick gone wrong, he is impaled on a sword and eventually turned into dinner. In a puzzly way, of course. Later, his corrupted soul joins the ranks of those who roam the lake. There’s a whole rabbit hole (pun definitely intended) I could take you down about Mr. Rabbit’s true identity, his multiple incarnations as both D. Eilander, the White Rabbit, the Brown Rabbit and of course as a corrupted soul.
But what I’m really taken by is how well the developers throw back (or throw forward) to the Rusty Lake Hotel performance. We see the same balloons, we see flowers again, we even see the box of swords which for a moment had my head in my palms like “I beg you please don’t make me stab Mr. Rabbit again."
As a free game, The Mr. Rabbit Show is great. But as an entry in the lore pantheon and arguably the coolest way to both tease new content and celebrate the Rusty Lake team, it’s brilliant. It’s got confidence, humour, satisfying puzzles, and is packed with small details only the most attentive players will spot. At this point, I expect nothing less from Rusty Lake in playfulness between creator and audience, and it bodes well for their new title.
Not a lot is known yet about the upcoming, full-length game Servant of the Lake yet, except for what we can glean from the mysterious video on their social media, the short film The Intern, the Secret Trailer, and at last the Steam page too. We know we’ll be playing at the Vanderboom House set decades before Rusty Lake: Roots, in the era of alchemists Aldous and William Vanderboom. Two brothers who are often referenced in other games but haven’t yet had their storylines fully explored. Just who they are, time will tell.
But until then, I raise a celebratory glass to Rusty Lake for celebrating their 10th anniversary. Here’s to another 10 years of surreal and macabre games, whose puzzles haunt you long after you’ve solved them.
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