Before we dive into the dark and surreal world of Rusty Lake, a word of warning: This article will discuss characters, places, moments and puzzles from all across the strange winding timeline of games. To talk in-depth about the series we need to… well… talk about the games. While I’ve done my best to avoid major spoilers, you’ve been warned!
The Rusty Lake series is more than just a collection of escape room-like puzzle games; it's a little hard to define exactly what it is. On the one hand, it’s a gateway to an unsettling yet compelling world, a little window bathed in reds and greys where an animal-headed murderer could appear at any moment. On the other hand, it’s a charming indie puzzle series with a fascinating past and a dedicated fanbase. When I first picked up one of their games in 2019, I didn’t imagine the adventure would end up spanning 17 games, a cinematic short film, a printable TTRPG, a physical escape room, and countless fan-led internet rabbit holes of theories. But here we are.
Read on to learn about the beginnings of the Rusty Lake series, to understand more about its twisted lore, and an answer to exactly what order to play the 17 games in. Let's delve into how this iconic puzzle series creates an interconnected labyrinth of history and story, without uttering a single word.
"I wish we could go back to where it all started"— Laura Vanderboom
Rusty Lake was created back in 2015 when two Dutch creators and frequent collaborators, Robin Ras and Maarten Looise, set out to build a more meaningful puzzle world. The two had worked together on countless Flash games, but their focus turned to creating a consistent universe the community could rally around. After the success of Rusty Lake’s predecessor Samsara Room (2013), which would later be re-released to celebrate the 5th anniversary, the two started working together on what would become the first Rusty Lake game, Cube Escape: Seasons. This release would be followed by five more free games in the same year, including Cube Escape: The Lake, Cube Escape: Arles, Cube Escape: Harvey's Box, Cube Escape: Case 23, Cube Escape: The Mill and their first premium game, Rusty Lake Hotel. By 2018 the team had finished releasing games under the Cube Escape title and was moving onto larger and more experimental games, including DLCs, a multiplayer game, and PC releases.
"The Owls are not what they seem"— Elizabeth Eilander
Of these 17 Rusty Lake games, the story takes countless narrative twists and turns and spans many generations. In Rusty Lake Paradise (2018), we go back in the timeline as early as 1796. On the opposite end of the scale, Underground Blossom (2023) takes us right up to the present day.
So, what’s the best order to play them in? Ask any member of the community and you’ll get a different answer. Whether you prefer to follow specific character arcs, or go location to location around Rusty Lake, or even try to go in chronological order from the earliest in-game year to the most recent. If in doubt, playing it in the developer’s release order is your safest bet, but even then you’ll notice the small hallmarks of a team figuring out as they go along, when characters that appear in one game don’t reappear until many games later.
Don’t worry, it’s simple. Just check out this helpful visual representation of the Rusty Lake timeline by one of the community’s most ardent lore keepers: nowherecrafter (and check out their in-depth Rusty Lake videos).
If that doesn’t clear the fog, my own suggested playthrough order matches what the author of the above infographic suggests. This order revolves around two of the series' characters: Laura Vanderboom and Dale Vandermeer.
First, we need to follow the character of Laura Vanderboom, and play through in order:
- Cube Escape: The Lake
- Cube Escape: Seasons
Then, returning to
Cube Escape: The Lake
to experience the “secret ending”, before finishing with:
3. Cube Escape: Harvey’s Box
Together these games mark the beginning of the Rusty Lake saga. Each in this order refers back to something seen or experienced in the previous. Here, you may also wish to tackle Cube Escape: Arles, which sits outside of the narrative but is thematically most similar to these early three:
4. Cube Escape: Arles
Next, to move onto
Dale Vandermeer
’s first act, introducing the character of the detective, and play through in order:
5. Cube Escape: Case 23 6. Cube Escape: The Mill
Then, stepping away from focusing just on one character, the next grouping gives more context to the wider world of Rusty Lake and the characters introduced thus far. It’s recommended to play next, in order:
7. Rusty Lake Hotel
It’s worth noting that there is a secret scene in Cube Escape: Birthday (listed at no.13 on this list) which acts as the epilogue for Rusty Lake Hotel. This scene could be watched at this point online without spoiling anything:
8. Rusty Lake: Roots (including the secret level)8. 9. Samsara Room (including the secret ending) 10. Rusty Lake Paradise
Together these chapters develop characters introduced earlier in the series across Cube Escape: The Mill, and then Rusty Lake Hotel. Rusty Lake Paradise on the other hand serves as a prequel to explain everything that is happening.
Next, Dale Vandermeer returns for a second act, and these games should be played in this order:
11. Cube Escape: The Cave 12. Cube Escape: Paradox (and two secret endings) 13. Cube Escape: Birthday 14. Cube Escape: Theatre
These are a direct follow-up of Cube Escape: Case 23 and Cube Escape: The Mill, however, the information given in Rusty Lake: Roots will help conceptualise everything that happens in these four games.
Last but not least, we return to Laura Vanderboom and this time, someone you’ll have met in the interim: Rose Vanderboom. These final games should be played in the following order: 15. The White Door (and all its secret scenes) 16. The Past Within 17. Underground Blossom (and all its secret scenes)
When played together, these three games reference moments and characters from all the previous games in a cohesive way with the final game (for now) coming to a perfect full circle back to Laura Vanderboom’s story. Hooray!
"Eyes blinded by the fog cannot see the truth"— Elizabeth Eilander
But wait... Vander-who? Secret scenes? What does it all mean? The depths of Rusty Lake go deep. In Rusty Lake, all things are connected. This is why the question of the “perfect” playthrough order is so important. What order you choose will change your understanding of this place and its denizens. Whether you prefer to explore the myriad of mysterious cube rooms first, walk the deep forests, or perhaps step into the creaky cabins and damp caves, or one of my favourites, reawaken the long-abandoned mill.
As you go through, you’ll encounter the place’s denizens. To date, around 34 human denizens are spanning the Rusty Lake series, and 9 or so suit-wearing anthropomorphic animals. That’s not even including the character of a severed hand, OR the character of “corrupted souls”, and Harvey. Lovely Harvey.
The anaemic Laura Vanderboom stares off into the middle distance, and the troubled homicide detective Dale Vandermeer seems trapped here. There are also the looming, ever-present architects of the world, from Mr. Crow to Mr. Owl and their avian and mammalian entourage. The deeper you go into the rabbit hole, the more you'll discover, from Jakob Eilander, Caroline Eilander, Aldous and William Vanderboom, the corrupted souls, and even Vincent Van Gogh. Yeah, that Van Gogh.
“You took my favorite plague”— David Eilander
One might expect a series with so many people, places and moments to have a lot of dialogue, but Rusty Lake is quite the opposite. Few characters ever speak, and so the puzzles do the heavy lifting of creating a sense of place and narrative. Sometimes simple, sometimes complex, the puzzle quality varies game to game, but the very best are those that connect to the plot or characters at play.
Whether that’s encountering a character and point and clicking your way through their unique flavour of puzzles, or taking a step back and looking at the entire game as a whole to solve the biggest puzzle of them all: Who you are. More than once a Rusty Lake game leads you into a false sense of security about who you must be, only to pull the rug with a subtle detail like a word in a phone call or the reflection in a mirror. It makes you realise you are not who you thought you were, and everything you thought you knew takes on a different hue.
Rusty Lake: Roots is one of the best examples of how well the puzzles carry the narrative. In Roots, we encounter many, many characters from Rusty Lake history. Each of them comes with a suite of associated puzzles, introducing strange mechanics, peculiar objects, and odd little scenes. Through these scenes and moments, the game builds up not just a sense of the character, but where they fit in the enormous timeline.
Another of my favourite puzzle moments comes in Cube Escape: Paradox. Here we play as Dale Vandermeer, the detective who has more than a few demons in his past. To represent his troubled mind we, the player, step into the cobweb-filled rooms of his brain to try and rearrange the rooms and trigger lost memories. On the micro level, each room has its own self-contained puzzle. On the macro level, the interconnectedness of the rooms and the pathways that link between them create the bigger picture, like neutral networks clicking into place. Through this one puzzle, we learn about the detective’s weakened psychological state and his relationships with other characters. In particular, Mr. Owl. At no point does the puzzle spell it out, instead subtly nudging players through playful deduction and presenting the memories so that you can draw your own conclusions. It’s some of the most impressive character-building in the entire series.
“I feel different... I can’t feel my body anymore... I see my memories... captured in little cubes”— Dale Vandermeer
The puzzle pillars in the world of Rusty Lake are often fantastical, sometimes nonsensical, but they always just work. Recurring themes of death, birth and reincarnation sit comfortably alongside a stuffy Victoriana stage filled with clocks, doors, eggs, and severed fingers. The game playfully subverts your expectations in the name of creating dread. You may peer through a peephole four times and see a jumpscare, but on the fifth, with a lump in your throat, it’s simply the next clue you need. A planted seed might grow a plant the first two times, but on the third time, a whole human hand crawls out and scuttles away. These items and moments may seem random until you start discovering them again across the Rusty Lake story, across decades. Everything is connected.
Today, Rusty Lake has gone far beyond the cube-shaped boxes of its origins, breaking out into transmedia. In 2018 the team recorded and released a cinematic short film to tie into Rusty Lake: Paradox that set the internet alight in a frame-by-frame hunt for clues. More recently the team debuted The Black Cube Exhibition at Twitchcon 2024, a physical escape room for teams of up to 4 players. Whilst this was only available as a limited pop-up, the team hopes to keep the escape room accessible in their Amsterdam office. Last but not least, 2024 sees the release of a physical, tabletop roleplay-style game in collaboration with the talented Maarten Pelders, titled Rusty Lake Untold - The Lab.
In all, Rusty Lake stands apart in the world of point-and-click puzzle games. With each new game in the series, the lore deepens. Rusty Lake offers an experience that lingers long after the final puzzle has been solved, and it’s no wonder it’s built up such a strong community around it, sharing speculative theories, fan videos and art, and creating sprawling mind-map timelines of the events. For those who dare to explore its shores, Rusty Lake is a surreal and compelling place where curiosity is not only welcomed but rewarded.
You can play the Rusty Lake series on PC (via Steam) and on mobile through the Andriod App Store and Apple Store.
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