{"id":1667383,"date":"2026-08-18T18:12:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T18:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qakppZP2iiAwn2J3UnVnJD"},"modified":"2026-08-18T18:12:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T18:12:13","slug":"the-new-rusty-lake-game-is-a-grim-sinister-tale-of-family-destiny-and-cooking-i-fed-a-man-porridge-filled-with-dead-bugs-and-he-told-me-it-tasted-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/the-new-rusty-lake-game-is-a-grim-sinister-tale-of-family-destiny-and-cooking-i-fed-a-man-porridge-filled-with-dead-bugs-and-he-told-me-it-tasted-good\/","title":{"rendered":"The new Rusty Lake game is a grim, sinister tale of family, destiny, and cooking: I fed a man porridge filled with dead bugs and he told me it tasted good"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Crunch the incessant off<\/em>ness of Twin Peaks into a surprisingly beefy collection of point-and-click puzzle adventures and you’ve got Rusty Lake: Twisted tales of familial obligation and tradition unfolding in a backcountry idyll possessed by something <\/em>better left unseen and unspoken. Imagine if ol’ Eddie Allen P. had been born a couple centuries later and took up game development, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of the vibe. I’ve been looking forward to the latest addition to the series, Servant of the Lake<\/a>, for quite some time now, and now that it’s out I’m happy to say that it is very good.<\/p>\n

Servant of the Lake is something of a slow burn\u2014I’ve been playing through it over the last four nights, and the first half of the game was suitably weird but more subdued than I expected. But once it starts rolling, the Vanderboom family at the center of the tale does not hold back.<\/p>\n

If you’re familiar with Rusty Lake, Servant of the Lake is 100% in keeping with that tradition. It feels a little less forcefully bizarre than some other games in the series, and with a greater emphasis on mystery than horror. One thing that struck me is the game’s audio: The voice work is great but less disconnected from humanity<\/em> than I remember from previous games, and the soundtrack is actually quite pleasant, particularly as the game progresses. It’s all still unsettling, but I wonder if Rusty Lake (which is also the name of the development team) wanted to avoid distracting from the story too much, for\u2026 reasons<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Even so, weird <\/em>is the Rusty Lake playbook and that’s definitely still the case. Servant of the Lake is ostensibly about signing on for a three-day gig as a servant in support of a big family reunion, but the work involved is not your everyday household drudgery. I fed a man porridge infested with houseflies, then cut off a chunk of his ear while shaving him, both of which he seemed oddly okay with\u2014and this was on my first morning. <\/p>\n

Later on I tried to kill a guy, and then watched a lady swallow a soul. What a weekend!<\/p>\n

Puzzles in Servant of the Lake are fairly lightweight, and if you do get hung up (as I did, once) there’s plenty of help to be had from the community and the developers themselves, who have posted a full walkthrough<\/a>. It’s also very linear: There are moments where it seems like you have a choice in matters, but your fate is predetermined so you don’t need to agonize over, say, the soup<\/em>. (You’ll figure it out.)<\/p>\n

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