Over the past six months I have been working my way through the many different games that make up the Rusty Lake series. These are a bunch of simple horror escape room puzzle games that are interconnected in clever ways. In February I put up a review of Rusty Lake: Hotel, behind the scenes I have been playing far more of them, but due to me playing them in chronological order I have yet to finish Cube Escape: Collection which brings together ten of the games (I am nearly finished with it though). Due to playing Rusty Lake: Roots over a five month period the experience was a little lost on me, I could never quite remember what had happened before each time I returned.
Rusty Lake: Roots follows a family over several generations who happen to live in a mansion near to the titular Rusty Lake. Over thirty three different chapters, each of which is set during a different time period, we follow a story about a magical concoction that grants either immortality or death, and about a generational wide attempt to resurrect a man from the dead, via the use of a potion that requires various body parts and bodily fluids from related family members. Along the way there is murder, suicide, imprisonment, amputation and other horrors within the sordid family.
I admit most my synopsis I got through looking up the plot online. A very slight quibble, which I admit is my fault, is that by playing it over such a long period, and by only playing a few chapters at a time, I could never remember what had come before. The structure of the game has various chapters appearing on branches of a family tree. By the time that three children have entered the story the game has branched into three different paths that can be tackled in any order. For anyone who has played other entries in the series, this provides the origins of the creepy Mr. Crow. The game (I believe) takes place from around the mid 19th Century up to around the early 1920's.
Playing this on my iPhone the game is all touch screen controlled. Each chapter puts you in a small area from which you can drag the screen left and right to reveal slightly more level. It's a 2D backdrop with flat characters and every interactive object in the chapter is needed to solve mostly simple puzzles. These range from balancing different weighted objects on scales, to mixing up potions, and using environmental details to solve door codes and lock combinations. With thirty three levels this was a big game, but unlike the other games in the series this all took place on one plane (the other games had you in rooms with four walls to them. Many of the chapters take place in similar locations but at different times. There is a garden, a basement, a living room, attic and more, all associated with the mansion by the lake. Like Rusty Lake: Hotel this is stand alone as much as it is part of a larger series. By the time the end credits roll there has been a decent amount of story, mainly centering around the three twins.
Rusty Lake: Roots wasn't a bad game, I think if you are to play it then it needs to be more regular than how I tackled it as I did think I was missing out on a cleverly convoluted story (such as one branching pathway has you as a prisoner trapped at the bottom of a well, another pathway reveals just how this came to be). The game is dirt cheap, two or three pounds here in the UK, so there is value for money.
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