Servant of the Lake

Servant of the Lake continues the wonderful ongoing saga of Rusty Lake in an extremely enjoyable new series entry, turning work to eerie fun in service of the Vanderboom family.

With an unsettling and macabre story, and a real variety of cleverly-designed puzzles, Servant of the Lake cements itself as one of the best point-and-click games of recent years. It may only be short, but it's an absolute delight to play.

Servant of the Lake is a surreal and original puzzle game that retains Rusty Lake’s distinctive style and delivers unique and often gruesome puzzles. You can simply enjoy the puzzles or dive into the lore and secret achievements. The notebook is a very useful addition and helps you with tracking everything. However, a hint button would have been helpful, especially for puzzles affected by the order of actions or conversations.

Servant of the Lake is quite simply another very good Rusty Lake game. It doesn't revolutionise the series, and perhaps that's not the intention either. Instead, it takes what has worked for over a decade and packages it into a slightly more accessible adventure with clever puzzles, a wonderfully unsettling atmosphere, and just the right amount of narrative. For anyone who already loves Rusty Lake, this is practically a must-play.

I wouldn’t personally recommend it to someone who dislikes difficult puzzles or gets uncomfortable with bugs and bodily grossness. For everyone else, though, I can absolutely see Servant of the Lake becoming a favourite. It’s the kind of game I’d recommend playing after dark, particularly during autumn, when you can settle in with the rain outside and let this bizarre little estate make you question everything you thought you knew about point-and-click puzzles. And yes, the cat is very cute. Even if you do have to use his spit-up as glue for a broken teacup.

Servant of the Lake is unmissable stuff if you're a Rusty Lake fan already – but if that applies to you, then you probably knew that without me telling you; this series inspires a lot of loyalty among its fanbase, and enticing people back doesn't seem to be an issue for the studio. My honest recommendation for new players interested in the series is that you absolutely can start here, and if you choose to do so you're doing a good deed by supporting the developers – but if you're not sure, most of the franchise is on sale on Steam right now, and you could just as happily start with basically any of the others while they're so cheap as to be all-but-free. One thing's certain: the Lake will still be there waiting for you when you're ready to seek it out.

If at times Servant Of The Lake feels like a puzzle to be clicked or stumbled through as much as to be solved, then, we've no desire to make it sensible. [Issue#428, p.120]