Rusty Lake Hotel

Rusty Lake Hotel isn't a bad game, it's just not put together well enough. It's very short, its puzzles repeat themselves, it has no plot to speak of, it's jittery and slow moving at times - as if my computer can't handle the game, and it seems like a flash game you'd find for free a couple of decades ago. Puzzles can be difficult at first, but once you understand how the game operates, they become easier. Trying to use logic won't get you very far, since the game is fairly nonsensical. There are plenty of visual cues for the various puzzles - some serving as outright solutions, but sometimes they only appear if you solve the puzzles in the correct order. But you needn't bother with that - the same puzzles appear in several rooms, so solve one and you can solve them all. If that doesn't help, you can simply brute force them - which is easier and takes a lot less time than figuring them out. Plot-wise, there isn't any. You need to enter each room in a hotel and kill the guest staying there in an elaborate and needlessly complicated way. The deaths aren't very imaginative, the characters aren't very interesting, and although the game is gory, the art style makes it impossible for it to have an effect. Annoyingly enough, once you enter a guest's room you can't leave it until you solved all the puzzles there. The game just isn't designed very well. For example, going from the lobby to the dining room causes no effect, but going back to the lobby brings up a cue card that says "lobby" for a few seconds. It creates the effect of a loading screen in a game that doesn't need to load anything. There are also unnecessary collectibles strewn throughout - I just wish the time spent making them would have went to polishing the game instead.

First, this is a quick game, maybe 2-3 hours total. But there are times that's exactly what you want. And at a sub-$5 price point, it's totally worth it, even with the short play time. Second, some have dinged it for being weird for weird's sake...and it is. But I think that's part of the charm. It doesn't make much sense, but if you like odd imagery with a little tongue-in-cheek to it, this is a fun aesthetic. Look at the screenshots above. If the art speaks to you, you'll like it. If not, you probably won't. The basic plot is 5 guests (different animals) come to the hotel and you're job is to help/murder them one by one and feed them to the remaining guests. You know, your standard fare. Pros: - Fun, but not super hard. Provides a few hours of casual, simple fun. - Fun look and feel. - Some creative puzzles, not always the old stand-bys you see in other games. - Not hard to figure out. Very self-explanatory (but without feeling like hand-holding). - Affordable (two bucks and lasted longer than many movies). - First in a game series/world. So if you like this, there's more to play. Cons: - Some of the puzzle patterns/types do repeat making subsequent puzzles a little easier and predictable. - Once you start a puzzle series, you can't stop. You pick a guest's room to "help" each night, but once you pick, you have to play out that guest's range of puzzles and it won't let you leave the room to pick a different one. - Low replayability, at least for a while after. At the end of the day, it is what it is...a whimsical, dark little puzzle game that you can knock out with an 80% score in a couple of hours (or another hour more if you are trying to 100% it). It's not perfect, but it's creative and original and fun--and at this price point it's a great deal. I recommend it.

This is a neat first-person Adventure that's pretty dark, but also dulls the senses; you're performing some pretty gruesome acts, but the way it's framed, it seems a bit mundane. Great artstyle, and very relaxing music, but it feels like it's building toward something it never truly reaches. Still worth checking out if you're a fan of the genre.

Ok point-and-click puzzle game for the price. Very short - you can complete it in an hour. There is almost no replayability. The "horror" angle is seriously overstated - there's some weird imagery and one disgusting scene involving poop, but that's about it. The plot is practically non-existent and nonsensical. As others pointed out, the game seems to try to be weird for weirdness sake. Not an amazing game, but it's really cheap so give it a go if you are bored.

Rusty Lake Hotel is a unique and interesting, but also pretty messed up, game. With inspirations of their earlier Cube Escape games, Twin Peaks and the book classic And Then There Were None, you help out the host Mr Owl to serve dinner to the guests at the Rusty Lake Hotel. It's very much like their flash games in form of puzzle and graphics, making it a somewhat different game experience compared to other point n click games. The game never tries to be edgy or too much, it creates that perfect amount of unsettling feelings while playing it. If you are a fan of the Cube Escape games, this is definitely for you. I can't wait to continue playing more of their games!