Rusty Lake

Factsheet

Developer:
Rusty Lake
Based in Amsterdam

Founding date:
25 April, 2015

Press / Business contact:
info@rustylake.com

Releases:
Cube Escape The Mill
Rusty Lake Untold - The Lab
The White Door
The Past Within
Rusty Lake Hotel
Cube Escape Theatre
Underground Blossom
Cube Escape The Lake
Cube Escape Arles
Cube Escape Birthday
Rusty Lake Paradise
Cube Escape Seasons
Rusty Lake Roots
Cube Escape Harvey's Box
Samsara Room
Cube Escape The Cave
Cube Escape Collection
Cube Escape Paradox
Cube Escape Case 23

Address:
Overhoeksplein 2 (Lab 001)
1031 KS, Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Description

Rusty Lake is both the name of our indie game studio and the eerie and surrealistic world we have created. We are the creators of the praised Cube Escape series and the premium point-and-click adventures Rusty Lake Hotel, Rusty Lake: Roots and Rusty Lake Paradise!

History

We are Rusty Lake

Rusty Lake is an indie game studio based in Amsterdam, founded by Robin Ras & Maarten Looise. Since spring 2015 we have developed 13 surrealistic adventure games that take place in the Rusty Lake universe. Inspired by the humor and uneasiness of David Lynch's TV series Twin Peaks we decided to create our own imaginative universe called Rusty Lake. We tried to add something new to the point-and-click genre by creating a lot of suspense and atmosphere in an "escape room" setting. All of the games have interesting and strange connections with each other and every instalment revealing more about the Rusty Lake mystery. In our 4 years of existence we have released ten free Cube Escape episodes and 3 premium games: Rusty Lake Hotel, Rusty Lake: Roots and Rusty Lake Paradise which are available on iOS, Android, Steam and Itch.io. Our latest release is Paradox, a combined Rusty Lake film and Cube Escape game, which was released September 20th 2018. We owe a big part of our success and accomplishments to the Rusty Lake community. Since the beginning of Rusty Lake, we tried to involve our community as much as possible. We created as many places as possible to keep them connected during the development of our new games and make them feel that they are part of the stories. The amount of fan art we receive is incredible and now we even have fans with Rusty Lake tattoos. Our community also helped us reaching our Kickstarter goal for Paradox - our first movie and game crossover - in just 9 hours. And we are very proud that we published the Paradox comic book created by fanartist Lau Kwong Shing on May 11th 2019. We are currently working on The White Door, a brand new point-and-click adventure that comes out on iOS, Android, Steam and itch.io on January 9, 2020! The game uses a split-screen for interaction and has a very different style, gameplay and way of storytelling than any of our previous games. Furthermore it will be co-published by our own publishing label Second Maze, which we started to make interesting collaborations possible and helping out other devs.

Projects

Videos

Cube Escape: Paradox Trailer YouTube

Paradox - A Rusty Lake Short Film Trailer YouTube

Rusty Lake in China YouTube

Rusty Lake Paradise Trailer YouTube

Images

There are far more images available for Rusty Lake, but these are the ones we felt would be most useful to you. If you have specific requests, please do contact us!

Logo & Icon

Awards & Recognition

"Cube Escape Paradox, Nominatated for "Most Inventive" app of 2018 @ Google Play Awards" - Google Play Awards, May 2019
"Paradox - A Rusty Lake Short Film, Premiere @ Leiden International Film Festival" - Leiden International Film Festival, November 11 2018
"Rusty Lake Roots, Top 10 Google Play Indie Games Contest @ Saatchi Gallery London" - Google Play, February, 2017
"Rusty Lake Roots, Best Narrative Award @ Casual Connect Tel Aviv" - indieprize.org, November, 2016
"Rusty Lake Hotel, Nominated Best Narrative and Best Mobile Game Award @ Casual Connect Amsterdam" - indieprize.org, February, 2016
"Cube Escape: Seasons, Nominated Best Narrative Award @ Casual Connect Tel Aviv" - indieprize.org, October, 2015

Selected Articles

" I heartily recommend you get Rusty Lake Hotel for a mere £1.60, as well as Rusty Lake: Roots for two quid. And then splurge on the amazing free Cube Escapes, each of which adds to the Rusty Lake universe in a peculiar way. You’ll be so glad you did."
- John Walker, Rock, Paper, Shotgun
" Rusty Lake: Roots is an excellent follow-up to Rusty Lake Hotel—grander, grimmer, and more gruesome than ever. The Rusty Lake games are quickly carving out a niche as my favorite point-and-click series of the modern era, with a bold confidence underpinning their unconventional and inventive world. I highly recommend picking up the pair for a night or two of surreal horror."
- Hayden Dingman, PCWorld
" That payoff is the same as any great Rusty Lake game: the ability to lose yourself in the strange and disturbing events unfolding before you. An empathy for and understanding of even characters that don’t speak a word. A frustration and then exhilaration at solving brain-burning puzzles. And an increased appreciation, love, and fear of Rusty Lake and its shadowy, timeless inhabitants. Roots just happens to have all of this in an even larger, longer package; with more lives on the line; and more reasons to book your stay."
- Jillian Werner, GameZebo
" The puzzles are clever, but not overly taxing; the real appeal here comes not from being stymied but from the marvelously macabre atmosphere. Rusty Lake is positively gleeful about its creepiness; it’s not trying to terrify you so much as make you squirm in a pleasant way, which it achieves with ease. The Edward Gorey-esque art, the liquid tones of your employer’s voice, the actual methods of murder - they’re all joyously dark. Oh, and speaking of dark... make sure you linger in the lobby one evening. Trust me. Rusty Lake will only take you an hour or two to finish - more, perhaps, if you’re intent on getting three stars for every meal. Do book yourself a room… just make sure you keep your door locked at night. Bon appetit."
- Susan Arendt, GamesRadar

Additional Links

Victor Butzelaar
Victor designed the atmospheric and suspense soundtrack for the rooms http://www.victorbutzelaar.com/.

Johan Scherft
Johan made the beautiful pastel painting of Rusty Lake http://www.johanscherft.com/.

Bob Rafferty
Voice-over http://www.bobrafferty.co.uk/.

Team & Repeating Collaborator

Rusty Lake
Developer and publisher

Contact

Inquiries
info@rustylake.com

Twitter
twitter.com/rustylakecom

Facebook
facebook.com/rustylakecom

Instagram
instagram.com/rustylakecom

Web
rustylake.com

Cube Escape
cubeescape.com

presskit() by Rami Ismail (Vlambeer) - also thanks to these fine folks