Rusty Lake Paradise

I came to Rusty Lake Paradise already fond of the series, and the opening boat ride onto the island still landed harder than I expected. You arrive as Jakob Eilander, eldest son, summoned home by his mother's death, only to find the island mid-collapse under ten plagues pulled straight from Exodus and filtered through the studio's signature surrealism. The premise sounds gimmicky until the first plague kicks in and you realise each one isn't just a visual theme but a full restructuring of the island's logic, its mood, and what the game is willing to ask you to do. The structure is clean and confident: ten self-contained plague chapters, each mapped onto the same small island that slowly opens up as you progress. Cutting down a tree mid-game literally expands the playable space, which is a small thing that lands with outsized satisfaction. Every plague reshapes the environment just enough that familiar paths feel newly threatening. Frogs, flies, diseased livestock, a brother who gradually transforms into something monstrous and then reappears frozen in an iceberg a few chapters later with no explanation offered and none needed. The hand-painted backgrounds by Johan Scherft carry serious weight here; there is a frog-covered altar that I kept zooming into because I could not believe how much care went into something so brief. The soundtrack, composed by Victor Butzelaar, gives each plague its own musical identity, moving from sparse piano to something approaching chaotic strings as the island deteriorates. It is the kind of score that earns the word atmospheric without having to beg for it. The puzzles are the one area where your tolerance for the series' particular flavor of logic will determine your experience. The early plagues are genuinely easy, perhaps too easy, enough that players who want to slow down and absorb the atmosphere may find themselves blitzing through chapters they should be savoring. Later puzzles sharpen up considerably: aligning zodiac constellations during the Darkness plague, a plague doctor who points his staff in cardinal directions to spell out a medicine recipe, a boil-popping sequence during the Boils chapter that is grotesque in exactly the right way. A few puzzles, notably the snow globe item in plague seven, operate by rules that the game never fully telegraphs, and the true ending, which requires finding one hidden symbol per plague and then solving an invisible final puzzle, will wall out most players who aren't hunting achievements deliberately. That last point is a genuine flaw, not a charming quirk. Where Paradise sits in the Rusty Lake hierarchy depends entirely on what you value. As a lore entry it is remarkable, setting the chronological foundation of the entire universe and quietly explaining the origins of Mr. Owl and the Hotel that fans of Roots and Hotel will recognise. As a standalone point-and-click it is a confident, occasionally uneven 3-4 hour experience with fifty achievements, a secret ending, and the kind of handcraft that makes you feel slightly guilty for rushing it. It is not the series' sharpest puzzle design, but its atmosphere is unmistakable and its willingness to commit fully to its own weirdness earns real respect from me. If you have never touched Rusty Lake before, Paradise is a valid entry point, just know the rabbit hole goes much deeper than one island.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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