Some time back, I reviewed the game Rusty Lake Hotel. It was a puzzle game that tried to coast by on a whimsically dark style without offering much of substance. When a prequel came out last fall, I decided to pass on it because I had been so let down by Hotel. However, over the last few months I have kept thinking that maybe I should go back and give the prequel, Rusty Lake: Roots, a chance. That nagging doubt finally got the best of me, so this week we’re going to take a look at Rusty Lake: Roots to see if it actually managed to fix the problems of its predecessor.
Rusty Lake: Roots begins with a young man named James inheriting a house on the edge of Rusty Lake from his uncle. James soon marries and has children before dying in an alchemical accident after attempting to create an elixir which would render him immortal. After that, the story branches out (quite literally, as the game’s puzzle selection screen takes the form a family tree) to show what becomes of James’ family after his death, and how they all slowly succumb to anger and insanity as the game builds toward its inevitable and tragic conclusion.
Roots has the same sort of art style as Hotel did, which is to say that it hits somewhere between Cartoon Network and Victorian woodcuts. I quite like the game’s visual design. It’s got a lot of personality and manages to give things a lot of detail and character while still being a relatively clean and simple style. This game, however, largely eschews the anthropomorphic animal design of Hotel in favor of a cast of actual humans. There is a lot of little detail put into the design of those humans as well, with most of the characters bearing a fairly strong familial resemblance, while characters from outside of the family look somewhat different. That’s a lot more effort than one would normally expect in this sort of game, so I’m quite happy to see it here.
Unfortunately, the sound design fails to live up to the visual design. Where the visuals of the game are simple yet expressive, the sound is instead merely simple. The background music is utterly forgettable and the sound effects are just the most basic, stock, video game-y sounds one could imagine. This is understandable for a game which is available for iPhone and Android in addition to PC, but that doesn’t mean it’s enjoyable.
Thankfully, the actual gameplay of Roots is much improved over Hotel. While the actual style of play remains the same basic puzzle-game interface, the puzzles themselves are vastly improved. Most of the puzzles actually make sense this time around which is a huge improvement. Some of the solutions are still a little weird, but they’re nothing compared to the Rube Goldberg logic of Hotel. There’s nothing really groundbreaking here but what it does, it does well.
Rusty Lake: Roots is a vast improvement over Hotel. It’s got more style. It’s got more substance. It’s got better puzzles. However it’s still a little weak as far as a full PC release goes. However, it’s also available for purchase for iPhone and Android, which I think it’s a little better suited toward. There are definitely worse ways to spend three bucks.
