Samsara Room: The Eerie Reincarnation Story of William Vanderboom 🌳
Samsara Room is an indie game developed and published by Rusty Lake, a studio known for its well-designed and immersive puzzle games. The game brings you through the story of the soul reincarnation of William Vanderboom, the great-great-uncle of Rose Vanderboom. You need to solve the puzzles and walk his soul through different rooms until the final reincarnation. 2025 is the fifth year since the release of Samsara Room, and the studio is now offering this game free to play on Steam. This post will walk you through all about the game Samsara Room, including some basic information about the game, the story, the details, the interpretation of the story, etc.
What Is Samsara Room?
Samsara Room is an indie, adventure, puzzle, single-player game developed and published by Rusty Lake on 29th April 2020. This year, 2025, marks the 5th aniversary of the game’s release. It is a presequal of the Rusty Lake series, related to the story of the Vanderboom family.
On Steam, the game receives “Overwhelmingly Positive” reviews overall.
The game supports 20 languages, and you can choose the language through the in-game settings.
The device requirements for running this game are not high.
The minimum requirements for Windows system are:
- OS: Windows 7 SP1
- Processor: 2GHz Intel i5
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- DirectX: Version 9.0c
- Storage: 120 MB available space
The minimum requirements for macOS system are:
- OS: OS X version Leopard 10.5.8, Snow Leopard 10.6.3
- Processor: 2GHz Intel i5
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Storage: 120 MB available space
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What Is Rusty Lake?
Rusty Lake is an idie game studio that has developed the Cube Escape series and the Rusty Lake universe. The studio focuses on designing and developing eerie and surrealistic adventure puzzle games. Some popular games include Rusty Lake: Roots, Rusty Lake Paradise, and Rusty Lake Hotel, where you can explore the stories of the Vanderboom family. Samsara Room is one part of the Vanderboom family series, too.
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How Much Is Samsara Room?
The game right now is free to play on Steam. You can search Samsara Room on Steam’s search bar and find the game. Add it to your library directly without paying any cost.
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What Does “Samsara” Mean?
Samsara, संसार, is a word coming from Sanskrit (an Indian language). The word means “wandering” and “world”, with the connotation of cycle and running in circles.
The meaning of “Samsara” is echoed multiple times in the game and also serves as the theme. “The circle of life”, a term similar to the meaning of “Samsara”, is mentioned several times in the game.
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What Is the Story of Samsara Room?
This game is about the otherworldly room, or to say, the inner room, where William Vanderboom’s soul is trapped. The progress of solving the puzzles and moving through all six rooms is the process of self-reflection on William’s life and adventuring towards reincarnation.
Rusty Lake Roots: Where All the Stories Start
To know the context for this game, we need to roughly go through what happens in Rusty Lake: Roots. Initially, in 1859, Willam Vanderboom, as an alchemist, invented and drank the Elixir of Life and Death. This elixir took his life and corrupted his soul. As a corrupted soul, William has been looking for ways to be reincarnated back to life.
Finally, in 1919, Rose Vanderboom communicated with William and tried to bring the rest of the offerings and the three timepieces. This is why Rose’s name appears on the bookshelf in Samsara Room.
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Samsara Room: The Parareality From William’s Perspective
Samsara Room depicts a semi-parareality with Rusty Lake: Roots. While “Roots” has more details about the context of why William is dead and how Rose brings him back to life, Samsara Room is the story from William’s perspective between his death and rebirth.
In the game, William needs to collect four offerings and one key tribute to the altar in total, to open the portal to the next room. The tribute to each room is the same as the theme of that room, and there are the heart (normal) room, the fish room, the gecko room, the worm room, the egg room, and the new-born baby (bird) room. Each room represents a stage of his life and the ideas of how he wants his life to be.
After you sacrifice the baby to the altar, the game converges with the end of Rusty Lake: Roots, where Rose reincarnates William as Laura Vanderboom. Finally, the ending scene is Rose holding a baby in her arms.
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What Makes This Game Interesting?
With all that said, what is so interesting and unique about this game that makes it become a must-try? Different from other puzzle games, Samsara Room has a well-designed looping structure, filled the story with opaque symbols, and created a unique eerie atmosphere throughout the game.
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The Looping Story Structure of The Game
As the note “enlighten me” suggests, the six rooms are like the six surfaces of the cube. They do not independently exist but depend on each other. In other words, you can interpret this as the rooms are coexisting in a flowing and converging reality. Entering the next room does not stop you from going back to the previous room. The six rooms form a loop that you can both go forward and go back, with the window as the mutual portal.
Even in the same room, sometimes we are playing with the time by going back and forth as well. For example, in the final room with a bird man in the mirror, the game asks the players to find the right time for the clock. We always need to toggle through different time of the day to find new items.
Similar to the loop structure of the rooms, the game also progresses in a loop structure. Instead of following a linear structure to progress through the whole game, the game constantly requires you to go back to the previous room to collect items. The change you make to one room will bring relevant changes to other rooms as well.
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A Game Rich With Symbols
Firstly, the start of the game welcomes you with the six themes related to six symbols: heart, fish, gecko, worm, egg, and baby.
It is uncertain whether the themes of these rooms follow a chronological order or just a parallel structure. If you lean towards a chronological order, the symbols lead you through the old life, struggles, and renewal cycle. If you prefer to interpret them as parallel themes, they can be indications of different aspects of William’s self-knowledge and reflections.
Heart
The beating heart represents the normal room that the game starts with. Inside the mirror, it is a normal adult’s shadow. “Is that me?” That is what the mirror will tell you if you click on it. The room indicates William’s throbbing life when he was still alive.
Fish
Later, the slipery fish brings you to the next room. The term “fishy” derives from the slipperiness of the fish and is gradually related to the notion of dishonesty and suspicion since 1840. In this room, the self-suspicion, uncertainty, and self-questioning arise. “I look a bit fishy”, is a quote that hints at William’s self-reflection and contemplation.
Gecko
Gecko room turns the world upside down. Different from the fish room, it hints at the renewal stage of life. In latin, gecko is the word symbolizing transformation and regeneration. If you click on the mirror, the character will tell you “I like the view”. It is a room that introduces a renewed angle of viewing the world.
Worm
In the worm room, the character feels himself very small. The view is also limited to the bottom part of the room, similar to what a crawling baby can see. It is the stage when someone is small and fragile, with more parts of the world beyond the reach.
Egg
Afterwards, the egg tribute takes you to the bird room, where the character seeks freedom and yearns to go free into the sky. It reflects the conundrum of William being trapped beyond reality, and confesses his inner desire.
Birth
Until finally, he accepts his new birth. The reincarnation brings him back to life, but also washes off his past identity. He is, now, Laura Vanderboom.
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The Eerie Atmosphere
In sum, the eerie and surreal style is consistent in the Rusty Lake universe, and Samsara Room is no exception.
Visually, the abundance of symbols in the game already renders the gameplay very opaque, on one hand. On the other hand, the existance of human shadows in the mirror and the paintings also adds more quaintness.
Speaking of the audio, there are sounds and broken voices coming from the other end of the phone, exerting every breath but failing in delivering a clear message. Together with the general calm but depressing background music, all the abovementioned elements are ingredients that bestow Samsara Room with its unique taste of eerieness.
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FAQs
What is the phone word in the Samsara room?
In short, the phone word is “enlighten me”. You can get this hint from the letter on the desk with the phone. Go to the drawer to get the knife and then come back to open the letter with the knife.
How long does it take to beat Samsara Room?
The whole game will take about 2-3 hours to go through, depending on the speed at which you solve the puzzles. As the game progresses to the gecko room and later, it becomes more difficult to find the tributes and involves more steps to get to the next room.
What is the story behind Samsara Room?
Samsara Room is an in-between game related to Rusty Lake: Roots. The story is comparatively simple as to other games in the Rusty Lake series, and puts more emphasis on symbols and inner-seeking other than building up plots.
William Vanderboom’s corrupted soul is trapped inside the rooms. The game is about his self-reflecting and finding the final release and reincarnation. At the end, Rose Vanderboom, his great great niece, helps him in his reincarnation of becoming Laura Vanderboom.
Conclusion
This game is part of the story of the Vanderboom family, and it’d be best to play it with Rusty Lake: Roots. In this way, it is easier to connect the dots and learn more about the background and context for this game.
Samsara Room definitely stands out as an excellent puzzle-solving game. It excels with its solid story background, in-depth symbolism, surreal worldbuilding, and the calm but depressing music style. Some players also recommend this game as the first game to play in the Rusty Lake universe, because the puzzles are not as difficult as other games in the series, and the story is comparable to a prequal as well.
Overall, it does not fail to deliver an immersive and uncanny gaming experience. Moreover, it lures you to uncover more of the Vanderboom family stories.
