Rusty Lake Hotel: Unravel the Revenge Story and Earn All 3 Stars

Rusty Lake Hotel is a puzzle and point-and-click game developed by Rusty Lake Studio. The game is by and large consistent with the eerie and mysterious style of the Rusty Lake Universe and makes creative progress in terms of the achievement system and level designs. To make it more interesting, it is fair to say that Rusty Lake Hotel is the game version of Agatha Christie’s thriller, And Then There Were None. Are you ready to prepare all five meals for the hotel? How to achieve all three stars for the meals? This post is a one-stop answer for the questions you might have concerning Rusty Lake Hotel!

What Is Rusty Lake Hotel?

Although Rusty Lake Hotel is a puzzle and point-and-click game with an enigmatic and unsettling aesthetic, it does not have the horror elements found in other Rusty Lake Studio games. The game has a clear five-level structure with connections and transitions happening in between.

The game belongs to the Rusty Lake Universe, but different from Rusty Lake: Roots, it bears a tight connection to Rusty Lake Paradise instead, which tells the story of the Eilander family. Rusty Lake Hotel narrates the story after the goings-on in Rusty Lake Paradise. The easter egg from Underground Blossom also mentions the hotel as the destination where Harvey is appointed for the next mission.

To understand the story better, players can play Rusty Lake Hotel after going through Rusty Lake Paradise and Underground Blossom, especially for Rusty Lake Paradise. In this way, players can pick up and understand what Mr. Owl is saying much better.

Explore: Cube Escape: The Lake – Insightful Reviews and a Comprehensive Achievement Guide

What Is the Rusty Lake Universe?

First thing to remember is that the Rusty Lake Universe is the story background of almost all the games developed by Rusty Lake Studio. It revolves around the mystical stories of the Vanderbooms, the Eilanders, and the Vandermeers. The three family names bear deep connections to the Rusty Lake Universe. “Vanderboom” means from the roots. “Eilander” means from the island, and “Vandermeer” means by the lake.

The intertwined family relationship, the sins committed by the families to each other, and the love and redemption among the major characters are what chiefly make the Rusty Lake Universe enchanting and enthralling.

Explore: Cyberpunk 2077 Blackwall: What Is It & How to Get Blackwall Quickhack

Players need to play through every Rusty Lake game to get clues about what happens to each family, each character, and the relationships of the characters.

Other than the unison story narration, the Rusty Lake Universe also features similar symbols, music, graphic styles, and tool use. Therefore, players can have an immersive experience when playing through the games in the series and get more and more familiar with the puzzle-solving techniques.

Explore: Monster Hunter Wilds Uth Duna: What Is It and How to Slay It?🐠

Who Developed Rusty Lake Hotel?

This game’s developer and publisher is known as Rusty Lake. In addition to the Rusty Lake series, the studio has produced and distributed the Cube Escape Collection and other related games to the Rusty Lake Universe.

In 2015, Maarten Looise and Robin Ras founded the independent game production business Rusty Lake in Amsterdam. The studio has been developing puzzle games with an “escape room” theme.

All in all, the games from the Rusty Lake Studio shed light on the mysterious and fantastical relationships and life experiences of the Vanderbooms, the Eilanders, and the Vandermeers.

Because of the games’ commonalities in story, theme, graphics, music, and genre, players can be sure they will have a consistent gaming experience as they advance through the Rusty Lake Universe.

Explore: Monster Hunter Wilds Hirabami: What Is It and How to Slay It 🐍

What Is the Story of Rusty Lake Hotel? [Spoiler Alert!]

At the end of Underground Blossom, Mr. Owl sends a letter to Harvey, congratulating him on finishing taking care of Laura Vanderboom and asking him to return to the lake for the next mission.

Then, the “Back To Work” achievement will take players to the Rusty Lake Hotel as Harvey, and they will meet Mr. Owl at the hotel door. This is the very beginning of the story of Rusty Lake Hotel.

Explore: Monster Hunter Wilds Jin Dahaad: What Is It and How to Hunt It🐲

Later, Harvey is commissioned by Mr. Owl, the owner of the Rusty Lake Hotel, to serve the arriving guests and

Make sure every one is worth dying for.

Accordingly, Harvey will go into each guest’s room every night and collect fresh ingredients for the next night’s dinner. At the end of the story, Harvey has murdered all five guests and served the final meal to Mr. Owl. The souls of the guests are preserved in liquid tanks.

Players will certainly have many questions at this point. Why does Mr. Owl want the guests dead? Who are the five guests? What is the relationship between Mr. Owl and the guests? All these questions can only be answered further in Rusty Lake Paradise.

Explore: Monster Hunter Wilds Yian Kut Ku: What Is It and How to Hunt It🔥

Rusty Lake Paradise: Where the Story Begins

In short, Rusty Lake Paradise tells the story of the Eilanders. The main character that the players are playing is Jakob, the eldest son of Nicholas and Caroline.

In the game, Caroline has found the secret of how to gain eternal life. By sacrificing the eldest son of the family, other family members can gain enlightenment and achieve eternal life (turning into beings with animal heads). However, Caroline does not wish to sacrifice Jakob and sends him away from Rusty Lake. Nevertheless, the greedy families, Nicholas, Gerard (uncle of Jakob), Elizabeth (younger sister of Jakob), David (younger brother of Jakob), and Margaret (grandmother of Jakob), sacrifice Caroline but only end up making the island suffer from ten plagues.

Explore: Monster Hunter Wilds Rathalos: What Is It and How to Hunt It🪽

Afterwards, Jakob returns to the lake upon the news of his mother’s death and collects the memory cubes from Caroline. Not long after, he learns the ingredients for making the elixir, sacrifices himself, and earns eternal life with the rest of the family. However, he does not give up on avenging the families for murdering his mother.

In sum, Rusty Lake Hotel is the continuation of the story. Jakob, Mr. Owl, seeks revenge on the rest of the family. Moreover, each animal character is a family member who has gained eternal life at the end of Rusty Lake Paradise. Gerard turns into a boar, Nicholas a deer, Margaret a pigeon, Elizabeth a pheasant, and David a rabbit, in brief.

Explore: Three Best Relaxing Games of All Time: It’s Time to Chill🥳

How to Unlock All 3-Star Dinners?

In Rusty Lake Hotel, each recipe will generally take three ingredients to make.

Firstly, the mandatory ingredient is the meat, which can be gained from murdering the guest.

The other two ingredients are optional. Players can search the room and interact with the clues in the room to get one optional ingredient, and get another optional ingredient from the lobby during the daytime. Therefore, the sequence of murdering the guest is very important for players to secure the one optional ingredient during the daytime.

Explore: Animal Spa Demo Available Now: Run a Cozy Spa with the Maltese and the Retriever!

Players should murder the guests following the sequence of the deer, the rabbit, the pigeon, the pheasant, and the boar. In general, this order can make sure that players can find all the key ingredients needed for the three-star meals and obtain the secret code at the end of the game.

Table of All 3-Star Dinners

This table lists how to secure all the ingredients for each dinner:

	Optional Ingredient 1	Optional Ingredient 2	Mandatory Ingredient
Deer steak with mushrooms and rosemary	Click the phone in the evening and click on Mr. Owl’s portrait to get the mushrooms.	Click the leaf appearing on the deer skeleton wall decoration.	Solve all the puzzles in the deer’s room and poison him with the Bloody Mary.
Rabbit stew with carrots and white beans	Click Mr. Crow first and he will give carrots from his coat in the second evening.	Use the knife from the drawer to tear open Mr. Owl’s portrait in Mr. Rabbit’s room to get the white beans.	Solve all the puzzles in the rabbit’s room and kill him with the knife penetrating magic trick.
Pigeon in blackberry sauce with potatoes	The evening on the third night will turn extremely dark. Keep looking for the bat waiter at the corridor and clicking on him. He will give players the potatoes.	Electrify the young bird six times to get the blackberry before unlocking him.	Solve all the puzzles at the pigeon’s room and electrify her at the end.
Pheasant breast in white wine and thyme	Collect the white wine from the corridor. The wine is left there after Ms. Pigeon is killed.	Keep clicking the shoot on the clock and get the thyme.	Solve puzzles and give the pistol to the pheasant to kill her.
Wild boar ribs in red wine with tomatoes	Collect the red wine left at the window sill of the corridor after pheasant is killed.	Make sandwiches for the boar twice and keep clicking the toilet seat until the blood flows out with the tomatoes.	Solve puzzles and kill the boar with the axe on the ceiling.

Explore: Monster Hunter Wilds Gypceros: What Is It and How to Hunt It🌟

FAQs

What is the secret ingredient in the Bloody Mary in Rusty Lake Hotel?

The secret ingredient is what players should use to drug the deer. Players need to get 8 dl of water from the glass locker. Capture the fly at the window and nail it to the fly wall decor. Click the flies following the hint of another painting in the room. Get the seed from the fly. Plant the seed in the soil and water it to get the poisonous seed. Grind the seed on the wall grinder. Add the seed powder to the boiling device to make the poison.

What is the secret specialty in Rusty Lake Hotel?

The secret specialty is the Rusty Lake Cigars. Players can unlock the cigars by inserting keys collected after killing each guest into the locker in the corridor. Each guest’s corresponding stamp pattern can be found on the wall decoration in their respective room. The order of inserting the keys is 35412.

How long does it take to play Rusty Lake Hotel?

It will take about 2 to 3 hours to play through the game for the first time. The puzzles of Rusty Lake Hotel are more complicated than Cube Escape Collection. There are more obstacles and goals set up before reaching the final goal – killing the guest in the room – can be reached as well.

It may also take one extra hour to replay the game and unlock all three-star dinners and achievements, too.

How to get the white beans in Rusty Lake Hotel?

Get into the rabbit’s room. Use the knife to cut open Mr. Owl’s portrait to get the white beans.

Conclusion

As the sequel of Rusty Lake Paradise, Rusty Lake Hotel was actually released in 2016, two years earlier than Paradise, which was released in 2018. The enigmatic and symbolic story of the Hotel finds roots and causes in the tragedy happening in Paradise.

The studio published the game in the middle of the Cube Escape games. It definitely opens a new page and ushers the Rusty Lake Universe to a new stage. The level design, the symbolic story, the combination of more mini-puzzles, etc., bring the Rusty Lake series to a different level. Rusty Lake Hotel lays the foundation for the later development of the story of the Eilanders.