If there’s one thing that I am, it’s someone that will always discuss my love of puzzle games. Also, someone who has spent far too much money at various escape rooms across the northeastern region of the United States. It was actually a few years ago that I stumbled across the Rusty Lake series of point-and-click puzzle games. So you KNOW that I was excited when Servant of the Lake was announced at Gamescom 2025.

Servant of the Lake is the latest entry into this long-running series from Rusty Lake, and it’s a series that I also fell in love with when I discovered it. In the Rusty Lake series of games, you are pointing-and-clicking your way through the stories of the area surrounding the Rusty Lake. In Servant of the Lake, we focus on a weekend with the Vanderboom family in their gorgeous countryside manor.

I’ll be frank. I wanted to review this game, so I went ahead and purchased my own copy! Is it coming out on the release day? Absolutely not! But that being said, I love this series and wanted to play it, so I figured, why not review it too?

The World & The Story

The World

If you’re familiar with the Rusty Lake series, then you can already guess that Servant of the Lake takes place within the same world. Specifically, a few decades before the events of Rusty Lake: Roots. The world of Servant of the Lake is…gloomy. Imagine a macabre setting where death is just…a part of the order of things. But there do seem to be ways around this inevitable ending…if you know what steps must be taken.

The Story

The story of Servant of the Lake focuses on three days at the Vanderboom Estate. We, a humble house servant, have been tasked with assisting for the weekend of a family reunion.

We work side-by-side with the house’s maid, Kate, to see that that all the requests of the Vanderbooms are seen to. All. Of. Them. No matter how odd…or questionable.

Ah yes, the Vanderbooms. Let’s talk about the Vanderbooms, as we’ll be catering to their every whim over the next 72 hours.

• Aldous Vanderboom – One of the Vanderboom brothers and the one who resides at the lakeside manor.
• William Vanderboom – The other Vanderboom brother. Also…a drunk.
• Alexandra Vanderboom – The sister of Aldous and William. Also, VERY picky.
• James Vanderboom – Alexandra’s infant son.

Ah yes. And Rustie. We love Rustie.

As you can imagine, what was initially pitched as a chance for the Vanderbooms to reconnect devolves into betrayal. All in the efforts to unlock the secrets beneath the lake…and what those secrets mean to those who can realize them.

The Gameplay

Servant of the Lake is a point-and-click puzzle game. You click, interact with the house, and solve various puzzles to progress the story. And let me tell you- there are many puzzles. Too many to list in fact. But to give you the general sense, the game offers:

• Logic Tasks (couched in our tasks as a servant)
• Code & Combination Locks
• Visual & Spatial Puzzles
• Environmental-Interaction Puzzles
• Organic Jigsaw Puzzles (imagine recreating a shattered teacup)

Seriously…these are just a small handful of examples of some of the puzzles you’ll encounter in Servant of the Lake. And that, in a nutshell, is the gameplay of this title. I know it’s brief, but if you have ever played a game from this series, or just a point-and-click game in general, then you’ll understand where I’m coming from.

Now, let’s dive into what I liked, as well as what I didn’t care for.

The Good

Puzzles Galore!

I loved that throughout Servant of the Lake, there was always a new puzzle to toy around with. That makes for a great puzzle game (and escape room) in my book. A title where I don’t see the game puzzle mechanics being re-used time and time again.

It can’t be easy, but I always appreciate it for when it’s been done in a title like this.

Unsettling Artstyle

The Rusty Lake series has always been more of a…macabre…vibe.

But it’s something that I have grown to look forward to in this game series. And I do have to say…it has gotten better in each entry into this story. It’s never the most intensely detailed (outside of some of the landscape shots), but it gets the point across.

For some reason, it always reminds me of paintings of Victorian dolls.

Story Beats that Will Always Keep You Guessing

The other facet of the Rusty Lake series that I can always expect is a storyline that I will never have been able to predict. In fact, I can almost guarantee that what you are presented with will in no way foreshadow where you’ll end up at the end of the game. And I can happily say that Servant of the Lake is no different.

The Bad

Slow Difficulty Climb

There really is only one negative thing that I can say about Servant of the Lake, and that is that it feels almost too easy at the beginning. While I do always expect that puzzle games will slowly ramp up the difficulty/complexity of the puzzles themselves, they generally start in an area where they are at least a little challenging.

Servant of the Lake, however, almost feels like an introductory into the genre of point-and-click puzzle games themselves. If this were an early entry into the series, I would bite. But it’s not. It’s one of many entries into the Rusty Lake universe.

The Overall

From a final stance, I loved Servant of the Lake. Yes, I know that I am a fan of the series. But it does always provide so much more than just a point-and-click puzzle game. It provides a deep, and ongoing, story that spans generations that reside around the Rusty Lake. If you have played the prior Rusty Lake titles, then Servant of the Lake is another notch to put on your shelf. If you’re new to the genre of point-and-click puzzles, or just the Rusty Lake series in general, I find that it does provide a nice jumping off point. In terms of both gameplay/puzzle difficulty, as well as the overall story of this harrowing lake.

Servant of the Lake is available for purchase now on Steam, the iOS Store, the Android shop, as well as itch.io.

The contributing writer purchased the game for the purposes of this review. This review was played on PC (Steam).