Rusty Lake Hotel

Rusty Lake Hotel is a 2015 puzzle video game by Rusty Lake. Players attempt to solve various puzzles in a surreal hotel.

Gameplay
Five guests are invited to a hotel to experience unforgettable meals. Each guest is an anthropomorphic animal and unaware that they are the meal. Players control a hotel employee tasked with killing and serving the guests for dinner. After entering each guest's room, players must use items found there to solve puzzles. Players are locked in the room until they figure out how to kill the guest, similar to escape room video games.

Development
Rusty Lake, an independent studio in Amsterdam, had previously made the Cube Escape series of free puzzle games. They felt these games were good enough to require payment. However, Rusty Lake worried they would have difficulty standing out in the crowded indie game scene, and they wanted to build a community. Rusty Lake Hotel was their first paid game. It is set in the same surreal world and intersects with the Cube Escape stories, which helped to transition the free-to-play fans to the later paid games. Rusty Lake released the title for Android and iOS on December 14, 2015, and for macOS and Windows on January 29, 2016.

Reception
Rusty Lake Hotel received mixed reviews on Metacritic. GamesRadar+ praised its macabre atmosphere and compared the art to the work of Edward Gorey. Despite disliking puzzle games, Rock Paper Shotgun reviewer said that he enjoyed Rusty Lake Hotel because he enjoyed the atmosphere and art so much. Gamezebo praised the art and story, but they criticized the mobile version's user interface, which they said required precise tapping to interact with the puzzles. They also disliked the lack of spoiler-free hints. Although they enjoyed the premise and art style, Adventure Gamers said it would likely appeal only to Cube Escape fans because of what they felt were illogical puzzles and a lack of plot.