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Writer's pictureMatthew Lui

Rusty Lake Untold - "The Lab"


Photo above is property of Rusty Lake

Company: Rusty Lake Untold

Game: The Lab

Country: Netherlands 🇳🇱

Language: English

Type of Game: Tabletop Game 📬

Genre: Supernatural

Date Played: September 1, 2024

Difficulty (based on 3 players): 5/10

Time: Unlimited (Recommended 60-90 Mins)

Price: Free


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“It’s time to wake up!” you hear in the darkness of your mind. You slowly open your eyes and realize you don’t know who you are, where you are and why you are here. Looking around the room, you find yourself lying in a bed inside a white tiled room.


Video above is property of Rusty Lake


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This game comes as a print and play with the game manual and the cards of each room and key items. The only significant color from all of this is the cover to the manual but everything else is in grey tone.


Photo above is property of Rusty Lake


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This is the first game in Rusty Lake’s new line of games called “Rusty Lake Untold”. This new series brings the classic point and click type game to your table with a pre-written story and game cards. This is similar to an RPG style game, where there is one game-master (GM) with the script and players. The GM will direct the players through the story, giving responses to their actions and providing them with the game cards as they encounter different rooms and items.


Rusty Lake does an amazing job emulating the type of point and click game they are known for and turning it into a tabletop game. The script that the GM uses to guide players through the story is quite detailed. With it, are instructions on how the puzzles work, what the players would do to progress the story and dialogue for the key points in the game. They even had a small soundtrack that can be played in the background.


Enjoying the game as a player first and then a GM, this is exactly what I would expect from a Rusty Lake turned tabletop game. The game had the feel, story and key points you would expect from them. All the character references and easter eggs are there. One tip for when you GM the game is to read the document thoroughly. They do provide dialogue at the key moments in the game, but a lot will require you to ad lib certain parts of the game, so you need to know each step quite well.

Photo above is property of Rusty Lake


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Like the puzzles you would find in the app games, most of the puzzles rely on finding items and seeing how they all fit together. Some come together logically but some will need a little bit of puzzling to see how they go together. One tip as a player would be to ensure you make a list of everything that you have encountered.


The story script has no written hints for the game but would rely on your GM to provide you with hints if you need them.

🅲🅻🅾🆂🅸🅽🅶 🆃🅷🅾🆄🅶🅷🆃🆂

If you ever wanted to play Rusty Lake games as a group or in a non tech environment, this is the way to do it. This was the perfect way to share with others these type of games. The script they provide does explain a lot of the game with all the puzzles you would expect from them. As a player, we played with 2 plus the GM as well, as when I was the GM, it was with 2 people. The game suggests up to 4 which may work depending on the group you have. Any veteran fans of Rusty Lake, RPG players or people who enjoy point and click games should give this a try.

 


(If you do decide to try this game, give us a shoutout or tag us on social media so we know you heard it from "ESCAPETHEROOMers"!)


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