I remember finding this game via the old fullyramblomatic website, which probably tells you too much about how long I've been online. Anyway, it was particularly memorable for being a surprisingly playable and funny free game. To my mind, it was amazing that it made by someone who wasn't even a professional games developer. That meant I could make games too! I mean I didn't, obviously. But I could have. Probably.

Anyway it was fun. Good scary bits, nice atmosphere, some puzzles that worked, some which... didn't, but that's true of a lot of games.

This is the third of the Rusty Lake games I've played and my favourite so far.

We're back to the eerie little stories, this time with a sort of twisted fairytale theme which I liked. I also really liked the art style, music, and the small amount of voice acting.

Here, your character arrives at the hotel, spends time with each of the guests, collects items, and solves puzzles. The puzzles generally made more sense to me than those of either Samsara Room or The White Door, although I would say that "making sense" is not always the same as "being easily solved." The beetle puzzle in particular took me longer than I'm proud of.

End result: Renewed enthusiasm for playing through the rest of the Rusty Lake games.

A week after "playing" this, I've decided I like it. I like the atmosphere, the music, the film noir feel. I like that it makes use of no more than the 15 minutes or so that it needs to tell it's story. Sadly, the story is weak, but that's kind of ok. A weak story that takes 15 minutes to tell is more forgivable than a weak story that goes on for hours.

I'm never sure that things like this really count as "games" but that doesn't mean they aren't worth spending time with. Any new and interesting way to tell a story is ok by me.

As I was playing this my boyfriend looked over and said "Oh, you're playing a game about tidying up... that's very on-brand for you." He's wrong that the game is about tidying up, but he's right about my tastes.

Organising things neatly is very satisfying. So this game of unpacking objects and finding homes for them was bound to be fun for me. It's so relaxing to play, and the pixel art and music match the relaxing feel (although I have some notes about the song for the closing
credits). I only wish it was longer. I would absolutely play some extra levels if any were ever released.

I'm not sure how "clever" the storytelling is. It perhaps feels more innovative to see it in a game, but telling stories through objects is as old as the hills. On the other hand, the sparsity of the story still works well. It leaves the player's imagination to fill in the gaps, and I found myself projecting my own experiences onto the character. It's no surprise that I then felt an emotional connection to a character who we never meet in the game. I hope she's ok.

I really liked the puzzle style and the atmosphere of the game. I also liked the core ideas in the story. That said, the story feels like it isn't fully fleshed out, as if perhaps the writers decided they didn't have time to really establish all of the ideas, so they just cut some out. The result is a basically good story which feels less than fully supported. Its far from being enough to ruin the game, though, and I would absolutely play through more of the same if the developers ever released an expansion or sequel.