Rusty Lake: The White Door

Since I have already reviewed every Rusty Lake franchise game that chronologically predates this in their release on steam there, I will try not to restate what I said in those. As per usual I urge you to wait for a sale. The good news is these are bundle discounted very frequently.

I will cover the things that for a number of people will be the most important. It is absolutely true that this one is simply not as challenging. By the end it reaches the level that the others either start at or get to by their midpoints. I understand that for many that is the main appeal of these and I'm not here to tell you you're wrong.

What I will do is try to make a case for why that isn't a problem. The same thing goes for how this has been called tedious. Factually it is completely accurate to state that there are a number of repeated actions in this. In universe the explanation is that you are in a mental health care facility where they take great pride in making sure that patients have the kind of stability and predictable daily experience that is part of treatment for many.

What it also does is enable them to toy with us. When you do the same thing multiple times in something that you expect to be twisted and mess with you, you are constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. I won't give away when or honestly even if that happens. At most I will say that I quite appreciated that it didn't necessarily happen when I thought it might. Hypothetically this is lulling us into a false sense of security.

And I will just say that if something were to happen if the facade were to crack it would probably have a greater impact than if there was just constantly something there. Outlast struggles with pacing these sorts of things, this is yet another entry that never has that happen.

This definitely does have less of the morbid and bodily function kind of disturbing material. If it didn't make up for it elsewhere that might bother me. This experiments with the form as we by now are used to from them. It's not the first time that they frame it as an experience taking place over multiple days.

Nor is it completely new for them to have something significant at the end of each of them. Or even the prompting to interact with the same things each time. Though usually it's more distinctly different what happens. Here, the straightforward manner of the passing hours while the sun is up, is contrasted with your dreams.

While I didn't feel the former to be tedious for me though they seem like they might be for him, during the night he will experience flashbacks to recent events. These help explain why he ended up at the titular facility. They also represent by far the most varied settings and situations so far. Hotel had you taken care of guests' needs. Roots took you through entire lives packed to the brim with traumatic experiences. Here we see some stuff that is just regular life.

It underlines that anyone of us could have a breakdown. Find ourselves in need of psychiatric help. And when something is really dramatic it's like a gut punch. You might almost even find yourself thinking that it came out of nowhere. But of course it didn't. You were just in denial about how bad things had gotten. Until suddenly it dawned on you.

This does tie into and expand upon lore. How satisfying it is is simply too individual for me to even guess at. Personally I was very happy with it. The ending was pitch perfect. I'm referring to the one you are most likely to get on an initial playthrough, not one of the secret ones where you have to take special steps to unlock it.

The monotone voices have bothered some. I would argue they reflect the depression of Bob who you play as. This is also why the art style which could already sometimes get quite minimalist is now paired with a near total absence of color. Almost everything is in this black and white...

The exceptions tend to be food and the like. This hints at how you are currently experiencing a distancing from the things in life that can bring joy. As I played this I hoped that I would be able to get back to that.

You spend at least some of this confined to a room in the aforementioned place. They used to make escape rooms. For a while it was the developer's bread and butter to keep us in these claustrophobic scenarios.

I'm not even sure this is the tightest place they've had you in. What is different is the split screen. When you're not asleep you can see the entire area all at once at times. This makes it feel so much more constraining. It feels truly inescapable.

And of course not everyone treated in these places sees it that way. But you do in this. It's so much about perspective. This is something that becomes increasingly clear the further you get into this.

On the other half of the screen you see the by now very familiar element of the close up. You are looking directly at something that you can learn something from observing and/or in one way or another manipulate.

This saves a lot of clicking to maneuver between the different ones. This could for sure be the first brain teaser you engage with. I think there's a lot of value in that. It's also not diving so deep in that you will be confused. Like all the ones that came before it this is a perfectly adequate place to start since none of these truly spoil the others. Strongly recommended to anyone who finds what I've described here appealing. 8/10.