Review Insights · App Store
Rusty Lake Paradise
Rusty Lake · 1,749 ratings · ★ 4.8
4.8
★★★★★
1,749 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 14 negative reviews
Recurring phrases mined from 1-2★ reviews. The bigger the percentage, the more users have the same problem. Fix the top 2-3 in your version and you have product-market fit on day one.
1
"game"
10 negative reviews mention this · 71% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Another one NOT for kids 12+ no. This game is very very creepy and dark very quickly. Not a game I want to open myself to and get some bad juju or something worst. Nope." - TyTy…
2
"myself"
4 negative reviews mention this · 29% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Another one NOT for kids 12+ no. This game is very very creepy and dark very quickly. Not a game I want to open myself to and get some bad juju or something worst. Nope." - TyTy…
3
"stuck"
4 negative reviews mention this · 29% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Plague 7 issue. Won’t let me put the spike in the guy who is trapped in ice so I’m stuck." - Nicolesields
4
"games"
4 negative reviews mention this · 29% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Trust the negative reviews, this is disappointing. I loved the Cube Escape series but was reluctant to purchase the Paradise based on some of the reviews. I decided to try it because I thought “how different could it be when I really liked all other games by them?” Well this one is truly th…" - anastasiakowa
5
"something"
3 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Another one NOT for kids 12+ no. This game is very very creepy and dark very quickly. Not a game I want to open myself to and get some bad juju or something worst. Nope." - TyTy…
6
"rusty"
3 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "COMPLETELY abandoning what worked. What Rusty Lake productions excelled at was its unique way of storytelling, eerily whimsical artwork, and the intertwined world they’ve built. But the latest RL trilogy feels nothing short of a hasty, hollow Hollywood remake created to rak…" - Rex Ford
7
"lake"
3 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "COMPLETELY abandoning what worked. What Rusty Lake productions excelled at was its unique way of storytelling, eerily whimsical artwork, and the intertwined world they’ve built. But the latest RL trilogy feels nothing short of a hasty, hollow Hollywood remake created to rak…" - Rex Ford
8
"nothing"
3 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "COMPLETELY abandoning what worked. What Rusty Lake productions excelled at was its unique way of storytelling, eerily whimsical artwork, and the intertwined world they’ve built. But the latest RL trilogy feels nothing short of a hasty, hollow Hollywood remake created to rak…" - Rex Ford
9
"rusty lake"
3 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "COMPLETELY abandoning what worked. What Rusty Lake productions excelled at was its unique way of storytelling, eerily whimsical artwork, and the intertwined world they’ve built. But the latest RL trilogy feels nothing short of a hasty, hollow Hollywood remake created to rak…" - Rex Ford
10
"puzzles"
3 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Great Puzzles but Too Morbid. ." - Exodus20:12
11
"other"
3 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Another one NOT for kids 12+ no. This game is very very creepy and dark very quickly. Not a game I want to open myself to and get some bad juju or something worst. Nope." - TyTy…
12
"level"
3 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ ":(. I finished the game a while ago but I downloaded it again so i could try to get all of the achievements, unfortunately there’s a bug on the last level and it won’t let me open the “owls” door. I kept resetting the level but nothing worked. …" - novascout
📋 All 14 negative reviews
Every 1-2★ review we fetched. Use the copy button to grab them all for your own analysis (paste into ChatGPT/Claude with a prompt like "summarize core user problems, group by theme, ignore bugs, focus on missing features").
Another one NOT for kids 12+ no
This game is very very creepy and dark very quickly. Not a game I want to open myself to and get some bad juju or something worst. Nope.
Plague 7 issue
Won’t let me put the spike in the guy who is trapped in ice so I’m stuck.
Atrocious
This game tries so hard to be “disturbing” yet fails miserably through lackluster nonsensical “puzzles” and absolute wretched audio. Seriously, was the score recorded through a toilet paper roll?
Just bad, the muffled track alone destroys any hope for this overrated dreck.
Just bad, the muffled track alone destroys any hope for this overrated dreck.
Trust the negative reviews, this is disappointing
I loved the Cube Escape series but was reluctant to purchase the Paradise based on some of the reviews. I decided to try it because I thought “how different could it be when I really liked all other games by them?” Well this one is truly the least favorite of mine. Like others said, there is a lot of going back and forth and again and again on the map. The puzzles look like they were developed without much thought. I just kept randomly clicking on some of the puzzles because they were underwhelming and I still was able to solve some of them that way. Some same graphics were used from their other games... all the voice overs even for the female characters were recorded by males for some reason....storyline was not captivating to say the least. I LOVED their games such as Roots and Paradox and I’m not sure what happened here... like all the captivating storyline and thoughtful puzzles they used to have were not present, and this game really focused on stabbing and killing different animals and bugs crawling out of peoples noses.... and that’s basically it. I’m hoping the developers take this into consideration for the next games.
:(
I finished the game a while ago but I downloaded it again so i could try to get all of the achievements, unfortunately there’s a bug on the last level and it won’t let me open the “owls” door. I kept resetting the level but nothing worked. Kinda disappointed :/
Glitch near end
Liked the game but it glitched close to the end and shut me out of the rest of the game. Bummed.
Very dark compared to others by this maker
I’ve played all the other Rusty Lake games and have absolutely loved them. This one however, seemed very dark and satanic. I didn’t even move on past the third level because I simply didn’t want to expose myself to that. I would recommend all the other Rusty Lake and Cube Escape games, but not this one.
Broken during act one
I was looking forward to playing this on the plane but as soon as I take the leech from Grandmas nose I am stuck on that screen.
I can’t go back, I have tried tapping everywhere and I ended up watching the walkthrough and it seems like I’ve hit a major bug that breaks the game.
I can’t go back, I have tried tapping everywhere and I ended up watching the walkthrough and it seems like I’ve hit a major bug that breaks the game.
I get stuck at the snowman.
I follow what they do in the walkthrough and it doesn’t work. Also how the heck are you suppose to know what to do in the first place. The order to peck those snowman arms is nowhere in the game.
COMPLETELY abandoning what worked
What Rusty Lake productions excelled at was its unique way of storytelling, eerily whimsical artwork, and the intertwined world they’ve built.
But the latest RL trilogy feels nothing short of a hasty, hollow Hollywood remake created to rake in money from its loyal followers. As an avid fan of the horror genre, it’s obvious the creative team at RL has put all their efforts into making a movie for Hollywood and completely abandoned its iOS gaming division. There’s no vision, no world, no passion and no soul… which are all the necessary ingredients for great storytelling. Instead, it has become yet another 3 buck game lost amongst the ocean of forgettable app store merchandise.
But the latest RL trilogy feels nothing short of a hasty, hollow Hollywood remake created to rake in money from its loyal followers. As an avid fan of the horror genre, it’s obvious the creative team at RL has put all their efforts into making a movie for Hollywood and completely abandoned its iOS gaming division. There’s no vision, no world, no passion and no soul… which are all the necessary ingredients for great storytelling. Instead, it has become yet another 3 buck game lost amongst the ocean of forgettable app store merchandise.
Great Puzzles but Too Morbid
.
Got stuck in 7
Was enjoying this unique game when I got stuck in level 7 due to a bug that won’t let me get the second branch needed to reveal grandma in the snowman. So I’m stuck and can’t continue. I reset the the level to no avail.
Intuitive? This game is not.
What might have seemed obvious was simply not within this game so I just ended up frustrated throughout most of it. It was much like a battle of wits in which the developers might argue they were providing cryptic clues to enhance game experience, but really, I would argue poor execution, which negatively affected user design and experience. Good design is intuitive, and in some cases, the design definitely made sense and the riddles/mini-games could be figured out, but in other places, I just found myself majorly annoyed with dev logic.
How would I know the cracks in the ice need to be directed through the buckets/posts?!? They seem more like obstacles, much like the thorns in the crab(?) maze game. I assumed I needed to move around them, not sink them. Simple things like using an icon such as an anchor, something that needs to be sunk, would be more obvious and readily understood. Also, there should be some way to avoid failing the little mini games and challenges. Some are only won through multiple failures so there really was no logic to it. You can only figure it out using trial and error and that effectively means there is nothing to solve, merely a model you wanted us to use without any instructions. That’s cool and all for some people, but if I can’t actually try and it’s all guesswork, that’s not very entertaining to me. There should be some method to the madness.
To add, I was frequently required to remember information, something I have no desire to do within a game. You should be able to make some reference page of something you’ve seen or discovered, otherwise it’s back and forth and back and forth again for those who struggle with short-term and/or working memory. The game attempted to be creepy and definitely didn’t succeed for me, but obviously many people like it.
While I was definitely a bit disappointed, the game can be redeemed IMHO with a bit of work. I suppose my assumption is that everyone doesn’t think alike or share the same logic, so I might suggest when designing clues or making connections between game items/people, please understand that discoverability matters. If the user can’t intuitively figure out what something does, that is, how they may interact with the game (e.g., the affordances), and if no signifiers are present to signal the method of interaction, users will always be forced to have someone else tell them how to play through the game. While I didn’t love the game, I hope you all take my suggestions to heart. They are sensible and would allow you all to bring in a larger audience.
How would I know the cracks in the ice need to be directed through the buckets/posts?!? They seem more like obstacles, much like the thorns in the crab(?) maze game. I assumed I needed to move around them, not sink them. Simple things like using an icon such as an anchor, something that needs to be sunk, would be more obvious and readily understood. Also, there should be some way to avoid failing the little mini games and challenges. Some are only won through multiple failures so there really was no logic to it. You can only figure it out using trial and error and that effectively means there is nothing to solve, merely a model you wanted us to use without any instructions. That’s cool and all for some people, but if I can’t actually try and it’s all guesswork, that’s not very entertaining to me. There should be some method to the madness.
To add, I was frequently required to remember information, something I have no desire to do within a game. You should be able to make some reference page of something you’ve seen or discovered, otherwise it’s back and forth and back and forth again for those who struggle with short-term and/or working memory. The game attempted to be creepy and definitely didn’t succeed for me, but obviously many people like it.
While I was definitely a bit disappointed, the game can be redeemed IMHO with a bit of work. I suppose my assumption is that everyone doesn’t think alike or share the same logic, so I might suggest when designing clues or making connections between game items/people, please understand that discoverability matters. If the user can’t intuitively figure out what something does, that is, how they may interact with the game (e.g., the affordances), and if no signifiers are present to signal the method of interaction, users will always be forced to have someone else tell them how to play through the game. While I didn’t love the game, I hope you all take my suggestions to heart. They are sensible and would allow you all to bring in a larger audience.
Worst of the series, and I love these games!
I absolutely love the Rusty Lake games. I wasn’t convinced by Rusty Lake Hotel (funny, but too much wandering around the place, and repetitive motions), but Roots was amazing, so I thought this one would be as good. Unfortunately it is more along the lines of the Hotel one, but worse. It’s not even that funny. I found myself being very annoyed instead. It is fun to put a puzzle together, but all the wandering around from location to location was a waste of time. I guess it is hard to do something as good as Roots. Oh, well. I still love the rest of the series.
Sentiment summary
94%
Positive (4-5★)
2%
Neutral (3★)
4%
Negative (1-2★)