The Vanderbooms again, and this time you're the one doing their laundry. Servant of the Lake is a point-and-click adventure for iPhone and iPad that casts you as the family's servant, decades before the events of Rusty Lake: Roots.
Each day of the weekend brings a list of duties while Aldous, William, and Alexandra hold their annual reunion. The jobs start small, straightening portraits and grinding coffee beans, and slide toward assisting with alchemical experiments and cleaning up afterward. The puzzles suit touch, Pocket Gamer found: turning a dial or pulling a rope with a finger feels more physical than clicking it, and the uncluttered screen keeps stray taps rare.
How hard it gets depends on who you ask. Adventure Game Hotspot clocked about four hours for the story and put the puzzles plainly: "The logic behind them is always decipherable no matter how surreal things get." A few obtuse ones, a flower arrangement among them, left Pocket Gamer wishing for a hint system. iPhoners stuck on one can open the developer's video walkthroughs from the help menu instead. And one long-time fan in the App Store reviews pushes the other way, calling the puzzles more tedious than challenging.
I'd start a Rusty Lake newcomer here, then hand them Roots.
Veterans get a reason to stay past the credits. The post-game challenges, Adventure Game Hotspot says, hide alternate solutions that reveal more lore, with consequences for the wider Rusty Lake storyline.
