Servant of the Lake Devlog #4 - Q&A
We cannot believe there are only 3 days left until Servant of the Lake releases! Let’s take one final look at your questions about the development process, behind-the-scenes details, gameplay, price, length, and...(of course) William’s nipples?
Q: "What inspired you to make a game from the perspective of a servant of the Vanderbooms?" @jd.jve
A: The idea of going back to the Vanderboom Estate has been on our minds ever since we released Roots in 2016. It is such an important location for Rusty Lake, and we felt there was a lot left to explore in both the process of the Elixir creation and the history of the siblings who lived there, before James arrived at the house in Roots.
We were especially excited about the game once we came up with the idea of serving the siblings during their yearly family tradition and, as an outsider, being drawn into the family's rituals and dynamics. This premise was the foundation on which we developed the full narrative of Servant of the Lake.
Q: "How would you describe Alexandra? Does she share the same passion as her brothers?" @do_ocenavajas
A: Alexandra is a newly introduced character that gave us the chance to finally provide more background on James' mother.
She is cold and demanding, not particularly someone you would like to attend to over a weekend. We know she is fond of playing the harp, but her passions remain a secret…
Q: "What part of the game takes the longest to create? (Soundtrack, backgrounds, etc)" @cecilsayss
A: Every part of game development has its own length, which varies over time in the development process. And when you design a game like this, where a lot of collaborators are working on the project at different times, together with our core team who continuously work on the design of the puzzles, the overall narrative and all the promotional content around the game, it gets harder to pinpoint what process is longer than the rest.
Johan's beautiful work on the new paintings of the house, landscape and portraits was one of the main foundations on which we built the game on - but over the last year and a half, he made three additional paintings on our request, which took several iterations to be completed.
Victor’s work on the soundtracks, Driftwood Audio’s work on the sound design, the voice actors and all the other collaborators we’ve worked with - at some points during development, things move quickly, while at other times it can be a more time-consuming process.
Luuk and Martijn (AKA The Tall Ones) ported the whole game in Unity in a very short timeframe of 6 months, in spite of all the technical challenges that came with that.
Last but not least, our incredible group of translators who are working hard on the localisation of the game to have it finished in time for the big launch. Hopefully this paints a better picture of the complexity of this project and how difficult it would be to pick just one thing that took us longer to work on!
Q: "Why isn’t the game called Rusty Lake Servant? What’s the logic behind your branding in general? Are there gonna be new additions to the Rusty Lake trilogy? Are you launching a new “of the lake” series?" NoWhere
A: As a narrative prequel to Rusty Lake Roots, we’d say that Servant of the Lake is part of the Rusty Lake series despite not having the typical “Rusty Lake:..” style title.
As to why it’s not called Rusty Lake Servant / Rusty Lake: Servant of the Lake, the simple answer is just that these versions don’t sound as nice. The more complex answer is… [REDACTED]
Q: "How do you guys come up with the music for the games? Is there a planning process or is it just whatever fits the mood of the games?" @Dkdad
A: We are just lucky enough to have Victor Butzelaar on our team. Not only does he have talent and experience, but after working together for over a decade, he just has a sixth sense when it comes to composing music for a Rusty Lake game. We show him an early prototype or just present him with a concept of what we want to make, and he just comes up with a main theme for it almost immediately.
Long story short, the main theme comes about to fit the mood of the game, then the rest of the soundtrack is planned around it!
Q: "Hi! I’m a flautist and I love the alto flute; why did you pick this instrument in particular?" @xanthr A: Awesome! The flute played an important role in the garden soundtracks of Rusty Lake Roots. So we really wanted to bring back some of that same atmosphere to Servant of the Lake’s garden.
Q: "I’m mostly excited about the soundtrack, are there any plans for a new vinyl record releases?" AlaQ
A: It will be our most diverse soundtrack to date, so we will do our best to make it happen!
Q: "What was the most challenging/exciting part of making this game? Have you guys ever forgotten how to do one of your own puzzles?" @pinkmilkshorty
A: Due to Servant of the Lake being such a grand project for us, especially with it having a varied cast voicing the numerous characters, we wanted to make sure that the dialogues for all characters were as good as possible in tone, narrative, consistency - especially for the Rusty Lake characters you’ve all encountered before - so we’d all agree that writing the scripts for the game was one of the most challenging parts while making Servant of the Lake together with having to port the game to Unity in case Adobe decides to shut down AdobeAir again.
The most exciting part of the development was all the support we received from our community on this journey. We knew we were on the right track with this game, but we genuinely felt that everyone from our community had our back! That has been obvious to us ever since we announced the game through The Mr Rabbit Magic Show, when we released the demo at gamescom, or did a tour on the real-life carriage to several European gaming festivals - and especially when we said we needed a few more months to finish the game. You showed us your support in the best possible way, and now we can finally return the favour with the release of Servant of the Lake!
As for puzzles, as the main designer, Maarten can solve all the puzzles in Servant of the Lake with his eyes closed, but we’re all sure he’d struggle with some of the ones from our early games (the slider painting puzzle in the chapel); the rest of us have no comment on the matter! 👀
Q: "Was there anything you had to change due to surprising reactions from playtesters?" @carlos.exclamationpoint
A: Halfway through the game, we introduced a new game mechanic that made test players very excited. We got a lot of positive feedback about it, and some players requested a standalone game based on this. We hope you’ll all agree with us on this one!
Q: "What is the thing you are most satisfied with about this game?" Hh9www9zz
A: It is hard to choose something in particular. We feel Servant of the Lake is one of our best productions to date, as this game has a certain quality we didn't believe we would be capable of creating 10 years ago. We also feel that it has the right flow with the right amount of fresh puzzles and an interesting story, while maintaining the classic Rusty Lake touch and atmosphere.
Q: "How many achievements are in the game? I like to hunt them" @eitansaar14
A: 40+! We wish you a great hunt! Don’t forget to open your notebook from time to time to keep track of them.
Q: "Will the shrimp be in the game?" @luistinks
A: You’ll have to play to find out!
Q: What is the cat’s name?" @lynatearock
A: We don’t want to spoil it, so please head to ServantoftheLake.com if you would like to do some investigations/research on this before the game releases.
Q: "Can I pet the cat?" @ennuiembody
A: Yes!
Q: "How long did it take to finish the game, and when did the devs start working on it?" @trevor_bunnyboy
A: We’ve had ideas written down for this game since Rusty Lake: Roots. While exploring a new story for Rusty Lake Untold, we returned to this story concept and started to develop a prototype, which was ready in summer 2024. Since then, it’s been over 2.5 years of actual development - with a break in between to release The Mr Rabbit Magic Show for our 10-year anniversary. The project also grew bigger over time, with more and more content being added.
Q: "How long will the gameplay be?" @may_erz_
A: The average gameplay for the main storyline of Servant of the Lake is roughly 4 to 5 hours.
Q: "What will the price of the game be?" @_.venice.queen._
A: Servant of the Lake will cost 7.99€ / 7.99$
Thank you for your support!
Our team and collaborators put their heart and soul into this one. From music and sound to our amazing voice actors, from UI/UX design to the translators, everyone outdid themselves to bring this project to life for all our fans worldwide. We look forward to welcoming you to the Vanderboom house on August 13th around 2 pm CEST, Servant.
