Returning to Rusty Lake
Underground Blossom is a point-and-click adventure game in the Rusty Lake series, which shares the same name as the studio that makes it. They’ve been around since 2015 and have developed fifteen adventure games so far that all take place in the same universe, including the indie game series Cube Escape. The studio claims that each adventure stands alone while also tying into the larger Rusty Lake mythos. I chose to test that theory by starting with the iOS version of Underground Blossom, their newest entry in the series.
The narrative follows the life of Laura Vanderbloom via the metaphor of a subway station. Each station represents an important point in Laura’s life, such as Crib Station, Child Lane, and Sorrow Cross. The gameplay is typical for a point-and-click adventure: find items in your surroundings, add them to your inventory, then use them to open new pathways—though not always in the ways you’d expect.
An Oneiric Experience
Rusty Lake leans into being an indie studio with dreamlike logic and surreal events. While most of the puzzles’ solutions are straightforward—find a key to open a locker—others are bizarre, like fishing up a rat. There’s a fanciful aspect to the whole experience, like a trumpet solo resulting in a fish falling out of the front of the instrument, or that changing the time on a clock causes the train to arrive. No doubt these are aspects of the game that fans of Rusty Lake love, but it can make solving the puzzles more challenging. Logic plays a role in most of the progression, but there are times when the abstractness of the solution makes it hard to figure out.
The surrealism also extends to the storytelling. Due to the lack of a narrator, the events of Laura’s life play out via bizarre vignettes. You need to infer a great deal in order to understand what happened to Laura and what it all means. Surely there isn’t actually a man with a stag’s skull for a head? But does he represent an actual person, or is he an allegory for what caused something to happen?
Basic, Straightforward Controls
Thankfully, Underground Blossom controls are aimed at a touchscreen, making them intuitive and responsive. Tapping on an object lets you pick it up or inspect it; tapping on a person lets you move closer to examine them or speak to them.
Once you pick up an item, it goes into the inventory on the right side of the screen. Selecting an item and interacting with something else results in using the item on the object, unless you can’t use that item on that object in which case you simply interact with it as you normally would.
There are a few other interactions you can do, such as rotating something by dragging your finger in a circle. You can also open rolling doors by dragging upwards on the screen, or close them by dragging downwards. While these are all amusing additions, they weren’t used very often, nor did I feel that they added a great deal to the immersion.
Another Bite-Sized Rusty Lake Adventure
I played through this game in less than three hours, so it can easily be beaten in an afternoon. Secret hide in each station that will unlock some further content, though they’re really just extras for dedicated fans of the series.
On that note, while I was able to play through and generally understand Laura’s story—the vagueness struck me as quite deliberate—I definitely felt pieces were missing. Those who played the other games would no doubt have a greater framework for these events as the stories of the games in the series relate to one another. Certain things felt out of place, even in the dreamlike landscape, leading me to believe they were references to other Rusty Lake adventures. So if you’re a big fan, I’m sure you’ll enjoy this one too. But if you haven’t tried them yet, you’d benefit from starting at the beginning.
The title boasts a high-quality score that uses real string instruments, including a cello. The music adds atmosphere to the different stops despite the sameness of the backgrounds, helping to set the mood.
An Interesting Excursion
I’m very much a genre-fiction kind of person when it comes to books, movies, and video games. Highly abstract or vague stories tend to irritate me. Underground Blossom brings forward a lot of intriguing material and makes references to the struggles of those with mental illnesses, but it never comes into focus.
If you’re someone who likes to fill in the blanks and enjoys a story that lets you come to your own conclusion, Underground Blossom delivers. For those of us who want to understand what really happened or get a definitive ending, not so much.
The creativity of the developers shines through in the puzzles, setting and story progression. The game always kept me wondering what was around the next corner, even if it was sometimes disturbing. After all, where else could I get rewarded for lighting a trashcan on fire?
