Servant of the Lake Walkthrough — All 3 Days, Every Task Solved

Servant of the Lake is the longest game Rusty Lake has shipped, and almost all of it takes place inside one house across a long weekend. You play the new housekeeper of the Vanderboom estate in 1839, decades before Rusty Lake: Roots, tasked with everything from porridge and portraits to tea service, a hostile attic, and a family reunion that goes far stranger than any dinner party. This walkthrough splits the game into its three in-game days the way the diary does, so you can jump straight to the chapter you're stuck on.

Here's what you'll learn:

• The daily routine that structures all three days, and what order to do it in
• A step-by-step Day 1: arrival, breakfast, waking Aldous, the reception, tea and the reunion
• The Exit 8-style Night Watch and how to pass it without a restart
• The attic's "Riddle of Vanderboom" scene and the constellation box
• Day 2 and Day 3 puzzle walkthroughs, including the coffee grinder code
• Where the hidden "you've found him" ending chain begins, if you want it

Official resources: Steam store page · Official Rusty Lake blog · Rusty Lake Wiki

The Daily Routine: How All Three Days Work

Servant of the Lake isn't a room-by-room escape game like Cube Escape. It's a job. Each day is a chain of named tasks — The Arrival → Preparing Breakfast → Waking Up Aldous → Preparing the Reception → Welcoming the Guests → Serving Tea → Opening the Reunion → The Night Watch on Day 1, then a fresh chain on Days 2 and 3. The maid hands you each task, and your Servant's Notebook (given to you right after you sign the employment contract) tracks the current task, shows which hidden achievements you're missing, and stores every document and note you find.

• Talk to the maid when you're stuck on what to do next — she advances the story and issues the next chore.
• Replay is built in. Once you finish a day you can replay that chapter from the notebook, which is how you mop up the hidden achievements without a second full playthrough. Nothing is permanently missable.
• Every chapter is a Steam achievement. The task names double as the achievement names, so beating the game mostly issues the list on its own (full breakdown in the achievements guide).

Day 1 Walkthrough

The Arrival (and Paying the Coachman)

You begin in a carriage rolling toward the estate. Open the curtains, wait for the carriage to stop, and get out.

1. Inside the carriage take the tin cup; the coachman outside is waiting to be paid.
2. Pick the carrot from the planter, and open the left window for a second tin cup.
3. Open the right window and set down both cups; arrange them by how many line-marks they have, 1 to 5. The cup that opens gives you a coin.
4. Hand the coin to the coachman. He wants his horse fed — give the carrot to the horse. Talk to him again and he leaves; take the iron bar.
5. At the planter, a loose floorboard. Pry it with the iron bar and take the key. Unlock the front door.

Inside, talk to the maid and sign the employment contract: dip the crow feather in ink and draw your signature. She gives you the Servant's Notebook, then assigns your first chore.

Preparing Breakfast (Porridge)

The portrait of Aldous hangs nearby. Go through the left doorway into the servant's room, grab the wood and oats, read the note (Aldous's favourite breakfast is porridge — the recipe matters later), open the stove and insert the wood. Head through the next doorways past portraits of Alexandra and William Vanderboom (pet the cat if you like), find the bottle of milk in a crate, go upstairs to take a small pot and the dead mouse from a cabinet. Feed the mouse to the cat so it leaves the matches, then return, set the pot on the stove, add oats and milk, light the wood, and cook. Take the pot of porridge to the maid — she clears you to feed Aldous, warning you not to rouse him before he's ready.

Waking Up Aldous

Pick up the slipper and bowl; read the second note (his morning routine). On the floor, open the box by sliding the four patterned squares into the correct slots and take the razor. Move the overalls aside for the cloth. Open his bed curtains but do not wake him yet. On the dresser, take the clock hand and note the toy figure's movement pattern — Left, Right, Down, Right, Right, Down. Put the clock hand on the clock and set it to 7:00 exactly as the routine says — Aldous wakes.

Now the caretaking routine plays out:

1. Put his slippers on — he doesn't like cold feet.
2. Shave him with the razor: cut each hair, you'll nick his ear. Grab the earlobe and clean up with the cloth.
3. Give him the bowl, add porridge and the spoon. He says something's missing.
4. Open the left window and feed the crow the earlobe; it leaves a key. Unlock the top drawer for the berries.
5. Add the berries to the porridge — a bug crawls out. Move the berries until the bug can't reach any hole, then squash it and spoon-feed him until he's full.
6. Exercise: make him follow the toy's pattern — Left, Right, Down, Right, Right, Down. He gets dressed, then points you to the window: your brother/his siblings are arriving.
7. Go to the window — a carriage is there. Tap it to send it on.

Preparing the Reception (Portrait Code and Candles)

Clean up three spots of cat dirt — the floor by the portraits, the servant's room, and a third upstairs — then the maid gives you a feather duster. Use it on the three Vanderboom portraits; each comes to life and gives a number: William blinks 3 times, Alexandra holds up 2 fingers, Aldous shakes his pocket watch 4 times. The maid gives you a candle and tells you to light all of them.

Upstairs, slide the cabinet doors right to reveal a locked box with the three portraits. Enter the numbers in the picture-figure order — Alexandra, Aldous, William — which is 2 4 3. Take the third candle. Return to the entrance, climb to the chandelier, add all three candles, and light them in the winding-arrow order shown on the chandelier. The maid then sends you to the garden to greet the guests.

Welcoming the Guests (the Garden Puzzles)

In the garden you have: a goat, a milk jug, a roach puzzle, a puzzle box, and a flagpole.

1. Milk the goat into the jug; it kicks up dirt, look at it for a small key.
2. Roach puzzle: move the stone with the arrows next to each roach to push it one space toward the hole. If a roach gets stuck in a no-return corner you have to restart, so plan moves in advance. Reward: a stone tablet.
3. Flower puzzle: the planter's clue means the bottom row holds the four individual elements (leaves, base, pink middle, white petals); each row above combines the two below it, and the top cell is the fully combined flower. Reward: a stone tablet (full solution in the puzzles guide).
4. Use the small key on the mailbox for the third stone tablet and a letter.
5. Nesting-doll box: arrange the three tablets by "what goes inside what," biggest to smallest — house > cabinet > potion bottle > potion liquid, and tree > nest > egg > bird. Take the flag.
6. Raise the flag on the flagpole — the coach arrives with the guests.

Help Alexandra down from the coach (take her hand), give her the flowers, and pay the coachman. Open the basket and rotate it until the crying baby's arrangement reads 374; unlock the suitcase with 374, pack the clothing neatly, and take the coin and bill from the wallet. Coin to coachman, bill to the horse, and the task closes.

Serving Tea (and the Matcha Secret)

Tap the cat until it coughs up a sticky substance and pick it up. Take sugar from the maid, tea from the table and the kettle from the stove, and grab a teacup from upstairs. Bring it to Alexandra: teacup, tea, hot water, then milk. She says it's not sweet enough and drops the cup. Reassemble the cup and glue it with the sticky substance, then re-serve it with sugar twice. (For the matcha hidden achievement you must feed the cat tea first and add a certain green powder — see the achievements guide.)

Opening the Reunion (the Dinner)

Aldous wants his glass. In the cabinets:

• Top cabinet, fly puzzle: steer the fly through only the big buds with four left/right toggles — the working sequence is L L L R / L L R L / L R R L / R L L L / R R L L / R R R R. Take the fly eggs.
• Bottom cabinet: take the glass; on the note above is 1753 — rotate the box pieces to form 1753 and take the champagne.

Give Aldous his glass and fill it. Open the window for William, talk him inside, and when he asks for a drink hand him the whole champagne bottle (he drinks it and throws it). He wants his favorite cigar: reassemble the broken glass into a continuous arrow, copy the pattern into the locked box in the cabinet, and take the cigar. Light it, tap until he inhales it entirely, then open his mouth and use his teeth/buttons to put out the flames (left button moves the saliva source left, right moves it right). Take the spoon.

Make Lake-side fish toast: light the fireplace, tap the still-life painting's items in title order — timepiece, book, elixir, fish — to get the fish, grill it, put it on the toast, sprinkle fly eggs. Feed one piece to each of the three Vanderbooms.

Tap Aldous's glass with the spoon; he starts a speech, but baby James cries. Follow Alexandra's instructions in order: touch his eyes, the moon outside, his body, her gold ring, her gem, her lips, the cloud, then Alexandra's eyes. James sleeps. Wake snoring William by pulling his ear — the direction his eye looks tells you which part to tap next (up = hat, right = ear, down = shirt collar). Talk to Aldous to finish.

The Night Watch (Exit 8-style)

The maid tells you to patrol the hallways: if anything looks strange, ring the bell; if it's all normal, blow out a candle. Blow out all three candles without a mistake to pass. Like Exit 8, the wrong choices differ each playthrough, but the strange spots are fixed and don't repeat:

• Alexandra's portrait shows a corrupted soul.
• The cat sleeps on the milk crate in a pool of blood.
• The door upstairs is ajar — inside is a masked figure.
• Aldous's bedroom door is open but closes when you look.
• The glass garden door has a masked figure peering in (this one is effectively unmissable and grants a hidden achievement).

After the third candle, William stops you and asks you to find an old scroll in the attic; he gives you a walking stick. Use it to pull down the attic ladder.

Searching the Attic (the Vanderboom Riddle)

• Organize the strange objects by type (fingers; leaves and twigs; rocks; bones and flesh) into the box; take the candle, light the hanging lantern, and explore the dark left side.
• Take the small statue and open the riddle box. This is the "Riddle of Vanderboom" — a compact version of the family's founding story and the backbone of the game's lore (analyzed in our story explained):
  • "There was a young man named Vanderboom" — drag a blue-shirted man to the paper.
  • "He married a young woman" — add the woman.
  • "He built a house by himself" — square, then triangle on top.
  • "Three children were born, two boys and a girl" — two blue-shirted men and the woman.
  • "He went to war on his horse" — the armed man on the horse.
  • "He was shot in the back and died" — keep the armed man, remove the horse, put another man in front of the gun.
  • "The mother went up the mountain" — triangle with the woman on top.
  • "The last thing she saw was a large cube" — remove the triangle, add the cube.
• Open the shaking cube/box for a small key; unlock the bag for a statue; the dresser drawers hold a third statue and a rung.
• Constellation box: swipe at the window until the moon turns blood-red and the clouds cover all but 3 stars; match the moon constellation to the triangle. Then keep swiping until the lights of the Rusty Lake Hotel turn on, and match the constellation to the visible stars for a small statue. Swipe until water features and do the same.
• Place all four statues in the gold box and arrange the animals where they live: Moth–Flower, Bird–Cloud, Monkey–Tree, Fish–Water, Goat–Mountain. Take the special scroll and rung.

End of Day 1! Use the two rungs to climb the ladder and slide the door open — you glimpse the masked figure, and the day closes. The demo ends here; the weekend is over in the demo, but Day 2 begins the real game.

Day 2 Walkthrough

Preparing Coffee (the 315 Code)

The maid asks you to make a strong coffee for Aldous and William. Upstairs where William's room is, note the coffee grinder and the painting; open all the windows to see the three Vanderbooms in some windows with a number in each. Back in the house, check the three Vanderboom portraits: Alexandra points up, Aldous points right, William points left. Match each pointing direction to the numbered windows — the number above Alexandra is 3, to the right of Aldous is 1, to the left of William is 5. Return to the servant's room and enter 315 in the locked box for the coffee beans.

Waking Up William, Floors, the Hunt, Washing, Bathing, Night Duties

Day 2 is a task chain in the same rhythm as Day 1:

• Wake William with a feather (tickle him for the hidden achievement).
• Clean the floors — including scrubbing blood in the servant's room (scrub the drawing in the upper-left corner first for the deep-clean hidden).
• Go hunting with William — shoot the animals, and William himself if you see him (the perfect hunt hidden requires shooting all shots clean).
• Do the washing, then help with bathing — after Alexandra is in the tub, the window fogs; wipe each pane.
• Night duties toward the cellar.

Day 3 Walkthrough

The final day leans heavily on the alchemy: looking for the cat (chase it through several hiding spots, ending in the maid's lap, where you pet it for a hidden achievement), assisting in alchemy (feed the parrot elixir for a hidden achievement), preparing dinner (use the knife on the fly, add it to the soup for a hidden achievement), dressing up for dinner, serving dinner, and the departure with a first-aid hidden achievement.

Day 3 also holds the long "you've found him" post-game chain that starts with a letter mentioning Aldous waking up at 4:05 and threads through Day 1's attic, Day 2's bathing tiles and hunting eyeball, and the cellar wine-bottle locks. It's fully detailed in the story explained page.

Can I Replay Chapters?

Yes. After you complete the game (or a day), the notebook lets you replay each chapter, so no achievement is permanently locked out. Some hidden achievements are easiest on a replay where you already know the puzzle — the exercising quirk, the matcha tea, and the Day 3 table-leg letter all fall into that category.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I get past Day 1 in Servant of the Lake?

Follow the task chain: arrival → breakfast (porridge) → wake Aldous (set the clock to 7:00) → dust the portraits for the 2-4-3 code and light the chandelier → solve the garden (goat, roaches, flowers, nesting box, flag) → greet Alexandra (suitcase code 374) → serve tea → run the reunion dinner → pass the Night Watch → solve the attic. The day ends when you climb the ladder to the masked figure.

What do I do in the Night Watch section?

Patrol and compare: if a spot looks abnormal ring the bell, otherwise blow out the candle. There are five fixed strange spots (corrupted-soul portrait, blood-soaked cat, ajar upstairs door with a masked figure, Aldous's closing door, masked figure at the garden door). Blow out three candles without a wrong call to finish.

How do I solve the Servant of the Lake portrait code?

Dust the three portraits: William blinks 3 times, Alexandra shows 2 fingers, Aldous shakes his watch 4 times. Enter the numbers by picture order — Alexandra, Aldous, William — so the locked cabinet opens on 2 4 3. (The Day 2 coffee code is 315 instead.)

How many days are in Servant of the Lake?

Three in-game days (each is a long chapter covering morning through night), plus a post-icing "you've found him" sequence after you finish. The base story is roughly 4–5 hours.

Can I replay chapters after beating the game?

Yes — the Servant's Notebook lets you replay any finished chapter, which is how you mop up hidden achievements and the post-game secret without a second full run.

Related Guides

• Servant of the Lake Achievements — All 49 Unlock Conditions
• Servant of the Lake Puzzles — Every Puzzle Solved
• Servant of the Lake Story Explained — Plot & Ending
• Servant of the Lake Demo — What's Included & Save Carryover
• Rusty Lake Game Order — How to Play the Series

Last updated: August 14, 2026.