Timeline

The Rusty Lake games do not take place in chronological order, with some involving travel to previous years within their own direct timeline.

Please note that this timeline contains some speculation and is subject to change as new games are released. Numerous changes are made to the timeline, resulting in alternate timelines detailed in the italic sentences.

 1700 - 1800

* 1750: Summer - Caroline Eilander is born.
* 1775: Winter - Jakob Eilander is born.
* 1775-1780 - Elizabeth Eilander is born.
* 1780-1781 - David Eilander is born.
* 1780's - 1790's:
	+ Caroline discovers a way to create the Elixir using ten elements, etching them onto the wall of an underground cave.
	+ Nicholas Eilander begins to prepare his son for his future destiny, where he is to be sacrificed to the Lake.
	+ Before he is sacrificed, Caroline takes his place. She sends Jakob off the island by boat.
	+ Caroline is burned at the stake.
	+ Dressed in animal masks and robes, the Eilander family surrounds Caroline's casket and asks for their sacrifice to be taken and to enlighten them. Instead, the island is stricken by ten plagues.
* 1796: April 22 - Nicholas sends a letter to his son Jakob, informing him of his mother's death.
* The events of Rusty Lake Paradise take place. Jakob returns to Paradise Island, learning that their home has been subjected to ten plagues. He finds ten black cubes and uses one to eradicate each plague. Each cube contains a memory from his mother.
	+ First plague, "Water Turns into Blood": Jakob saves the family from the leeches and meets the Corrupted Soul of his mother, who tells him to bring her memories to the Lake. In the water, he finds his mother's coffin with a black cube inside.
	+ Second plague, "Frogs": Jakob captures the frogs to have them cooked by his grandmother, Margaret Eilander. Jakob gives the frog soup to his uncle Gerard Eilander, who vomits a key used for opening a box with a black cube inside.
	+ Third plague, "Gnats and Lice": Jakob helps his brother David Eilander raise his blood sugar level, but a cluster of insects surrounds David, transforming him into a giant larva. He puts flowers under the portrait of his mother; the painting falls after being swarmed by the insects, revealing a black cube.
	+ Fourth plague, "Flies": David emerges from his cocoon, becoming a fly-man hybrid. He kills animals while the family hides. Jakob enters the tower, where Nicholas is attacked by David. Here, he finds a book written by his mother about the Elixir, and a black cube that his father was guarding.
	+ Fifth plague, "Diseased Livestock": Jakob prepares a Rusty Lake Burger for Gerard, using meat from the diseased animals. His uncle goes to the toilet, where Jakob finds a black cube.
	+ Sixth plague, "Boils": Jakob prepares medicine for a sick Gerard, and replaces his heart with a clockwork piece. Putting Gerard's heart in the clock, Jakob finds a black cube.
	+ Seventh plague, "Hail": The island is covered in snow. Jakob finds David, who is human again, frozen in a block of ice. Using a powerful snow globe, he destroys the temple to find the black cube.
	+ Eighth plague, "Locusts": the island is covered in mist. A giant mantis kills a goat, and Jakob gives his sister Elizabeth Eilander the eyes to see through the mist. Following an owl, he finds a mist horn. Margaret uses the horn to attract the mantis, revealing a black cube.
	+ Ninth plague, "Darkness": The family members are gathered around a fire, waiting for the last ritual. Jakob enters the tower and guides a giant wicker owl to the temple. In a box, he finds the bones of his mother and throws the bone dust into the fire. The fire goes out, revealing a black cube.
	+ Tenth plague, "Death of the Firstborn": Jakob descends into the well and finds a black cube.. He returns to the island puts the cube in the well as his family burns him in a wicker owl. Jakob reaches enlightenment, coming back to life as Mr. Owl. In his last vision Paradise is reborn, becoming the Hotel.
* 1799: Winter - Aldous Vanderboom is born.

## 1800 - 1900

* 1841 - Mr. Boar is born.
* 1844 - Mr. Deer is born.
* 1848: June 7 - Paul Gauguin is born in France.
* 1853: March 30 - Vincent van Gogh is born in the Netherlands.
* 1854 - Mrs. Pigeon and Mr. Rabbit are born.
* 1859:
	+ Ms. Pheasant is born.
	+ Spring - Aldous and William Vanderboom reach the last stage of finding the Elixir. When they both drink it, William dies and becomes a Corrupted Soul and Aldous transforms into Mr. Crow.
* 1860:
	+ Spring - James Vanderboom moves into his new house after the death of his uncle William, and plants a tree in the yard, starting off the events of Rusty Lake: Roots.
	+ Summer - William's dead body falls out of the grandfather clock, breaking it. The corpse's heart is taken out as a sacrifice.
* 1865: Summer - James proposes to his girlfriend, who would later become Mary Vanderboom.
* 1866: Winter - Ida Reiziger is born.
* 1867: April 26 - Emma, Samuel and Albert Vanderboom are born.
* 1870: Summer -
	+ James discovers the entrance to the secret alchemy laboratory of his uncle William.
	+ July 25 - James creates the Elixir, and gives it to his Dog first to ensure its safety. The Dog lives, and becomes immortal. When James drinks the Elixir, he dies.
	+ James' wake is held later in that season, and his tongue is cut out as a sacrifice.
* 1876: Spring - Samuel, Emma and Albert play outside their house, trying to catch a butterfly. Samuel makes a beehive fall onto Albert's head, resulting in a disfiguring scar. Mr. Crow appears, revealing the obscure future of the children but also the importance of the Vanderboom legacy.
* 1884: Spring - Emma is impregnated by a flower, leading to the birth of Frank Vanderboom.
* 1885: Spring - Albert tries on some masks, and stabs the butterfly from his childhood to death.
* 1888: October - The events of Cube Escape: Arles unfold in van Gogh's bedroom.
	+ Vincent van Gogh cuts off his ear. Entering it, he goes to another version of his bedroom. Here, he defeats his Corrupted Soul in the mirror and escapes from his room into the "*Starry Night*" painting, using a black cube and a white cube.
* 1889: The companies producing Rusty Lake Cigars and Rusty Lake Pilsener are founded.
* 1889:
	+ Spring - Samuel repairs his family clock.
	+ Summer - Ida, the traveling fortune teller, predicts the future of Samuel and his family with tarot cards and her crystal ball.
* 1890: July 29 - Vincent van Gogh dies.
* 1891: Fall - Albert causes his nephew Frank to fall down a well. Frank's mother Emma searches for him, and writes him a letter to be delivered by Harvey.
* 1893: The events of Rusty Lake Hotel unfold.
	+ Harvey works as the butler in the Hotel along with Mr. Toad, Mr. Bat, and Mr. Crow under the hotel owner, Mr. Owl.
	+ Mr. Deer, Mr. Rabbit, Mrs. Pigeon, Ms. Pheasant, and Mr. Boar stay at the Hotel. They are subsequently murdered, prepared into meals and their memories are extracted into five black cubes.
	+ Through a white cube, Harvey sees Dale Vandermeer entering the Hotel from the depths of the Lake.
	+ August 7 - Mr. Rabbit is scheduled to put on a magic show at the Rusty Lake Theatre.
	+ August 8 - Ms. Pheasant is scheduled to put on a play at the Rusty Lake Theatre.
* 1894: The Corrupted Souls of the Hotel guests escape their confinement and attack Harvey, who escapes the Hotel in parrot form after being hit by a beam of light. He then comes to Emma, who saw the beam during her search of missing Frank.
* 1895: Winter - Samuel and Ida are married and their wedding photo is taken. They are joined by Mary, Albert, Emma, and their son, Leonard.
* 1896:
	+ Summer - Emma commits suicide by hanging, due to her grief over her son's disappearance. She leaves behind a painting depicting her death, and her tears are collected in a bottle as a sacrifice.
	+ Winter - Samuel, Ida, Mary, and Albert play a Lying Game, and a crow-headed Soul gives Albert a deer skull that he later uses.

## 1900 - 1939

* 1903: May 8 - Paul Gauguin dies.
* 1904: May 1 -
	+ Mary mysteriously dies after the Vanderboom family band finishes playing their song. Her teeth are taken as a sacrifice. Leonard is left alone as his parents are gone.
	+ Albert kills Samuel and Ida with voodoo dolls. One eye from both Samuel and Ida are taken as sacrifices.
* 1909: Summer - Rose Vanderboom is born, artificially created by Albert, with his semen and Ida's egg.
* 1914:
	+ Spring - Leonard leaves the House to join the army, shortly before the start of WWI.
	+ July 28 - WWI officially begins.
* 1918:
	+ November 11 - WWI officially ends.
	+ Winter - Leonard returns from WWI, shell-shocked and missing a leg. In his visions, he sees a Corrupted Soul, his parents, Albert and Mr. Crow. His foot is taken as a sacrifice.
* 1919: Fall - Rose communicates with the spirit of her great-great uncle William in the attic with an Ouija board, and is informed about the resurrection ritual. She learns that the ritual requires ten sacrifices and three timepieces.
* 1924: Fall - Frank, with the help of his cousin Rose, escapes from the well where he has been trapped for 33 years.
* 1925-January 1926 - In a different timeline, Albert establishes connection with a future version of Rose and creates a resurrection plan in case of his death alongside a Cubical Device 002C.
* 1926: Fall - Frank strangles Albert to death after a game of chess. Albert's brain is cut out and taken as a sacrifice.
	+ At Albert's wake, Rose finds instructions written by her father and establishes connection with her future self via the Cubical Device 002C. After co-operating with her future self, Rose is able to transfer samples of Albert's body through time, and create a Golden Cube.
	+ The Corrupted Soul of Albert takes hold of the Golden Cube and blends the two recursive time periods into one. Because of this, Young Rose and Old Rose meet in The Forest and merge.
* 1927: Winter - Frank takes a bath and gets a haircut. His hair is collected as a sacrifice.
* 1929: Fall - Leonard finds the first timepiece in the front yard of the Vanderboom family house.
* 1930: Winter -
	+ December 18 - Dale Vandermeer is born.
	+ Frank looks up at the stars in the night sky with a telescope in the attic and finds his mother's letter and the second timepiece.
* 1931: July 6 - Robert Hill is born.
* 1932: Fall - Rose spends the night grave-robbing her dead relatives in the graveyard by the Chapel, and finds the third timepiece.
* 1933: Spring - Rose and Frank share a dance. Rose is stabbed in the finger with a needle, and her blood is collected as a sacrifice.
* 1935: Spring -
	+ Frank, Leonard and Rose all become entangled in roots from their family tree, allowing William to be resurrected as a baby, Laura Vanderboom, using the family's sacrifices and the timepieces.
	+ William Vanderboom finds himself as a Corrupted Soul in the Samsara Room, and learns of the circle of life. Through various transformations to his soul, he is reborn as Laura Vanderboom.
* 1939: December 18 - The events of Cube Escape: Birthday unfold.
	+ Dale Vandermeer celebrates his 9th birthday, along with his mother, father, and grandfather. The party is interrupted by Mr. Rabbit (*Birthday*)/David Eilander (*Paradox*), who kills Dale's family with a sub-machine gun.
		- *In an alternate timeline, Dale undoes his family's death and helps his grandfather shoot Mr. Rabbit before he can attack.*

## 1960 - 2020

* 1960: Bart Leeghwater begins his stay at The White Door. His case is supervised by Dr. J. Grant at security level 3.
* 1963 - Rio Kobayashi begins her stay at The White Door. Her case is supervised by Dr. J. Grant at security level 3.
* 1964: Spring - Cube Escape: Seasons begins.
	+ The Woman, Laura, begins to have visions of a Corrupted Soul who is out to kill her.
		- *In an alternate timeline, a beam of light from the phone dissipates the shadow from her Soul, and reveals the true form of the Woman.*
	+ Harvey, her pet parrot, lays an egg, which is boiled and hatches into a black cube.
		- *In an alternate timeline, Harvey escapes from the cage and the house.*
* 1964-1969: Bob meets Laura for the first time in a park. At some point, they started dating.
* 1966: Mr. Owl gives Dale a watch through a vision in a snow globe. For Dale, it happens in 1939, during the events of Cube Escape: Birthday.
* 1968:
	+ January 6 - Yuliana Kazantseva begins her stay at The White Door. Her case is supervised by Dr. T. Hoorn at security level 5.
	+ February 19 - Jin-ho Kim begins his stay at The White Door. His case is supervised by Dr. J. Grant at security level 2.
	+ March 28 - Giulio Trentino begins his stay at The White Door. His case is supervised by Dr. P. Clark at security level 3.
* 1969: December 26 - Dr. J. Grant begins working as a physician at The White Door.
* 1969: Cube Escape: Harvey's Box and Cube Escape: The Lake both take place at the Cabin.
	+ The Woman prepares to visit Rusty Lake, after winning a newspaper competition. She breaks up with Bob in the Owl Nest café and gets ready for the trip. Among her packed possessions is a box of cigars and Harvey.
	+ Inside of the box, the events of Harvey's Box follow the journey from the Room to the Cabin.
	+ Reaching the Cabin, Harvey sees a Corrupted Soul reaching down for him, but the Soul disappears after being attacked by three fireflies.
	+ The Woman spends an afternoon fishing. She discovers a magical tree and performed a pentagram ritual before being attacked in the Cabin by a Corrupted Soul that climbs out from the Lake.
		- *In an alternate timeline, the ritual was altered to form a pentagon of light that fought the Corrupted Soul. A black cube was left behind it.*
* 1969-1971: Bob messes up at his work at the Johnsson Bird Food factory and gets fired.
* 1970:
	+ May 14 - Leonie Poisson begins her stay at The White Door. Her case is supervised by Dr. C. Adams at security level 5.
	+ November 21 - Linda Kirkland begins her stay at The White Door. Her case is supervised by Dr. C. Adams at security level 4.
	+ December 31 - Susan Fisher begins her stay at The White Door. Her case is supervised by Dr. A. L. P. Allis at security level 2.
* 1971 - Tobiasz Olszewski begins his stay at The White Door. His case is supervised by Dr. C. Adams at security level 3.
* 1971: Cube Escape: Seasons continues, followed by Cube Escape: Case 23 Chapter 1 and Cube Escape: Theatre.
	+ Summer - The Woman has The Lake flashbacks and visions, seeing her own death by the hands of the Corrupted Soul, watching the moon through a telescope.
	+ Fall, October 12 -
		- The Woman commits suicide, slicing her own neck. When her body is found, it is not clear to the police if she committed suicide or was murdered.
		- Sometime during this season, Harvey is stabbed in the chest, presumably dying.
			* *In an alternate timeline, Harvey is not stabbed, having already left the Room.*
		- Dale is assigned to the investigation of her death, and begins to discover information about Rusty Lake, talking briefly to Mr. Crow through the telephone.
		- Bob finds out about Laura's death and falls deeper into depression. He is visited by Sarah White, a nurse from The White Door mental institute bringing him a calling card in case he needs mental treatment.
	+ October-December
		- Bob visits the Rusty Lake Theatre. As he drinks and shares his feelings of depression, the barman proposes him a pistol as a solution. Bob shoots himself.
		- Bob sees a dream about his memories drifting away, about The Lost Soul club, about encountering Dale wearing a deer mask there, about being corrupted and meeting Laura, disappearing in a disturbing way and leaving him alone.
	+ Dale, traveling in the elevator, goes into a cube and visits the Theatre. He speaks to Bob, the Woman's ex-boyfriend. He refuses to speak to Dale, only talking after he is served drinks. He reveals that he feels dead inside as the result of having his memories taken. Bob attempts suicide, becoming a Corrupted Soul.
* 1972:
	+ February 7 - Zhang Yong Li begins his stay at The White Door. His case is supervised by Dr. A. L. P. Allis at security level 5.
	+ Summer - Cube Escape: Case 23 Chapters 2, 3 and 4 all occur in Summer at the Police Station, the Chapel and the Cabin, concurrently with Cube Escape: The Mill.
		- At the Mill, Mr. Crow arranges for the body of the Woman to be transported to him.
		- Dale links the murder to Rusty Lake. He creates a map of several important locations.
		- Bob, who is in police custody, murders a Policeman, transforming into a Corrupted Soul and leaving behind a black cube after Dale asked him to give his memory.
		- Dale places two cubes he found into his television set and is teleported to the Lake and soon after transported to the Chapel by Mr. Owl.
		- Mr. Crow extracts the memories of the Woman, taking the cubes to feed Rusty Lake. This causes the corruption of her body. Her Soul murders the residents of the Mill, and holds Harvey hostage, but is persuaded to leave by Mr. Crow.
		- Dale wakes up in the Chapel and encounters Mr. Crow, who rows him across the Lake to the Cabin. A Corrupted Soul with antlers tries to attack Dale, but he is able to escape in an elevator that leads down into the Lake.
		- He reaches the forest at the lake bottom and, protected by Mr. Owl, walks into the Big White Cube.
	+ August - The events of The White Door take place.
		- August 12 - Dr. J. Grant is assigned to supervise Bob's case, in order to ensure that he sticks to the program as his memories are extremely valuable to the organization. Bob is placed at security level 5.
		- August 13 - Bob wakes up in the street with amnesia. Having nothing but The White Door calling card, he calls the mental health facility where he's taken.
		- August 14 - Bob begins his stay, after losing his memories in a supposed accident. The Manager has the doctors begin connecting to Bob's mind with a machine to return his memories through his dreams. In the first dream, he remembers Laura breaking up with him at the Owl Nest café.
		- August 15 - In the second dream, he remembers getting fired from his job at the Johnsson Bird Food factory after setting off an emergency shutdown.
		- August 16 - Bob wakes up in the middle of sleeping to find that the doctors are experimenting on him. In his dream, he remembers learning of Laura's death on the television, and meeting Sarah for the first time.
		- August 17 -
			* Bob sabotages his room in an attempt to escape, but is tranquilized. In his dream, he remembers shooting himself in the head at the Rusty Lake Theatre.
			* Dr. T. Hoorn alerts the Manager that one of their employees is acting suspicious. Sarah is given permission by the Manager to enter Bob's dreams, but is warned to not erase his memories of the Woman.
		- August 18 - Bob is moved to a padded cell, where he switches places with his Corrupted Soul. In his dream, he remembers going to The Lost Soul after shooting himself and becomes corrupted after remembering he lost it all.
		- August 19 - Bob is still corrupted. In his dream, he remembers waking up in the street and calling The White Door for help.
		- August 20 - Bob enters his room, seeing his Corrupted Soul in bed. He brings colours back into his room and switches places with the Soul again. In his dream, he remembers the first time he met Laura.
			* *In an alternate timeline, Sarah erases the memories of Laura from Bob's mind and he completes his treatment at The White Door. He then writes the book "False Accusations".*
		- Sarah gets into the basement and frees the 10 captive patients, escaping with them on the elevator. They leave the facility with 10 black cubes, scattered across the globe.
	+ Winter - The events of Cube Escape: The Cave play out, followed by Cube Escape: Paradox:
		- Mr. Crow enters the Cave, helps Mr. Owl with the Elixir and travels down into the depths of Rusty Lake with a Submarine through the Forest, retrieving the white, black, and blue cubes.
		- Laura and Dale are held in the Forest under the Lake, connected to a mysterious machine.
		- Dale awakens in the Paradox Room, with no memory of how he got there. He goes through multiple iterations of a time loop, each time taking slightly different actions.
			* *After drinking from the red vial, he escapes into The Forest only to return when witnessing a corrupted soul murder Laura and encountering a black cube*.
			* *After drinking from the green vial, he sacrifices himself to the Lake in order to save the Woman, with the Paradox black cube turning white.*
			* *After drinking from the blue vial, he merges with his Corrupted Soul and escapes into the Forest, eventually becoming the Soul he sees murder Laura and returning to the room.*
			* *After finding the Golden Cube he travels up in the Elevator, leaving the room entirely*
		- Outside Dale's mind, Mr. Crow uses the machine to create the golden cube. He gives it to Dale, who is still unconscious, then sends him up by the elevator to the hotel.
			* *From Dale's perspective, Birthday and Theatre occur after this moment, though both are implied to be derived from his own memories.*
* 1981: Cube Escape: Seasons continues into the Winter.
	+ The Woman, now a Corrupted Soul, constructs a machine to travel backwards in time and prevent her death using the power of a blue cube.
* 1984: The Future side of The Past Within takes place in Fall, 1926.
	+ Old Rose establishes connection with her past self via the Cubical Device 018F. After co-operating with her past self, she is able to resurrect her father, Albert Vanderboom.
	+ The resurrected Albert takes hold of a Black Cube and blends the two recursive time periods into one. Because of this, Young Rose and Old Rose meet in The Forest and merge, which could possibly be to give her daughter the chance to 'ascend.'
* 1995: April 18 - The White Door activates its Cube Locator system, in order to track the black cubes that were lost after the 1972 basement outbreak.
* 2000:
	+ January 21 - Dr. T. Hoorn uses the Cube Locator system and attempt to access Robert Hill's file. His access code is denied, and an emergency is alerted to the system a minute later. He is asked to contact the Manager.
	+ January 22 - Dr. T. Hoorn is found dead in a park. A black cube is discovered on his person.

* 2001-2003: Best Kept Memory, another clinic dealing with memories connected to The White Door, operates offering services such as memory preservation in their database (with an option of recording it on a VHS), memory retrieval and experimental extraction of unwanted memories.

* 2004:
	+ An unknown group of hackers gains unauthorized access to the memory database of Best Kept Memory.
	+ December 20 - This security breach made the news. Chad Brunswick, marketing director of BKM reassured that the breach didn't reflect their security, the exploited vulnerability was fixes and memories of their clients were safe.

* 2020:
	+ January 20 - Kirsten Hoorn, Dr. Hoorn's daughter, creates an Instagram account in order to commemorate his death the upcoming Wednesday. There she starts posting photos related to him, and her related childhood memories.
	+ January 21 - All of the black cubes lost in 1972 are located.
	+ January 22 - Kirsten takes a plane to visit Rusty Lake.

## Trivia

* Earlier versions of Rusty Lake: Roots, as well as the official video walkthroughs, will have some chapters incorrectly dated. These were changed in a later update to fit a correct chronological order. The dates given in this timeline are correct according to the most recent patch.

## Gallery

Overview of the first six games.The series chronology (until Cube Escape: Theatre).Cube Escape overview by the end of 2018.Full universe overview after Samsara Room remake's release.An extensive chronology featuring all the RL media by 2023.