Rose Cottage is a gorgeous indie game that lured me into a Victorian mortuary and made me laugh

The Victorian era is endlessly interesting to me. I live in an old Victorian house, around the corner from a museum with in-situ Victorian-themed rooms that creep me out and fascinate me in equal measure. I also love point-and-click games, which seems like a weird segue until you consider one of my new favorite games of the genre, Rose Cottage. 

Rose Cottage is a gorgeously hand-drawn point-and-click ghost tale co-developed by Hollow Lane Games and Nutzen TV that’s set in late Victorian England. There are ghosts (at least the threat of them), an endlessly creepy and confusing mansion that’s also a mortuary, a mysterious triple disappearance that seems impossible to solve, and more than a few well-timed comedic moments to lighten the mood. 

This house is cursed; the mood is not

Rose Cottage mostly takes place, at least during the demo, inside the Hollow Lane Mortuary, the questionable business/home combo owned by the father-in-law of our lovable main character, Edward. He’s an inspector and has been called there by his wife after three staff members go missing under mysterious circumstances, leaving only Thomas behind. We arrive at a locked house with only one way in, through the cellar… where the coffins are kept. 

It goes without saying that a mansion that doubles as a mortuary is going to be at least a little creepy without even trying, but couple that with the endless Victorian-era trinkets, some questionable shadows, and the ever-present mystery of where the hell the staff went, and you’ve got a deeply unsettling undertone to contend with. 

Thankfully, Edward has a stellar sense of humor to get us through even the darkest of times. The writing in Rose Cottage manages to juggle “deeply sinister” and “darkly funny” expertly, producing something that will have you on the edge of your seat one moment and laughing the next. The entire emotional rollercoaster is fully voice-acted, which absolutely helps with the immersion, and you can’t help being drawn into the story.

Humor in dark times

As a parent, I’ve become very adept at telling terrible jokes because, no, they’re not just reserved for dads. Moms deserve to be part of the horrible comedy too. One thing I love about Rose Cottage is the inclusion of dad jokes, such as “Swan of those days” while looking at a swan on the wallpaper. 

I love a good pun, and Rose Cottage is littered with them, but the humor doesn’t stop there. There are visual moments that come out of nowhere and surprise you, too. When you reach the loft and find a light, it comes on to reveal Edward standing behind a mannequin at the perfect angle to make it look like he’s wearing it. It suits him, oddly. 

Edward is also an absolute skeptic when it comes to anything spiritual, but he’s the kind of skeptic who will go far, far away from logic to explain the unexplainable. A door slams shut and locks itself? Definitely the wind. A planchette starts moving across a Ouija board without his input? Definitely an elaborate rig of cogs and levers and nothing to do with ghosts or ghoulies. 

Without the humor, Rose Cottage would still be an exceptional point-and-click adventure based on the art alone, but it would be much more haunting and chilling to play. Every joke comes at a time when you’re starting to feel uneasy, and Edward is the perfect delivery system for the touches of lightheartedness. 

And if you really hate the dad jokes, you can turn them off in the settings. I don’t know why you would, though.

A distracting game of hide-and-seek

I’ll be honest, I definitely could have got through the demo in far less time than my current two hours of gameplay suggests, but there’s a very good reason it took me so long: a model ship with missing pieces. 

Admittedly, that seems like a less important side quest now that I write it down, but hear me out.

As you explore the mansion and gradually unlock doors and new areas, you’ll find a lot of strange trinkets and decorations. One of them, a model ship, is in the dining room, and it’s missing five pieces. Now, I’m no newcomer to point-and-click games, so when there are missing pieces on an object, I know they need to be found.

I was also spurred on by my side quest-loving fiancé, who happened to be watching me play on stream. 

In the end, through our exploration of the mansion, we managed to find a grand total of one boat piece. I’m not sure if we simply overlooked other pieces. I’m fairly confident we inspected every inch of every room, but there’s always a possibility. The quest for the boat pieces came to an end, however, when we inadvertently reached the end of the demo and simultaneously screamed “NO!” because we were left wanting more. 

A comeback story

According to discussions on the game’s Steam Community Hub, the future of Rose Cottage seemed a little uncertain at one point, but I’m so glad to have found it now. After playing through the demo, I also discovered that many players found the game through an easter egg in another one of my favorite point-and-click games, The Biggleboss Incident.  

I love it when indie developers work together and boost each other's games. 

With everything being hand-drawn by one exceptionally talented artist, it's easy to imagine how overwhelming the workload could be, but the art in Rose Cottage is absolutely stunning, and I, for one, am willing to wait however long it takes for the game to be finished. I'll be right here on the eventual release day, ready to jump back in and figure out what happened to the workers at Hollow Lane Mortuary.

Rose Cottage doesn’t have a release date just yet, but we all know I’m going to be patiently awaiting news on that subject. The demo is available through Steam, and it’s enough to keep you entertained for at least an hour or two, depending on how distracted you get by missing ship parts or how lost you get in the sprawling mansion.