2025-06-18

The Roottrees Are Dead

I had a great time with this game! It’s very simple, you just have to fill out a family tree, find each direct relative’s name, picture, and occupation. Finding this info is all done through a search, themed after the early internet era where the story takes place. It’s not exactly a simulation of using old computers, as search engine results only show you a text summary of what your character gets from the browsing. Disappointing if you loved Hypnospace Outlaw’s webpages, but Roottrees keeps you away from these distractions. The developer has cited Hypnospace and Her Story as inspiration, and it’s very accurate to say the gameplay lies halfway between the two.

Finding clues in Roottrees is very nonlinear, it’s clearly designed to have multiple lines of investigation, but you can find almost anything at any time. With the exception of periodicals, which are separate search engines that you need to discover on the web. This was a little immersion-breaking, your character would definitely be aware of all these magazines, but it was a good choice for pacing and giving the player new toys to discover. If you had all the unlocks available from the start, it would probably be easier to stumble across clues intended for late-game.

Pacing generally went well, your guesses are confirmed after you get a certain amount correct, and you occasionally get a cutscene which gives you more clues. All this is entwined with the story, your task was given by someone who already knows the Big Secret, but needs you to prove it independently. While investigating, you naturally learn about the stakes and the different kind of people in the family. There’s a wide representation of stereotypes, within that East Coast Old Money American Corporation Family zone, with some playful parody of each generation. It’s an interesting way to see characters written, as these entities who existed in the past, only through secondhand accounts or interpreted by journalists.

The game’s interface kinda simulates a computer screen, an evidence table, and a family tree corkboard, with a notebook you can pull out over all these. These are all just menus though, I wish you could move stuff around, put sticky notes on things, or just explore your room like it was a real space. I’d consider that a compliment, since the sound design and music sold all this immersion which I would otherwise be indifferent towards.

The game isn’t very long, though there is a postgame second act which I didn’t play much of. I was very happy with how the base game wrapped up, and that doesn’t give me a lot of motivation to take on a second part of it. I’m glad it was presented as an optional second helping, that was the right way to do it.

Score: 3/3. Easy recommendation, it’s very approachable and has a great hook. The hint system seems robust, though you might not need it (I only used it once out of curiosity).