The Roottrees are Dead Steam Charts & Stats

If you're at all interested in detective/deduction games you owe to yourself and your entire family tree to play this game. Mystery solving perfection! Essential must play game for the genre. 11/10

A good story, however the game feels more like a 'guess-and-check' exercise than an actual puzzle. Much of your time is wasted plugging in random search terms, such as schools or company names, in the off chance the game creators decided that particular search term was useful, while the other search terms in the same piece of evidence weren't. Getting to the Roottreemania mode is even worse, a large part of solving the second portion of the game is re-entering a bunch of the exact same terms and searches from the previous section. The family tree the game has you research begins completed already, with your task being to just add names, photos and occupations to each family member, which takes away a lot of the joy of discovering family links, and frustration when you happen to not add certain cousins in the exact order the game wanted you to. Overall the good story is let down by the chore of how information/evidence is collected.

This is probably the best Return of the Obra Dinn - style game I've played where you have to fill out a complex family tree. It's tricky, but you never have to guess as long as you go by the basic rules the game tell you, and take notice of every clue and link you can find, how small and insignificant it migh sound at first. , by searching the web and other sources. The only problem with this type of game is that they are not very repayable since it's a specific solution to everything, but they are also so rewarding when you go from utter confusion to that "AHA!" moment. Love this kind of games just finished the tree, and turns out there is a second tree to solve... so i guess I'm only half way there,

Primarily text-based mystery-solving game. You have to decipher a large family tree on behalf of a mysterious stranger. You have only your notes, computer, and pieces of evidence to work from. One of the more unique games that satisfies the puzzle itch. Pros: Fast for dial-up internet Medium-Hard puzzle, lots of brain power Juicy family gossip Cons: I am not told by the internet when I have mail Confusing names Cavier-flavored candy

"The Roottrees are Dead" is one of the best detective games I've ever played. The game doesn't hold your hand and empowers you to pursue leads and figure out clues, leading to a genuine sense of accomplishment when you progress. I enjoyed going down rabbit holes. I loved taking notes and reorganizing them once new information came in. The story and the way it unfolds organically was a big draw for me; I love the writing in this game. I felt the first part of the game ("The Roottrees are Dead") was better and more tightly designed than the second ("Roottreemania"). If I had to give a numeric score, the first part was a 10 while Roottreemania was an 8. Roottreemania was just a bit more tedious and the challenge wasn't as fun; I often didn't feel like I had enough information to proceed, and re-reviewing all of my evidence didn't help me generate new leads as much as in the first game. There were many times were I thought "I don't know what to do with this." or "what now?" It was still enjoyable, but definitely feels separate from the first, better part of the game.

Really enjoyable sleuther. Took me about 9 hours of gameplay to get every answer locked in and correct, feel like that is the perfect length for the style of gameplay and types of engagement it provides. Big breakthroughs feel great. These 9 hours are only the main story, as it seems upon finishing I unlocked a whole extra mystery. I have no idea if that is shorter, than the main mode or not. But I do know I am excited to find out.

An out of the box and engaging mystery that has a perfect hint system- you never feel like you need to guess or look things up, since the game can always nudge you subtly enough that you don't feel like you've ruined it for yourself. If you like Obra Dinn or Case of the Golden Idol, this game is another brilliant game changer for mystery mechanics and you should absolutely play it blind.

The creator of this game has made it very clear that their inspirations were Return of the Obra Dinn and Her Story. This is probably the strongest I've felt about a deduction game since Obra Dinn so that 100% tracks (honorable mention to The Case of the Golden Idol). This game has an extremely similar goal to Obra Dinn. You've given a completely blank family tree and you need to determine everyone's relationship to the rest, their photo, name, and most recent job. This is done through spidersearchs on your virtual computer a la Her Story. As you jump between magazine articles, web results, books, and your ever growing amount of evidence, you'll slowly piece together the family tree. The choices are locked in as sets of 3 or 4 which gives you some flexibility when you're struggling with a particularly difficult portion of the tree. I think the introduction of determining the relationships between the missing people was a fun addition, but when comparing to Obra Dinn I was disappointed by the lack of supernatural mysterious. This is an unfair criticism of The Roottrees are Dead as the game does try to stay grounded in reality while still making interesting discoveries. I, personally, enjoy supernatural mysterious which is why Obra Dinn will always have a special place in my heart. Roottreemania was a new game mode that is unlocked upon completion of the base game. This mode focuses on the infidelity that occurred throughout the Roottrees' existence and was a pleasant surprise after completing the main game. This is a must play for fans of Return of the Obra Dinn and I am extremely excited for any future games from this developer!

Great puzzle game. If you are stupid, you should play this game to feel more stupid.

[b]The Roottrees Are Dead[/b] is a nostalgic sleuthing simulator and an ADHD-hyperfocus stimulator. As a research junkie with fond memories of the late 90s, I thought it might be fun -- and then it [i]consumed my brain[/i]. There are no unmarked spoilers in this review. [h3]Story[/h3] In 1998, the fifth president of the Roottree Corporation and his heirs perish in a tragic plane crash. Due to a quirk of the family trust, you're tasked with identifying the [i]first[/i] president's blood descendents using only dial-up internet, a list of names, and intuition. Set aside 6 - 8 hours to solve the original Roottree mystery. Your actions have consequences, and the Roottrees return in [b]Roottreemania[/b] (included): now it's 1999, and they need your help navigating a complex web of buried secrets, dead ends, and red herrings. You have only the barest of clues to start with, more leads to chase, more mysteries to unravel, and another 12 - 16 hours of investigating ahead of you. [h3]Gameplay[/h3] Gameplay requires a mouse and keyboard, and revolves around taking notes in an in-game notebook while muttering to yourself and rotating between three screens: the family tree where you identify Roottrees by their birth name, occupation, and photo; an evidence table where you clip images and peruse printed documents or other physical materials (because it's the 90s!); and a clunky old desktop where you "SpiderSearch" every remotely interesting term on "NetScrape Explorer," browse periodicals, or play minigames. I realize this sounds like homework, but the overall experience is more akin to diving down research rabbitholes while watching reality TV. [h3]What Worked For Me[/h3] ✅ [b]Art.[/b] The Steam edition of [i]Roottrees[/i] swaps out the browser game's AI art for portraits by Henning Ludvigsen, a board game artist you might know from [i]Betrayal at House on the Hill[/i] (3rd Ed), [i]Blood Rage[/i], or the phenomenal [i]Android: Netrunner[/i]. As a result, squinting at jawlines and eyebrows to identify characters is a perfectly valid strategy. ✅ [b]Deduction.[/b] If you get stuck, you can ask your rubber duck for a hint or two -- but they’re only hints. Similarly, some information is directly stated in articles, but the game has no interest in holding your hand; you have to make logical deductions and occasional leaps of logic, and might not know until the credits roll if you were right. ✅ [b]Depth + Humor.[/b] I would 100% watch a Netflix reality show or docudrama about the Roottrees; each and every one is delightfully weird in their own special way, the summarized search results are often funny, and it's incredible how much content there is to find. ✅ [b]Locking In.[/b] When you correctly identify 3+ persons of interest, their profiles "lock in." It's often easy to pin down two folks at once, but getting three or more takes a while, and -- in the red herring-infested waters of [i]Roottreemania[/i] especially -- the space between confirmations leaves you second guessing everything and diving deeper into the madness. ✅ [b]Sound Design.[/b] The background music is noticeable but not distracting, and helped keep my ADHD brain in Research Mode. There's also five (5) original songs to discover across the two games, and some are catchy. [h3]What Didn't Work For Me[/h3] ❎ [b]Replayability.[/b] After replaying 1/3 of the base game to score an achievement (to avoid the same fate, [spoiler]do not answer the phone[/spoiler]), I can say this isn't very replayable. The family tree is always the same, and half the fun is chasing every possible lead as far as you can. ❎ [b]Roottreemania[/b] ends with a single (but juicy) loose end and an offhand remark about a possible sequel, and yet the studio's newly announced next game is not [i]Roottreemania 2[/i]. [h3]Final Thoughts[/h3] [quote]You lament that this incredibly vital information wasn't available months ago, when it truly mattered.[/quote] At time of writing, I'm sitting on 100% achievements, a slew of funny screenshots that I can't share because spoilers, a real-life spiralbound notebook full of grids and timelines (the in-game one wasn't cutting it at a certain point), and a desperate need for [i]more[/i]. I had so much fun with this even when it felt like I was finding nothing but dead ends, or when a certain minigame seriously tested my patience. It felt like diving into a wiki or going down a rabbithole on the original Cracked website (RIP), while still staying true to the pre-Y2K aesthetic and challenging you to really think things through. [h3]Recommendation[/h3] I waited for a sale, but this is the rare game that I would've been happy to pay full price for. If you enjoy point-and-click management games like [i]Papers Please[/i] and/or real-life cybersleuthing, I think you'll have a lot of fun with [b]Roottrees[/b]. That said, most of the game involves reading and parsing chunks of text, and making inferences from available information. If pretending to be a digital Sherlock Holmes doesn't sound like a good time, then you can probably skip this one. [quote][b]Follow [u][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45365863/]Eekz Today[/url][/u] for more crafting, life sim, management, strategy, and story-rich recommendations.[/b][/quote]