If you read my recent blog post about Return of the Obra Dinn and thought “Hey, that sounds like exactly my sort of game, I’ll go play it immediately”… boy do I have some exciting news for you.
There is a game that is just as good as Obra Dinn, but with a completely different plot, new mystery to solve, and just enough different mechanics to make it feel like a totally fresh game. That game is called The Roottrees Are Dead, and here’s why you should go play it now.
The Roottrees are Dead
The year is 1998. A private jet belonging to the Roottree Corporation has crashed. On it were the Roottree Sisters and their parents. Combined, they were worth over a billion dollars.
Now, due to the eccentricities of their great-great-grandfather Elias, their money must be redistributed to the rest of the family. But who’s actually a BLOOD RELATIVE? That’s where you come in.
Armed only with the power of your mighty dial-up modem, you’ll scour for photos, books, articles and other evidence. Then, you’ll make connections and deductions based on the family relationships you uncover. With every spot on the tree you fill in correctly, the names and photos left in your possession will have fewer and fewer places to go — but the evidence will also be harder and more obscure to find.
Can you put together the final pieces of the puzzle?
About the game
With modern Google at your disposal, this task would be easy. But you just have some janky 90s internet at your disposal. In this setting you need to use all your investigative skills to find the correct wiki entry or periodical that will take you further down your trail.
You are holed up in your room, a family tree taking centre stage on a pin-board on your wall. You find webpages and articles on your PC, and print off any photos or longer pieces of evidence to peruse at length.
For each person on the family tree, you need a name, photo and occupation. There are also some optional additional sections, such as extra photos or spouse names.
Every so often, a mysterious figure appears at your door, telling you you’re on the right track and giving you a new piece of evidence. Throughout the investigation, you are looking for blood relatives to determine who is eligible for a payout, but along the way further mysteries emerge.
What I loved
At a first glance, The Roottrees are Dead feels like a rip-off of the Return of the Obra Dinn. But it’s far from that. The games share a central goal – identify a group of people – but largely diverge from there.
Like Obra Dinn, the game is entirely logical and can be solved by only considering the information you discover. In some ways, the format of the Roottrees are Dead makes this even more true – logical brainwaves are needed in order to move you along your path and find new search results, rather than just to enter final answers.
The playstyle does differ in several ways, and in doing so it cuts out some of the frustrations. Rather than traipsing your way round a large ship, you are in a single room, working through a computer or looking at evidence stacked on a desk. That’s not to say there’s not laborious parts of the game – you are using 90s internet, after all! There is no magic pocket watch in this game, but there is a subpar search engine and periodical directory that you can browse for clues.
Unlike Obra Dinn, The Roottrees are Dead makes use of a few more direct puzzle elements, such as image manipulation. In some ways this made it feel more escape-roomy and less pure investigation, although it did fit within the story.
One big bugbear with Obra Dinn was a lack of an in-game notepad – something this game has thankfully fixed! There are also tools to make copying wording and tagging sources easy to do. In addition, there is a fantastic in-game hint function that helps you work out which line of enquiry to chase down, without giving away answers too easily.
The final couple of answers are free-text entry, which was absolutely the most challenging aspect of the game in my opinion! There were definitely places earlier in the game where I got a bit stuck and needed the in-game hints to get me on track, but the finale was the only part where I called Tim over to help me work through my reasoning.
I also quite enjoyed that the sound played when you reveal correct answers was a direct homage to the older game.
Finally, there is already a bonus game available after you finish the main game. Roottreemania builds on the existing family tree with a new twist, and I think it was even more enjoyable than the base game!
What I didn’t like
Honestly, there’s not a lot!
This game focuses a lot on reading and digesting written information sources, which is a very different style of investigation, and not necessarily better. Obra Dinn packed a huge amount into its snapshot moments, backed up by only short but effective audio/written dialogue segments. Admittedly, trawling through pages and pages of text is less exciting.
While the plot is certainly interesting and multi-layered, I have to say that I didn’t find the “twist” ending that exciting, as I thought it had already been revealed somewhat . I did find the plot of the second case, Roottreemania, more interesting on the whole.
Summary
I said in my Return of the Obra Dinn review that it was probably my favourite video game ever, and I think it still edges out over The Roottrees are Dead for a couple of small reasons. Firstly, I found the plot more compelling on the older game. Secondly, I found the primarily visual investigation of Obra Dinn more interesting on the whole.
And lastly, I doubt Roottrees would exist without Return to the Obra Dinn, so the original game needs to be given proper recognition of that fact.
Having said that, The Roottrees are Dead makes many improvements on the other game, and I can’t imagine you would enjoy one but not the other (unless you really really hate reading). Indeed, by recognising that Obra Dinn is the sort of game that can only be played once, Roottrees offers players who loved that game the chance to get more of the same highs.