The hours I’ve spent searching Google or Wikipedia for obscure things finally paid off when I played The Roottrees Are Dead, a mystery game that might ruin future mystery games for me. It isn’t just that I had the right skills to know what names or terms to search for in its ’90s web browser interface, it’s how easy it was to flip between evidence and notes while filling out its massive family tree.
Everything in the game happens inside the UI of an old computer or on a corkboard covered with various pieces of evidence. The game’s clean visual design is crucial for sifting through all the clues you find, especially when they’re only tangentially related to the central case you’re trying to solve, which involves identifying all the people connected to a family-owned candy company that ballooned into an empire over several decades. Part of the fun is chasing down a particular person or event so as to, at the very least, fill in some context around what happened to all the people you’re trying to identify.
Sometimes it’s as simple as finding a website that gives you the exact details you need: name, occupation, and a photo. But more often you’ll read about a company someone started or a crime they committed and will then end up looking through digital uploads of newspapers and magazines to get the rest of what you need. All of this work happens on different screens or computer apps, but it’s surprisingly easy to swap back and forth without losing your train of thought. As you navigate the in-game computer UI, you can highlight text to save it in your notes, search for it, or copy-paste it into other screens. The browser’s back and forth buttons automatically switch between the different apps so you don’t have to reopen each one individually. Everything gets out of the way so you can focus on the research.
The dead ends can be frustrating, as they are in any mystery game like this, but the game’s hint system is so good I would encourage anyone who plays it to make liberal use of it. It will only tell you the answers after pointing you toward notable documents or people to look into, so it’s safe to check when you’re not sure what to do next. It’s also great at giving you a framework for how the game’s designer expects you to find information in the first place, which made me regret not using it earlier in my playthrough. The Roottree family is massive and it can be hard to know what date or anecdote is a clue or not, but the hint system can help guide you without spoiling the whole reason you’re playing the game.
Fussy menus would’ve buried how clever the storytelling is for a game that is about as mechanically complex as going down a Wikipedia rabbit hole. I found a forum post where someone mentioned a “Silver screen magazene,” but even when I fixed the spelling error, the periodicals app gave me no results. When I dropped it into the search engine, however, it asked if I meant “SilverScreen Magazine” with no space, which did give me the results I wanted. The game is full of little moments that make you feel extremely smart for being persistent about some piece of information you suspect is more important than it seems.
Tiny details, like the color of someone’s hair or a name on a uniform, can knock something loose and help you uncover entire subplots to the Roottrees’ story. It’s a whole timeline of miserable people and their petty betrayals over money and legacy. Nobody is particularly sympathetic, which makes digging through their history feel more like trying to piece together innocuous but delicious internet drama rather than a mystery with real stakes. You’re not uncovering a conspiracy so much as the generational disaster that one old white dude with too much money can set in motion.The Roottrees Are Dead is for those of us who are too nosy to stop ourselves from opening up Google and snooping around. It may look retro, but it feels no different than using a modern computer or app, which is precisely what makes it hard to put down until you have the whole messy picture.
The Roottrees Are Dead will be released Jan. 15 on Linux, Mac, and Windows PC. The game was reviewed on PC using a pre-release download code provided by Robin Ward. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.
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