One thing about me is that I am a sucker for a good mystery. That’s why I’ve been delighted by the so-called “Metroidbrainia” genre rising to prominence. That label includes games like Return of the Obra Dinn and Rise of the Golden Idol that champion more involved information gathering and deduction on the part of the player. Yet as great as the puzzles these titles offer are, the narratives surrounding them are rarely as satisfying. Genealogical mystery The Roottrees are Dead, however, fixes that problem.
Centered on the secrets of the titular family, The Roottrees are Dead is both a compelling puzzle box and a surprisingly deep story. What begins as a simple challenge to identify every member on the family tree quickly turns into a subtle statement on how this one family, the descendants of a Logan Roy-eque business mogul, are beholden to one dead man’s obsession with legacy.
Down the rabbit hole
To anyone who has played other Metroidbrainias, the core gameplay loop of The Roottrees are Dead will feel familiar. Information is gathered and then applied to blank fields for each member of the Roottree family. Specifically you need to correctly identify the name, face, and occupation of each direct blood relative of the family’s patriarch, Elias. The twist is in the method of information gathering. The Roottrees are Dead is primarily played through a simulated computer desktop equipped with a search engine.
Successful searches will bring the player to web pages, newspapers, and books that hold the answers they are looking for. This recreation of falling down a particularly alluring internet rabbit hole is the key to The Roottrees are Dead’s success. It’s almost second nature for most players and the ease of searching one term after another leads one to realize hours have passed seemingly in the blink of an eye. By creating such a seamless way to input and browse the game’s digital web of clues, it becomes easier than ever to lose yourself in the mystery.
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That mystery starts as an anonymous request to identify all 50 members (living and dead) of the Roottree family and quickly turns into an unraveling of the family’s carefully constructed public image. What is so effective is how slowly the grand narrative presents itself. It’s delivered in tidbits hidden within the web pages and articles used to identify family members, so subtly that I didn’t even realize it until hours into my investigation.
There is a saying attributed to Elias that pops up throughout The Roottrees are Dead: “Blood is thicker than syrup.” It refers to the importance Elias placed on his direct bloodline over even the thriving candy company that still lines the pockets of his descendants. Through the generational feuds the Roottrees have found themselves to paint a picture of Elias not truly valuing family but his own legacy, something that is itself linked to the success of his business.
Players will likely first identify members of the Roottree family directly linked to the candy company. That includes Elias, as the founder and first president, as well as the four presidents that succeeded him … all of which are men. In the first hour or so of a playthrough, the names and faces that fill out the family tree at first are all male. Elias entrusted the business to them, and so their pictures grace magazines and webpages. It tricks the player into feeling that this information gathering may not be as hard as one expects, since collecting these prolific men in the family occurs rather smoothly.
Family matters
When you do start identifying the Roottree women it is likely through the diaries of Lauren Roottree, Elias’s granddaughter. Rather than the public facing magazine profiles that identity the men, Lauren gives a behind the scenes look into the private lives and conflicts of the Roottrees. An early entry recounts Elias’s choice of his successor, his grandson Zac.
“He’s the first born son of [Elias’s] first born …” writes Lauren, “I’m not sure how that’s relevant to running a company, but Grandad always had very particular views when it came to the bloodline.”
She even asks the family if a woman could be president, which receives nothing but laughs. When you do identify the occupations of the first two generations of Roottree women, the majority are housewives. Though they continue the bloodline, they are not deemed worthy of inclusion in the business. Another of Lauren’s entries recounts that Elias was found of “pruning” the family tree as he saw fit.
Uncovering the lives of the Roottree women is noticeably more difficult than the men of the family. This mechanical difficulty reflects how Elias’s thoughts on their place in the family tree has affected your search. The Roottrees have failed, or chosen, to neglect recording and archiving the lives of its women. Meaning that there is less information on them for you to find in the game’s digital records.
After Elias’s death, newer generations of the Roottrees are able to work their way out from under his thumb. While tying up the family’s inheritance to the company’s profits gives Elias some level of posthumous control over his descendents, he has less active ability to keep them from abiding to his wishes.
While I love the puzzle box mysteries of Return of the Obra Dinn and Case of the Golden Idol, what little stories those games have don’t say much. The Roottrees are Dead ties its deductive mechanics directly to its story. Each bit of information isn’t just a clue to a grand mystery, it’s insight into the lives of every individual on the family tree. Filling out the entire tree gives agency to these people and their stories, helping bring them out from under the shadow of a controlling patriarch and into the light.
The Roottrees are Dead is now available on PC.