The Roottrees are Dead review
They say detective work is primarily about sitting in front of a computer, and if so, have I got the desktop for you. Armed with Nut OS 1.1, the Cashew PC offers speedy net surfing and thorough database searching – all without the bloat of a modern Windows machine, or the sluggishness of a genuine late ‘90s PC. It’s the main tool in your arsenal in The Roottrees are Dead, a game about filling in a massive, tangled family tree.
In the wake of a recent tragedy, which has claimed the lives of the current president of the Roottree Candy Company, his wife and their three daughters, you’ve been hired by a mysterious client to chart the Roottree dynasty in incontestable black and white. That means combing through fictional websites, library books and periodicals for the facts required to pin them down on your big, conspiracy-style cork board.
What is it? A game where you fill in a family tree. Much more exciting than it sounds.
Release date: Jan 15, 2025
Expect to pay: $19.99/£16.75
Developer: Robin Ward
Publisher: Evil Trout
Reviewed on: Intel Core i7-10750H, 16GB RAM, GeForce RTX 2060
Steam Deck: Unknown
Multiplayer? No
Link: Steam
Sure it’s easy enough to uncover the names of the three sisters that died in the crash – they are currently plastered all over the internet – plus their professions and a photo each to «lock them in». But what about their parents? And the parents of their parents’ parents? You have 90 years of this stuff to dig up, so get searching.
Every time you find a clue—if you even noticed it, as they can be cleverly buried—you have a number of avenues to turn to (on your swivel chair). There’s the evidence on your evidence desk (maybe I should get an evidence desk): relevant photos and documents you’ll return to, time and again, to cross-reference new information. But your main port of call is the World Wide Web, the Information Superhighway, which—just as in the real 1998—has exactly three sites of note.
Fictional search engine SpiderSearch is
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