This game understands one of the most satisfying feelings a detective game can give you:
starting with one tiny clue and slowly watching it explode into an entire chain of people, relationships, documents, secrets, and family history.
You search one name, which gives you another clue, which leads to another person, which suddenly explains something you found an hour ago. At first the amount of information keeps expanding, but eventually all those scattered pieces begin converging into one coherent story.
And then you type in the final answer.
The game confirms it.
For about five seconds, you genuinely feel like a detective.
I was able to get through most of the normal mode without hints. The Roottreemania was another story — the later sections made me use a few hints — but overall I'd put the difficulty somewhere around medium-high. Most importantly, the solutions usually feel like something you can actually reason your way toward rather than something you are expected to randomly guess.
The story also holds together surprisingly well. The normal investigation already feels complete on its own, while the Roottreemania content adds another ridiculous layer of affairs, relationships, and family drama.
And then there's that character with an absurd number of lovers.
Every new discovery involving him somehow made the situation even more ridiculous.
The Roottrees Are Dead is basically twenty hours of internet stalking fictional dead people, constructing increasingly complicated family trees, and feeling extremely intelligent whenever the game tells you that you were right.
Apparently that's exactly my kind of game.
Very much looking forward to The Incident at Galley House.
