for ai art im shocked at how consistent everything is. i was able to correctly differentiate the cousins and sisters on the second album cover because of how jim and diamond looked on the first
hey jjjhonston just wondering if this game might be uploaded somewhere other than itch.io in the future, since itch is a pretty niche platform(compared to others) and this game is *wildly* underrated. if this where on somehere like steam i know it would garner so much more attention
The game cannot be uploaded to Steam, due to its reliance on AI art.
So for me, releasing it for free on itchio was the option that made the most sense. I do have an exe version I give out on the discord for people that want a local copy, but generally, I plan to leave it here and playable in browser for as long as I am able.
This was a treat to play. It was fun and kept me invested in the story, and was also genuinely challenging. Did not anticipate that twist ending at all, though I guessed who the employer was. Some of the occupations I had to guess, but overall this was an incredible experience. I would pay money for this.
I believe this may be caused by an adblocker or some other software that is preventing the game from running properly. I have been unable to reproduce this in the offline version of the game, and when it happens online people have mentioned that their browser console is spamming messages about elements being blocked.
I can get anyone with this problem an .exe version of the game, just follow the discord link in the main menu/settings menu.
I had the same issue (in firefox) and solved it by saving and quitting via the settings, then reloading the tab and quickly opening the notebook before the scene changed to the doorway+figure. It progressed from 6/9 to 9/18 relatives, and let me keep playing the game as usual.
This game was SO fascinating and scratched the itch in my brain perfectly. I work at a library and I'm totally sharing this with my coworkers. Love the genealogy aspect! I also accidentally stayed up until 3am playing this before remembering that I have a real job. Lmao. Seriously incredible work on this, I can't imagine how much time it must have taken to set all this up. Thanks for making it!
A rather fun little experience, although I somehow ended up missing one of the magazines and an interview that would've made some things a lot easier on me!
I did figure out the secret and I also found the thing (took until my second reading of the entry to realize why nothing in there was cropping up in the in-game search engine!)
Sure, sorry that was unclear. The main menu of the game has a link that takes you straight to the game's discord. You can also find it in the settings menu.
During the beginning of the game, when you do a search directly for Rhose Roottree there is a hint that will put you on the right path to finding her name.
This is amazing!! I love deduction games, especially where you have to look up different sources to find answers, and this knocked it out of the park!! 5 stars!! I could tell who the people in the secret locked area were, I just had to find out the last one's name! And it felt amazing when I found it out!! This was so satisfying to complete and I loved every second of it!! :D The only difficulty I would say is figuring out the pictures at some parts, but even then, it's still very satisfying when you get them correct! Love this game!!
Loved this. Wish the save system worked better or was more clear (I saved then closed the tab, then came back to the URL and i couldn't load anything, it started from the start, but anyway)
The story gripped me, I went into full Charlie Kelly mode, linking threads between seemingly unrelated ideas, going "AHA!" when i was right.
If you come to the discord I won't be able to help you get your notes back, but I can get you an executable version of the game if it would prevent that from happening again if you'd like.
You can use CTRL+Z to undo your last action; I've deleted my notes an embarrassing number of times, but it's recoverable as long as you don't start typing again after
I haven't completed this yet, maybe 30% through? But this is such a cool game. Everything is so well thought out and it's a great challenge. I'm losing my marbles
Skillful fusion between Lucas Pope and Sam Barlow, combined with the theme of genealogy: this game was made for me. I have finally found my Game of the Year for 2023. I made a $20 donation as a token of gratitude for all the happiness you gave me with your game!
PS: Another good point, the game is fully playable for a french player with moderate english knowledge.
I just reloaded the tab and lost all my progress. I don't really feel like playing the entire game again, so I guess I'll just have to wait until someone uploads a complete playthrough.
Before that happened, I was thoroughly stumped on the last 4 portraits. I had checked literally every possible lead, and nothing. I feel like the only way to find them is through brute-forcing. Either that or I missed 1 incredibly missable word in one of the articles.
This was INCREDIBLY FUN! Thank you so much for the hours of free entertainment this gave me, I loved every single discovery I made and never used walkthroughs, which is rare for me!
I can't imagine the amount of work that must've gone into making this game. The mechanic of filling out spots on the family tree gives a good goal for the player, which I've found lacking in other research/conspiracy games previously. The intuition chart was also a great help for the back half of the game once you stop getting as much new info. A great way to end out the year!
I had so much fun, thank you for this! This has been a ray of light in these very trying times. Now I kind of wish to know more about the so-called Roottree curse :0
Great stuff loved this. Just a bit annoyed since I got all the way to the end and forgot to put down 1 picture so I had to go back to the title but that's my fault. Just some other nitpicks...
Wish I could have heard those other music pieces in rotation or option to just loop a certain choice
The text on the search engines would bug sometimes if I swapped between them too fast and become illegible gibberish but swapping back fixes it.
Zooming in and out of the tree would sometimes not work unless you used your mouse to drag a smidge on the tree first.
wonderful. quite wonderful. nice story, a really balanced level of difficulty and sooo much effort in the clues, texts, sources, music pieces etc. etc. ... and the somewhat 'historical accuracy' regarding the story, the photos, names, ...
In terms of feeling-like-a-real-detective I might have gotten rid of the intuition chart, but I have to admit that it helped me a lot in the end.
Stole a lot of my time, but I instantly wish for more of this.
This game was soooo great! The clues are set up well enough that even when you're stuck, it doesn't feel unfair, just like you have to look over all of the information again. The sheer amount of effort and planning everything must have taken is pretty incredible.
a person recommended me this game and I proceeded to spend any free time I had playing this for the next few days, if this game was on steam I would gladly pay for it!
Really enjoying it so far, definitely my style of game. My BFF recommended me to play it. Never played a in-browser game in itch.io before. I'm at 45/49 and a day in. I'm so stuck to find 2 last photos. Literally 2. I've gone through everything twice but maybe I'm missing something. I recommend using copy/paste. For a while there, I kept getting no results because I spelled theatRE as theaTER. That was embarrassing. Hopefully, I can figure it out. I have had great time playing thus far.
This is an incredible game! I found it when searching for games like The Case of the Golden Idol and Return of the Obra Dinn and was not disappointed. I hope I find more games that "scratch this itch"
Really excellent game!! I feel like the flow between states of knowing exactly where to look, having no idea, and suddenly having ideas to check back in different places was really well balanced. The intuition meter especially was great for knowing when we could just ignore stuff. And having to get the pictures just for the blood relatives meant it had a good balance of leaps of logic / guesswork - figuring out a spouse's name by trial and error could then help you search the right stuff for their kids, but you couldn't just guess the blood relatives. I really loved it!
I appreciate it! If you know anyone else who likes mysteries, please pass it along!
All of the spouses do have a way to find them without needing to resort to guess work, though they're the most "out of the box" puzzles in the game, to be fair.
If you have any question about how you were supposed to come across someone or any questions about the game at all, the discord can help.
I've finally done it! I got the tree to 100%, first try! It only took me... Multiple weeks.
I think this is the perfect level of difficulty for a puzzle game; Whenever I got completely stuck, there was another path to go down that ended up either knocking some branch out that was blocking my path, or giving my brain enough of a break to look at other puzzles with fresh eyes. The last few non-blood names were satisfyingly intuitive to all place down at once!
I also LOVE the notebook mechanic, though my one request would be to have either more tabs or scrolling/separate pages under one tab. I ended up having just enough tabs to finish, but some of my writing ended up eye-achingly small due to lack of space.
No need to donate (I mean it), this game is free on purpose due to its usage of AI art.
(If you are really insistent on donating however, there is a support link that itchio puts below the game window.)
As for the alternate picture, I'd prefer you edit your post if possible to remove their names. One of the people you mentioned, you can think of as a "notable" Roottree, except they were notable before the internet existed. So maybe they could be mentioned somewhere less digital.
Oh, derp. I completely missed the support button. I don't use itch.io much.
Thanks for the hint, I got it now. I had found the relevant article before, but didn't think to then search for the thing that actually gives the picture, oops.
I donated a bit anyway because this clever game deserves it. I don't know if you're interested in continuing in this direction, but I'd totally play a series of similar "research puzzle" games!
I do appreciate your donation, thank you. As for continuing in the future right now there are no solid plans. This wasn't supposed to even be the scope that it turned out and I do have a full time job to contend with, so I don't have any immediate plans. I do have some puzzle-game-adjacent stuff I've thought about but its a long ways away from becoming a reality.
← Return to mystery
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
This is obsessively fun for me.
I only got ridiculously stuck because I missed an entire ad campaign, but once I had that, it all fell into place. I was right about the ending too.
Thank you for making such a fun game!
Red herring... Nice lol
for ai art im shocked at how consistent everything is. i was able to correctly differentiate the cousins and sisters on the second album cover because of how jim and diamond looked on the first
learn to draw lmao
hey jjjhonston just wondering if this game might be uploaded somewhere other than itch.io in the future, since itch is a pretty niche platform(compared to others) and this game is *wildly* underrated. if this where on somehere like steam i know it would garner so much more attention
The game cannot be uploaded to Steam, due to its reliance on AI art.
So for me, releasing it for free on itchio was the option that made the most sense. I do have an exe version I give out on the discord for people that want a local copy, but generally, I plan to leave it here and playable in browser for as long as I am able.
well then the only option i have is to thank you wholeheartedly for making this. i will follow your future work!
This was a treat to play. It was fun and kept me invested in the story, and was also genuinely challenging. Did not anticipate that twist ending at all, though I guessed who the employer was. Some of the occupations I had to guess, but overall this was an incredible experience. I would pay money for this.
this may have been my favorite game of 2023
Help! The game froze after finding 9 blood relatives! I can tap the settings and it works but everything else is frozen!
I believe this may be caused by an adblocker or some other software that is preventing the game from running properly. I have been unable to reproduce this in the offline version of the game, and when it happens online people have mentioned that their browser console is spamming messages about elements being blocked.
I can get anyone with this problem an .exe version of the game, just follow the discord link in the main menu/settings menu.
I had the same issue (in firefox) and solved it by saving and quitting via the settings, then reloading the tab and quickly opening the notebook before the scene changed to the doorway+figure. It progressed from 6/9 to 9/18 relatives, and let me keep playing the game as usual.
This just helped me unfreeze the game 9 months later, thanks!
Happy to help!
This was so much fun. Thank you for this.
This game was SO fascinating and scratched the itch in my brain perfectly. I work at a library and I'm totally sharing this with my coworkers. Love the genealogy aspect! I also accidentally stayed up until 3am playing this before remembering that I have a real job. Lmao. Seriously incredible work on this, I can't imagine how much time it must have taken to set all this up. Thanks for making it!
loved it ! spent 5 hours holed up playing from start to finish lol
A rather fun little experience, although I somehow ended up missing one of the magazines and an interview that would've made some things a lot easier on me!
I did figure out the secret and I also found the thing (took until my second reading of the entry to realize why nothing in there was cropping up in the in-game search engine!)
Is there a way to download this and play it offline? Or at least a way to save it to a file? I just lost all my progress because the save didn't work.
People on the discord can get you an executable version of the game.
May I ask what the Discord channel/link is? I'd also like to download it, but I don't know which Discord to go to.
Sure, sorry that was unclear. The main menu of the game has a link that takes you straight to the game's discord. You can also find it in the settings menu.
where the heck is rhose roottree's name
I couldnt find it either.
During the beginning of the game, when you do a search directly for Rhose Roottree there is a hint that will put you on the right path to finding her name.
help where TT
It says to find more information about people search for the brands and products surrounding them. That's the hint that can help you find her.
Hint: Rhose is not her birth name, look up the companies that she involve in. Hope that help<33
i cant see what companies iufgyvefeir
This is amazing!! I love deduction games, especially where you have to look up different sources to find answers, and this knocked it out of the park!! 5 stars!! I could tell who the people in the secret locked area were, I just had to find out the last one's name! And it felt amazing when I found it out!! This was so satisfying to complete and I loved every second of it!! :D The only difficulty I would say is figuring out the pictures at some parts, but even then, it's still very satisfying when you get them correct! Love this game!!
great game, but the pictures are so hard to associate with people. i had to brute force caroline morden becuase i had no idea how she looked like
This was an unbelievably amazing experience and I am blown away.
I also undid the secret partially by accident. I thought that (whisper whisper) instead of (whisper whisper), but the game counted it as a win.
Loved this. Wish the save system worked better or was more clear (I saved then closed the tab, then came back to the URL and i couldn't load anything, it started from the start, but anyway)
The story gripped me, I went into full Charlie Kelly mode, linking threads between seemingly unrelated ideas, going "AHA!" when i was right.
Good game. Very good game. Thank you, Johnstons.
sheeeit i was totally into this but then i accidentally deleted my notes and now i'm deflated
If you come to the discord I won't be able to help you get your notes back, but I can get you an executable version of the game if it would prevent that from happening again if you'd like.
You can use CTRL+Z to undo your last action; I've deleted my notes an embarrassing number of times, but it's recoverable as long as you don't start typing again after
I haven't completed this yet, maybe 30% through? But this is such a cool game. Everything is so well thought out and it's a great challenge. I'm losing my marbles
Skillful fusion between Lucas Pope and Sam Barlow, combined with the theme of genealogy: this game was made for me. I have finally found my Game of the Year for 2023. I made a $20 donation as a token of gratitude for all the happiness you gave me with your game!
PS: Another good point, the game is fully playable for a french player with moderate english knowledge.
Such a great game. If I wasn't a broke student I'd 100% give you money for it because I had so much darn fun !!!
I just reloaded the tab and lost all my progress. I don't really feel like playing the entire game again, so I guess I'll just have to wait until someone uploads a complete playthrough.
Before that happened, I was thoroughly stumped on the last 4 portraits. I had checked literally every possible lead, and nothing. I feel like the only way to find them is through brute-forcing. Either that or I missed 1 incredibly missable word in one of the articles.
That being said, it was a solid game. 7/10.
If you'd like to come to the discord I can try to catch you back up to where you were before, and also help you with the last four. Up to you.
Not even close to being finished with this yet, but I've sent a fiver your way anyway. This is wonderful.
This was INCREDIBLY FUN! Thank you so much for the hours of free entertainment this gave me, I loved every single discovery I made and never used walkthroughs, which is rare for me!
I can't imagine the amount of work that must've gone into making this game. The mechanic of filling out spots on the family tree gives a good goal for the player, which I've found lacking in other research/conspiracy games previously. The intuition chart was also a great help for the back half of the game once you stop getting as much new info. A great way to end out the year!
I had so much fun, thank you for this! This has been a ray of light in these very trying times. Now I kind of wish to know more about the so-called Roottree curse :0
The Roottree curse theory says that Roottrees who run the candy company are cursed to die. it's fucking stupid.
One of the best games of 2023. What a ride!
Great stuff loved this. Just a bit annoyed since I got all the way to the end and forgot to put down 1 picture so I had to go back to the title but that's my fault. Just some other nitpicks...
Wish I could have heard those other music pieces in rotation or option to just loop a certain choice
The text on the search engines would bug sometimes if I swapped between them too fast and become illegible gibberish but swapping back fixes it.
Zooming in and out of the tree would sometimes not work unless you used your mouse to drag a smidge on the tree first.
wonderful. quite wonderful. nice story, a really balanced level of difficulty and sooo much effort in the clues, texts, sources, music pieces etc. etc. ... and the somewhat 'historical accuracy' regarding the story, the photos, names, ...
In terms of feeling-like-a-real-detective I might have gotten rid of the intuition chart, but I have to admit that it helped me a lot in the end.
Stole a lot of my time, but I instantly wish for more of this.
This game was soooo great! The clues are set up well enough that even when you're stuck, it doesn't feel unfair, just like you have to look over all of the information again. The sheer amount of effort and planning everything must have taken is pretty incredible.
I'm glad all my iteration on the story paid off! The story evolved a lot, and each time it did a few more connections began to take shape.
Thanks for playing!
a person recommended me this game and I proceeded to spend any free time I had playing this for the next few days, if this game was on steam I would gladly pay for it!
Thank you!
Really enjoying it so far, definitely my style of game. My BFF recommended me to play it. Never played a in-browser game in itch.io before. I'm at 45/49 and a day in. I'm so stuck to find 2 last photos. Literally 2. I've gone through everything twice but maybe I'm missing something. I recommend using copy/paste. For a while there, I kept getting no results because I spelled theatRE as theaTER. That was embarrassing. Hopefully, I can figure it out. I have had great time playing thus far.
I hope you managed to find the final 2! If you need any hints feel free to drop by the discord.
This is an incredible game! I found it when searching for games like The Case of the Golden Idol and Return of the Obra Dinn and was not disappointed. I hope I find more games that "scratch this itch"
Glad it helped you in that regard. Thanks for playing!
Really excellent game!! I feel like the flow between states of knowing exactly where to look, having no idea, and suddenly having ideas to check back in different places was really well balanced. The intuition meter especially was great for knowing when we could just ignore stuff. And having to get the pictures just for the blood relatives meant it had a good balance of leaps of logic / guesswork - figuring out a spouse's name by trial and error could then help you search the right stuff for their kids, but you couldn't just guess the blood relatives. I really loved it!
I appreciate it! If you know anyone else who likes mysteries, please pass it along!
All of the spouses do have a way to find them without needing to resort to guess work, though they're the most "out of the box" puzzles in the game, to be fair.
If you have any question about how you were supposed to come across someone or any questions about the game at all, the discord can help.
I've finally done it! I got the tree to 100%, first try! It only took me... Multiple weeks.
I think this is the perfect level of difficulty for a puzzle game; Whenever I got completely stuck, there was another path to go down that ended up either knocking some branch out that was blocking my path, or giving my brain enough of a break to look at other puzzles with fresh eyes. The last few non-blood names were satisfyingly intuitive to all place down at once!
I also LOVE the notebook mechanic, though my one request would be to have either more tabs or scrolling/separate pages under one tab. I ended up having just enough tabs to finish, but some of my writing ended up eye-achingly small due to lack of space.
Would love to see a sequel / sister game!
Speaking of the notebook, I'm curious what other people labeled their tabs. I ended up much more organized than I usually do, lol
My personal tabs were:
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4
Page 5
Page 6
Page 7
Page 8
ah yes of course
ah yes of course
This is sooo good, please make 100 more of them!!!
I would like to know.
Awesome game, great work. Any way to donate to support you?
Also, I almost got 100% but... any hint for the alternate pictures of [redacted]?
No need to donate (I mean it), this game is free on purpose due to its usage of AI art.
(If you are really insistent on donating however, there is a support link that itchio puts below the game window.)
As for the alternate picture, I'd prefer you edit your post if possible to remove their names. One of the people you mentioned, you can think of as a "notable" Roottree, except they were notable before the internet existed. So maybe they could be mentioned somewhere less digital.
Oh, derp. I completely missed the support button. I don't use itch.io much.
Thanks for the hint, I got it now. I had found the relevant article before, but didn't think to then search for the thing that actually gives the picture, oops.
I donated a bit anyway because this clever game deserves it. I don't know if you're interested in continuing in this direction, but I'd totally play a series of similar "research puzzle" games!
I do appreciate your donation, thank you. As for continuing in the future right now there are no solid plans. This wasn't supposed to even be the scope that it turned out and I do have a full time job to contend with, so I don't have any immediate plans. I do have some puzzle-game-adjacent stuff I've thought about but its a long ways away from becoming a reality.