I first came across this deduction game when it was just a free game available online. When I learned that it would be made into a full purchasable game, I held off on finishing it to wait for the real thing. I’ve been hankering for more of the type of gameplay in Return of the Obra Dinn so this seemed like exactly what I wanted. So here we are and I’m glad I waited because in addition to improved production quality, this version also includes an expanded mystery to solve. I found the new mystery a tad too difficult and perhaps not completely fair but the game as a whole is still great in my books.

The premise here is that the Roottrees are a famous and wealthy family whose fortunes originate from the Roottree Candy Company founded in the early 20th-century. The story starts when a private jet carrying the family of the current President of the company including his three celebrity model daughters crash killing them all. A mysterious stranger then shows up to hire you to work out their complete family tree. According to the rules devised by their patriarch and the founder of the candy company, every blood relative is entitled to a share of the company’s profits so it’s your job to figure out who they are. The game is set in 1998 thus allowing you to play the part of an armchair sleuth with access to the Internet but before the advent of social media which would have made this far easier. Whenever you find any evidence of interest, you can print out the materials or have them sent to you. Combined with the ability to search through books and periodicals, you gather the information that you need to fill in the family tree. As with Return of the Obra Dinn, your picks get locked in every time you get a few of them right so that’s some assurance that you’re headed in the right direction.

The setup is cute for those of us who lived through that era that you get a computer within the game and rely on dial-up Internet to get everything done. There’s not too much text but you do have to pay attention to every word and be prepared to search on any keywords you spot that look unique. The same naturally goes for the evidence materials you gather which can include magazine covers, excerpts of books, advertisements, photos and much more. The photos themselves are meaningful as you must match the descriptions of what individuals look like to what can be seen in the photos. Periodicals like local newspapers and specialist magazines are unlocked as you come across them being mentioned and search for them. Even the smallest throwaway comment like the color of someone’s hair could be a key clue. Initially I’d thought that there would be multiple clues converging on the same truths but that would make things too easy. The game really wants you to notice pretty much everything and sometimes the only lead you have relies on pretty thin evidence.

One thing I’m iffy about is that you do get handed the entire structure of the family tree so you just need to fill in the blanks. You also start a complete list of all of the names that you can use. So relying on the structure of the tree itself and the process of elimination are absolutely part of the game. It feels cheaty to me but I suppose it can be justified that the person who hired you already knows the whole truth and only wants you to independently verify the facts. Nonetheless the puzzles are fair and it’s not too difficult to work everything out. If you do need help, the in-game hint system is very powerful and I think I only needed to use it once. There’s meant to be a bit of drama about a key family secret but it’s kind of easy to guess at even early on and not much of a scandal by modern standards. Overall it’s a fun and doable challenge.

New to this version of the game is the expanded Roottreemania mode. Whereas the original mode has you searching for officially recognized blood relatives, this new mode acknowledges that there have been quite a few extramarital affairs across the family’s history resulting in many illegitimate children. So you get an extended form of the family tree to fill these illicit relationships and their offspring. While this operates according to the same logical rules, I found it to be significantly more difficult. There are more periodicals available and sometimes you just have to throw names into them to see what pops out. Some of the logic chains are convoluted, in that you know you’re getting somewhere but you can’t tell how it’s going to be relevant until you get quite far along. I have to admit that I couldn’t quite get everything right here and had to rely on the rubber ducky hint system to complete it.

Finally if you mess around the computer instead of focusing on the task at hand, you can download the FamilyDOKU! mini-game. It’s a genealogy-themed puzzle game in which you also have to fill out a series of family trees while complying with the rules. For example sibling names must be listed in alphabetical order, the same first names must be directly descended and so on. I found these relatively easy and there are only ten puzzles in total across the two modes in the game but it’s a nice little diversion that shares the same theme.

I love the current flowering of deduction games and this is definitely one of the good ones with a unique theme. It rewards careful attention to detail and logical thinking. It’s more geared towards those who prefer to glean clues from reading text passages but there are some areas where scrutinizing images are necessary. The theme and the little stories you can uncover are good too though I prefer the ones in the base game in which many of the people whose lives you’re looking into are further in the past. For contemporaneous people, it feels a little silly to be looking up facts on the Internet when you could be checking official databases or investigating them in person. I am very glad I opted to wait for the full experience and I’d recommend this to anyone who’s into investigation games.