The plane that crashed last night just outside of Pittsburgh is now known to have been the private jet of the Roottree Corporation. Local aviation authorities have speculated that from the pilot's final communications, the winter storm and heavy winds played a significant role in the crash. On board were multiple family members, including corporate president Carl Roottree and his daughters, the Roottree Sisters, best known for their fashion lines and modeling careers. There were no survivors.
Again, for those of you just joining us, the Roottrees are dead.
Again, for those of you just joining us, the Roottrees are dead.
— The newscast in the introduction
The Roottrees are Dead is a research-based detective game by Jeremy Johnston, available for free on Itch.io
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It is December 6, 1998. Carl Roottree, president of the Roottree Candy Company and great-grandson of the company's founders Elias and Gwyneth, has died in a plane crash along with his wife and their three daughters. As the family mourns, a mysterious person comes to you with a challenge: given a small amount of starting information and what you can find via research, can you reconstruct the entire family tree of Elias and Gwyneth's descendants? As you do so, you begin to uncover secrets that the family has kept hidden for decades...
You have access to an Internet search engine, along with the local library's online card catalog and a database of articles from various periodicals. As you accumulate information, you build an evidence folder, including pictures, text, and audio recordings. You are provided a notebook in which to store other clues.
You are given the structure of the family tree and need to fill in the name and profession of each member of the family, along with a picture. You may also find additional pictures of some individuals, and the names and pictures of relatives by marriage; these are not necessary to complete the game, but can be helpful in finding details about the blood relatives.
Similarly to Return Of The Obra Dinn, your guesses are marked as correct when you have correctly given full details (name, profession, and picture) of three blood relatives; other information that is correct will also be marked at that time.
Much of the game is research, so the tropes below contain many spoilers.
The original version on itch.io uses AI art; an updated version is being developed for Steam with new, human-created art.
Tropes found in The Roottrees are Dead include:
- 100% Completion: Requires getting every character name, profession, and photo correct for all descendants and their partners.
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- The text and miscellaneous evidence items show how many pieces of evidence are left to be discovered from them.
- When you get three descendants completely correct, their information is locked in. Any other information you have in the right place (partner names and photos, and extra photos of descendants) is also locked at that time, which means that anything that doesn't lock is incorrect.
- Artsy Beret: Caroline, who went on to become a sculptor, is shown in the Free Spirits photo wearing a beret.
- Band of Relatives: C&J+J&D, a band made of two cousins married to two sisters. They broke up after Diamond caught Clark having sex with her and Jane's sister, Kim. Jim and Diamond continue on as a married couple duet.
- Bastard Angst: Samantha was born out of wedlock, and her branch of the family tree was cut off from the family trust. She's the one that hired you, to make sure her descendants get what is rightfully theirs.
- Beeping Computers: The computer you use makes dial-up noises every time you start it up, and has loud clacky keyboard sounds.
- Black Sheep Hit: In-universe, "Rollin' On Down to the City" is this for Jim and Diamond, being a disco song by an otherwise folk band that was also their sole top forty hit.
- Conspiracy Theorist: During your investigations, you come across the website of a "Thomas Overwood", who claims that the deaths of the last three Roottree presidents were deliberate and also has theories about "Mayan Ruby Skulls" and being able to get away with any crime on February 29 as long as it's not discovered until afterwards. Trying to investigate the conspiracies turns up nothing; you instead need to look up the person who's attempting to debunk them.
- Cordon Bleugh Chef: One of the company's presidents attempted to sell caviar-flavored candy, which went over as well as you'd expect.
- Disinherited Child: Samantha and her descendants were excluded from the family trust by Elias due to the shame of her being born out of wedlock in the 1920s. Your job is to prove that even an outsider can tell that she is a full-blood descendant of Elias and Gwyneth, and therefore her descendants deserve a part of the trust.
- Downer Beginning: The president of the company, his wife, and all three of their daughters are killed in a plane crash.
- Evil Twin: How Patricia views Edward Clancy, the homosexual who is raising her and Elias Jr.'s illegitimate daughter. She doesn't call him Elias Jr.'s brother, but instead refers to him as "your brother's twisted twin" and "a wicked relative".
- A Family Affair: Clark got caught cheating on Jane with her sister Kim by her other sister, Diamond.
- Family Business: The Roottree Candy Company is owned and run by the descendants of Elias Roottree.
- Family Curse: Some conspiracy theorists suggest that there is one, after the deaths of three Roottree Candy presidents in fairly short succession.
- Gender-Blender Name: Samantha "Sam" Roottree is initially referred to by their gender-neutral nickname, obscuring that it's them and not the person on the list with the same name but of the opposite sex.
- Greedy Televangelist: Miracle Jr. was a wealthy televangelist until he was caught faking a healing. He has now taken up touring through areas where he would be less recognized.
- Identical Twin Mistake: Lauren describes a strange girl (Samantha) hugging Lauren's father and saying he was her dad. Sam mistook Lauren's father, Clancy Edward, for his twin, her adoptive father, Edward Clancy.
- I Have No Son!: Edward Clancy was disowned by Elias when he was caught kissing another boy. He was sent to live on his mother's family's farm as a farmhand.
- Internal Retcon: After Miracle is born, 5Pieces candy is changed to remove Edward Clancy's flavor and replace it with "miracle berry".
- A Mistake Is Born: Samantha was born out of wedlock, from a teenage relationship between Elias Jr. and Patricia, the daughter of a local steel mill owner.
- Not Blood, Not Family: The trust set up by the family founder Elias is specifically and only for direct blood descendants, and the salary for running the Roottree Candy Company is deliberately set low so that only blood relatives can afford to take the job. This was Ernie Madsen, Jr.'s problem - Sam's branch of the family got excluded from the trust, so he was running the company but only making a few dollars a year in salary.
- One-Hit Wonder: "Rollin' On Down to the City" was the only hit by Jim and Diamond.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted and discussed. There is a family tendency to name children after ancestors, leading to there being four characters named Elias Roottree and three named Miracle Roottree.
- Parental Substitute: Edward Clancy and John were given Samantha to raise.
- Pen Name: Lauren originally publishes her works under her married name, but they're republished under the Roottree name after the diary is first published.
- Practically Different Generations: Miracle, the youngest of the 5Pieces, is closer in age to the Next Generation. Miracle, Jr. is closer in age to the Free Spirits.
- Quote Mine: The blurb on C&J+J&D's record says, "Folk style songwriting...catchy...". The actual review recommends skipping the record, saying, "Amateurish folk-style songwriting is catchy at times, but ultimately doesn't do anything new."
- Red Herring: "Red" Roottree, mentioned in the initial list of notable Roottrees, is not related. Lampshaded: his full name is Aloysius Herring Roottree.
- Rich Sibling, Poor Sibling: Edward Clancy was disowned for being gay, while the rest of his siblings were made wealthy by the family trust.
- Same Surname Means Related:
- Generally played straight, where family names help you pin down relationships, but averted with Patricia and Brian Jones, who are apparently completely unrelated.
- Subverted for "Red" Roottree, whose middle name is "Herring".
- Shout-Out: To TV Tropes itself - one clue is found "in a comment thread on a message board about television cliches".
- Show Within a Show: Downplayed: "Brother Trouble", a sitcom that several members of the Roottree family were involved with, is mentioned often but we never see any of it.
- Sibling Triangle: In the Show Within a Show "Brother Trouble", the two brothers competed for the affection of their next-door neighbor, Roxie.
- Single-Target Sexuality: Elias, Jr. never had another lover other than Patricia, even though they were separated for decades.
- Someone to Remember Him By: Lauren was pregnant when her husband died in World War II.
- Stage Mom: Brenda used her daughters as models for her fashion company, although they don't seem to have been too upset about it.
- Stay in the Kitchen: Common in the early generations of the Roottree family; Gwynn is mentioned as being the first woman in the family not to be a housewife, and Clancy laughs at the idea that a woman should be in charge of the company.
- Struggling Single Mother: Downplayed with Lauren. She's financially set due to being a Roottree, but she talks about how being a single mother is a lot of work.
- Theme Twin Naming: Edward Clancy was the older twin, Clancy Edward was the younger one.
- Title Drop: The introduction ends with the game title.Again, for those of you just joining us, the Roottrees are dead.
