Web-sleuthing mystery The Roottrees are Dead opens pre-registration ahead of November mobile launch

Indie detective sim The Roottrees are Dead offered a fresh twist on its genre when it sleuthed its way onto desktop three years back. Since then, it’s gotten the remaster treatment, debuted on Steam and found itself in contention for more than one award.

To say it has been warmly received doesn’t quite cut it, and now, developer Evil Trout Inc has announced that pre-registration has opened up for the mobile version of the genealogical mystery, which comes to iOS and Android on 5th November.

Set in 1998, The Roottrees are Dead wastes no time building intrigue, beginning with a tragic private jet crash that claims the lives of the eponymous family - including the three Roottree sisters and their parents, who leave behind an empire worth over a billion dollars.

Under the unusual terms of the family patriarch's century-old will, the vast fortune must be distributed exclusively to verified blood relatives. As a hired investigator, your job is to wade through the archives, cross-reference evidence, and accurately reconstruct the complete Roottree family tree to determine who gets a cut of the inheritance.

Dial up the mystery

Rather than holding your hand, The Roottrees are Dead makes search and deduction the main tools of your investigative trade. Armed with a period-authentic 1998 computer interface and a noisy dial-up modem, you will scan through vintage web pages, news articles, obituaries, and family photographs to uncover hidden connections.

Every lead you uncover helps you match names to faces, confirm occupations, and pin down exact birth orders. As you correctly fill in nodes on the family tree, the pool of potential heirs shrinks, though the remaining clues become increasingly obscure.

The game's narrative design has earned widespread acclaim within the indie puzzle scene, including a finalist nomination for Game of the Year at the Thinky Game Awards and an Honorable Mention for Excellence in Narrative at the Independent Games Festival.

Want to see for yourself why it’s so acclaimed? You can pre-register for The Roottrees are Dead right now on the App Store and Google Play ahead of its full launch on 5th November.