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i just finished it ! thought i was gunna give up but just took a break and came back. those intuition points got me through it and I noticed at the end I missed 2 pieces of evidence but still figured everything out. loved it !! thank you !~

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So much fun!!! ill have to replay once i forget the answers

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This is an amazing game! Reminds me of Obra Dinn. I'm still around the beginning, but I can't wait to keep playing! :)

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I finished it! My bad for the deleted post, I messed up while trying to add a reply. 

I didn't connect a lot of the pieces until the end of the game, but I still ended up missing only 2 entries! The locked picture had me messed up in the earlier game (lol), and I couldn't figure out the surname for the second locked person. I overlooked a lot of clues in hindsight or straight up forgot about them, but the notebook feature was incredibly useful, because I was able to write down key points I'd found out and not have to seek the sources out again (mostly). 

If you're planning on playing this, I'd really recommend to do the same! If something seems even a bit important, write it down in your notebook. And even if you've already looked at something, it's very useful to go back multiple times. Pay attention to the intuition points!!

Anyways, I love this game. I'm going to replay it in a year or two, once I've lost all memory of the mystery. To whoever is reading this, have a great day! ^^

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This game took me a while but LORD it was so good! Certain things are really tough to find, but I loved it, I felt so accomplished at the end, perfect ending first try! 10/10 fr

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Im stuck with Elias C Job

For this one you're gonna wanna look more into one of the Notable Roottree who is directly connected to Eli C.

Be sure to re-read any resources you found when looking into him the first time, especially the ones that are also listed on the periodicals page of your notepad.

Have you ever thought about launching this app for mobile? It seems like a great game to play to pass the time. 

 Most mobile games are meant to be played across many short sessions, with good breaks between the gameplay. I think that generally this game has a bit too much reading and note-taking and cross referencing to make it an ideal game for playing in short bursts.

Oh yeah. Makes sense

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I wish you were selling this game, so that I could pay you for it. Do you accept donations?


Also, out of curiosity: do you have a connection to the Pittsburgh region, or did you just pick that as a locale for the game at random?

Peter @ Tea Leaves Programming (http://youtube.com/TeaLeavesProgramming)

Incidentally - I managed to lose all my progress when I was just 4 squares away from finishing. The save game system needs a little love!

I'm really sorry to hear about your save problems. I'm not sure what more I can do. It's saving to a file that's essentially out of my control. As for my connection to the Pittsburgh region, you can read more about that by searching for the local in-game periodical from that region... but the answer is no. I just picked it at random as a place that sounded reasonable.

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Loved the whole game but there is a transformation as you go from searching history about these grand individuals who have long since died to digging about for the niche careers or random webpages of some of the less well-known in the family. It felt realistic and kind of personal as not everyone in the family is going to be a superstar with articles written about them. Fantastic way to spend the afternoon.

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Very good game! I'm glad that The Thing That Return of The Obra Dinn Does is becoming its own genre. I don't think this quite recaptures the magic it does in narrative pacing or logical tightness but it doesn't really need to. IMO one of less good things about this compared to it is that it doesn't have an indicator that you have all the info needed to solve the mystery — when the rain started falling in Obra Dinn and I hadn't even completed a fourth of the book, my mind was blown by the fact every shipman's identity was possible to deduce by then. Having a full computer's worth of info to dredge up gave TRaD an authentic detective feel, but it also made it less engaging as a logic puzzle IMO, even with the anti-frustration mechanics. Maybe I had enough information to solve any given identity, but maybe I forgot to plug one specific keyword into one of seven databases. When I was down to the final 8-ish my logic felt sort of dubious for this reason, and I'm still not sure how you're supposed to differentiate the portraits/names I guessed to solve.

The use of AI art is really tasteful here (good luck hiring all the models you'd need to make every piece of evidence coherent) but I'll reiterate that you really should consider re-releasing this with commissioned art. I can't even count how many times I second-guessed myself trying to identify the same person across multiple photos because AI generated images don't have the same level of intent as human art. I'm still not entirely convinced the puzzle is fair, in this respect

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Played this over discord with some pals commentating, we got stuck near the end and had to guess the last career, plus we also jumped to the conclusion that there was a murder somewhere in the story. Overall, a good time, we had a lot of fun with it!

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I walked into this game thinking it was going to be a quick game but finally finishing it a day later proved me wrong. The level of depth in this game is incredible. I can't even imagine how much work went into making it. Truly an amazing game.

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does anyone know how to find the extra two pictures of some siblings? I've filled out everything else and finished the game already but its bugging me that those two are the only things left

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I prefer, if you could, remove the names of those people. Maybe just say "some siblings".

I can try to be super vague here but give you enough to find it. It's not on a website though you need the computer. Check the older resources related to the job of the more well known one.

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sorry, removed the names.  thanks for the tip, I was finally able to get it 100% complete! really great game

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This was also my final optional piece! Thanks for a great game, I've already wishlisted it on Steam!

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This was really fun! A very well done mystery game and we particularly enjoyed searching for clues and being rewarded by finding another clues lol! The whole thing with showing how many pieces of evidence are left to be discovered was also quite helpful. 

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Just got done playing this with some friends and discord and it was an absolute blast. I'm particularly impressed by how filling out the family tree felt like just the right difficulty - we never got stuck in a way that was frustrating, it was always just compelling. It helped that most of the non-optional information could be found from a variety of sources, or logically intuited/figured out by process of elimination after certain points. I imagine writing something like this has got to be a real balancing act and takes a huge amount of skill to pull off. The actual white-box typed in answers at the end were perhaps a bit too easy to come to, but that really felt secondary to the journey getting there.

I enjoyed this more than I tend to enjoy a lot of typical mystery game structures which tend to have a whodunnit or a howdunnit element to them, because I feel like I can get bogged down in the more open-ended nature of that kind of question. The fact that exactly what we were looking for in this game was so concrete - names, photos, and jobs - stopped me from getting lost in the weeds of wondering if I was basing my entire gameplay off of incorrect assumptions and made the actual search just a blast to do.

There's a ton of really funny, quirky, or otherwise interesting stuff to be found in here even outside of the enticing yarn of the Roottree family. The AI generated photos really help sell the epistolary format. Everything going on here just works! Great stuff.

(2 edits) (+1)

Awesome game! I loved it—a super fun and fair puzzle/mystery game. I wish the ending mystery was a little less spelled-out (onfvpnyyl nyy bs gur pyhrf pnzr sebz n fvatyr fbhepr (Ynhen'f wbheany) naq gurer ernyyl jnfa'g zhpu gb "svther bhg", pbzcnerq gb gur bgure snzvyl zrzoref), but I had so much fun filling in the whole tree that I'm willing to overlook it haha

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loving the game so much - i've been hearing mentions of a discord around, but i can't seem to find it. anyone have the link?

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It's in the menu of the game, you can get there from settings.

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thank you!!!

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it only appears a black screen :(

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Hello! I'm really enjoying my time with this game, I did the first three names and closed the game to spend more time later mulling over the puzzles. However, when I clicked the "skip" button during the intro, it directed me to the "Thanks for Playing!" screen. When I clicked the "title" button, it redirected me to the title and I was able to click "skip" normally, but the game proceeded to throw all kinds of strange bugs--acting like I had finished the game when trying to apply a new picture to a profile. Just noting it as a potential bug!

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This is very good indeed!

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search time cube lmao

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Fantastic game! Me and my wife played it all in one evening. The puzzles were great, and the intuition system was both helpful and infuriating. We would go back to some evidence and wonder how on earth there was more to get from it, then we would eventually find it and be like Hell Yea. We had a great time. 

-Spoiler-
We ended up never finding the Silver Screen periodical or that other Romance novel, so those were interesting to see in the ending. 

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best detective game ive played

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Really solid stuff! I thoroughly enjoyed your game after it was recommended to me because I liked Return of the Obra Dinn. There were no unfair mysteries, everything fell into place neatly. Getting to manually enter the final section felt good, especially because I was right! Bravo. 

I sometimes get a bit of glitching of text in the game's computer searches. I need to search for something else as refreshing the same search doesn't update.

Additionally, I was having a difficult time trying to find the true name for "Wild Bill" Williams. Neither Periodicals nor Search was able to help. Was I supposed to assume the rumours were true and look for a book written by Marilyn Monroe (or Norma Jeane Mortenson) to see if there was an expose about ol' creepily charming Bill? It's so easy to overthink things.

I'm coming to the realisation that I should write down information into real notebooks. It's easy to take too many notes. I started thinking that the birth years of the people was going to be important.

In time, are you looking to eventually release the game files here on itch for paid download? (Some of us may have issues with Discord's EULA)

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I am not planning on releasing a paid version here on itchio. As for the name you were missing, there is a periodical that you likely didn't find. It's mentioned offhand in a pretty major book (the main one in the game) and some people skip right over it because it feels a bit like "lore".

(1 edit) (+1)

Played this last night, had a really good time tracking down all of the identities. This gets about as close to scratching the same itch as Obra Dinn as any game I’ve played. Great stuff.


EDIT: Removed spoilers at request

I'd appreciate if you edit out your spoilers, but yes, there are answers for both. One is located on a webpage and the other is located in a periodical article.

If you come to the discord I (or someone else) can tell you the answers less vaguely, if you'd like.

Oh, my bad, I’ve removed the spoilers now.

No problem, I really appreciate it! Because your questions are now removed I can kinda answer both a bit more vaguely without giving anything away to people that don't already know the answers/questions. 

The male's job in particular that you were missing is in a magazine article. It's easy to skip over the significance of it because the article is about that person's offspring, not them directly.

The other job you guessed at is found on a website that lists some clients of a specific company. To remind you which list, one of the entries lead you to find some advertisements involving vehicles. That's the easy one to find. The other thing in the list that you can search for leads you to some information about a local performance. That can help find the second person's job.

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Just finished this game after about 3 days of sleuthing.

10/10 - Would recommend to anyone who enjoys logic puzzles and/or genealogy.

It was so much fun! The puzzles and clues are spread out just far enough so that connecting them is a challenge, but still close enough so the solutions don't feel too obtuse or abstract. Even seemingly little details and jokes turn out to be useful branches that provide plenty of useful information. Some of the final details such as last of kin or some of the non-blood relation's names come down to process of elimination, but it never feels like brute forcing it.

The tone itself is also wonderful, a mix of sarcastic humor and just a slight edge of suspense. Personally I got a bit creeped out whenever our mysterious client showed up and I loved that unease. It reminds me of the game "HER" if you've ever played it, with how creepy the mood gets as more dark secrets are revealed.

If I was forced to give this game any criticism, matching the faces for the family photos (especially Free Spirits) was a little daunting at first, but once you manage to match a couple of faces to names, it becomes a process of elimination. Also, maybe adding the option to turn off "slow loading internet"?

Funny tangent: I was absolutely stumped for a while because I thought I had the remaining branches solved but wasn't making any progress. I finally realized that I had correctly deduced that someone was president of the Roottree Company, but I picked the wrong number. Chalk that up to my own tunnel-vision rather than poor UI.


SPOILER



I immediately knew there was something up with the farmhand when I could take his picture from the photograph. I don't know if that final branch is supposed to be super difficult or just a bonus for those who have been paying attention, but between that and the one-off mention of "Mr. Miller", I had a feeling it was something to keep on the back-burner.

I can't figure out the controls to move on from the tutorial...

Once you fill in the three sisters correctly the tutorial will automatically move on, you don't need to do anything special.

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what an amazing game! I spent SO LONG on it, I could barely tear myself away from my computer.

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Yoooo I'm so close to finishing :) Only gotta guess the mystery names.

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"You stumble across an auction for a black and blue dress...the white and gold dress itself..." i see what you did there lolol

but really i looove this game. makes me feel very smart. amazing opening, amazing playlist, and amazing design!

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OMG the degauss button works!!

Yo, does anyone know how to zoom out lmao- also, does this game save??

Scroll wheel will zoom out once you're done with the tutorial.

The game should save but depending on browser and OS it has had some issues. The best way to be sure it is saving is to finish the tutorial, then to use the "save and quit" button in the settings. If you restart the game and don't have the ability to skip the scene with the news on TV, then the game is not saving properly.

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Fantastic game! I sent you $10 because it would easily be worth that on Steam. Congratulations on a great game, and best of luck to you!

Thank you very much!

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Wow, this was amazing! Very thorough and compelling mystery, and I kept wanting to uncover more! I like how it's like Obra Dinn with the confirming guesses, but also has a notebook for typing notes which helps me so much! And it was so fun searching through the different sources and finding new things to look through. Thanks so much for the game!

How do you use Periodicals?

After the tutorial ends you will see another sticky note on the computer that leads to a periodical search.

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I have created an account specifically to comment on this game. I have been hooked to my laptop for the last 2 days, as soon as I got off from work, trying to solve this. I think it's one of the most unique, well-thought and overall amazing games I have ever played and I loved every minute of it.

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I just cannot find Rhose's name on the drop down list and so can't get past the first step >.<

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Have you tried doing a search for Rhose Roottree in the search engine? There's a somewhat general hint there that gives you a push in the right direction when it comes to how to make discoveries in this game. 

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cant find it either

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When you do a search for Rhose Roottree in the search engine, there is a mention that you can sometimes find more information about people by searching for things like brand names associated with them. That will help you solve the first puzzle.

kk!

what brands do you look up?

When you search for the Roottree Sisters it mentions that they specifically have a job associated with one brand of clothing. That's a good place to look into.

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INCREDIBLE!! Sooo thoroughly well done. So exciting for anyone who loves a mystery game. If you liked Return of the Obra Dinn, this will scratch the same itch.

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this is the first ever comment i've left on a game, but i HAD to because this was such a well-done piece of work!! i did it all in like five straight hours and was straight glued to my laptop for 90% of that time. this is seriously a real gem and i got an immense amount of enjoyment out of this, so thank you for sharing!!! i never knew playing with fake family trees could be such a cool game, but i love research and puzzle-oriented gameplay, so this was perfect. so much love!

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- Second day... everything starts to become monochromatic. I have the company only of my cigar and my questions. Will I finally get to the bottom of this? - xD Awesome game. Thank you!

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