Steam app 2754380 · updated 12 Sep 2026, 18:13 UTC
A genealogical mystery straight out of 1998. Scour the early Internet for clues, uncover hidden connections, and piece together the family tree behind the secretive Roottree Corporation.
720 hourly samples, with the daily peak drawn over them. Weekends are shaded.
21 months, January 2025 to September 2026. The highest number of people in the game at once, each month, on a time axis -- a gap in the record stays a gap.
The highest number of people in the game at once, each month. Four, because four is as far back as the source keeps anything finer than one figure a month.
31 days, each one the highest figure that day. The source keeps no hourly detail this far back. Weekends are shaded.
31 days as the curve, each the highest figure that day. Behind it, 438 hourly samples from 13 Aug, which is as far back as the source keeps every hour. Weekends are shaded.
12 days as the curve, each the highest figure that day. Behind it, 282 hourly samples. Each dip is a night. Weekends are shaded.
The Roottrees are Dead was released on 15 Jan, 2025.
| Language | Full audio |
|---|---|
| English | ● |
| French | |
| German | |
| Spanish - Latin America | |
| Simplified Chinese | ● |
| Portuguese - Brazil | |
| Italian | |
| Russian |
A blank audio cell means full audio was not marked in the returned language list.
22 achievements in total.
50 developer announcements, Jan 2025 to Sep 2026 · times in UTC
- Support for Russian - Fixes to make user flags save file more resiliant hardware failures - Minor Bug Fixes
Patch notesThanks to some keen Italian players, we've caught some minor issues and fixed them.
Patch notesAs promised, Italian armchair detectives can now take a crack at untangling the Roottrees’ family tree.Big thanks to our translation team and to our Italian players for their patience while we prepared the localization.Have fun and buona…
Evil Trout Inc.- Adds mac code signing and notarization
Patch notesItalian language is now out of Beta.
Patch notes- Contains fixes for typos on French - Added simplified Chinese logo for Galley House for Chinese players.
Patch notesJeremy sat down with Murray from Wax Heads to discuss game design, writing, and 80s music. You can watch the whole interview here:We're also delighted to announce that we'll be in a Steam bundle with Wax Heads when it releases on May 5.…
Evil Trout Inc.In an earlier fix today, I somehow pushed out a corrupt database which meant that Simplified Chinese and Portuguese players couldn't search or input names properly. I also unfortunately did this right before a long dog walk, so I couldn't…
Patch notes- Try to eliminate visual bug with lots of white glow on the screen
Patch notes- Addresses a couple issues with the PT-BR translation
Patch notesIn December we launched The Roottrees are Dead in Simplified Chinese, and we were blown away by how well it was received. Within two weeks it had outsold every language except for English, and it continues to be played and well reviewed by…
Evil TroutThe Roottrees are Dead is now available in Brazilian Portuguese.This is great timing, because we've also just been nominated for Best Narrative at the gamescom latam BIG Festival.Thanks to everyone who helped make this translation…
Evil TroutPT-BR Fixes: - A piece of evidence in Roottreemania was not displaying properly - Made search terms for a particular article more lenient
Patch notes- Translates some PT-BR names to make the text more consistent.
Patch notes- Fixes for some pt-br search results not working correctly.
Patch notes-Adds support for Brazilian Portuguese -Translates Achievements in French, Simplified Chinese and PT-BR -Fixes some minor typos and issues.
Patch notesGreetings, genealogists!Over the last year, we’ve learned a few things about our players around the world, including how pricing works in different countries. While Steam provides recommended regional prices, developers can adjust them to…
Evil Trout Inc.The Roottrees are Dead has now been out for a whole year on Steam, and it’s been a wild ride! When we started this project, we only had a vague hunch that people would enjoy a game like this enough to buy it. We had no idea how many people…
Evil Trout Inc.Hello Genealogists!We’re excited to announce that as of today The Roottrees are Dead has been translated into Simplified Chinese! This is our most ambitious translation yet, as there is less overlap between Chinese and English than there…
Evil Trout Inc.The Steam Awards are currently accepting nominations, and if you enjoyed The Roottrees are Dead, nominating us would be really appreciated! We think we're a good fit for the Most Innovate Gameplay category, since there aren't many games…
Evil Trout Inc.We're delighted to be bundled with Little Problems: A Cozy Detective Game as part of the Cozy Crimes Bundle. You can pick up both games for 20% off, and we recommend you do!
Evil TroutAfter many months of hard work and an open beta, we're delighted to announce that you can now play The Roottrees are Dead in French, German, and Spanish. The game has roughly 100,000 words to translate, which is the length of a novel! Most…
Evil Trout- Contains fixes for French, German, and Spanish Translations. - An attempt to reduce confusion in the final cinematic where it might appear that your choice was incorrect briefly.
Patch notesAt long last, you can now play The Roottrees are Dead in French, German and Spanish! The game should auto detect your system language when you start it up, but in case it does not pick it correctly, there is now a "Language" setting you can…
Patch notesLast week we reached a major sales milestone: The Roottrees are Dead has sold over 100,000 copies on Steam! This is mind-blowing. We never expected so many people to enjoy our little game, and the response has been overwhelming. It has…
Evil TroutAdded a banner to the main menu for our new game, The Incident at Galley House. Fixed more typos Made one of Alphabet Davis' book titles more consistent Updated translation support (coming soon!)
Patch notes- Renamed some people in FamilyDuko! to help the Secret Searchers - Added more support for non-English languages
Patch notesFixes a regression with "Search All Periodicals" where search results would not appear Removed a double name from the first name list Fixes a bug where searching for a missing article could keep displaying a warning message Includes more…
Patch notes- A minor typo or two - More backend fixes and support for upcoming localization releases.
Patch notesThe Roottrees are Dead is now in a bundle with Kathy Rain 2: Soothsayer. You can pick up both awesome games together at a discount. We're calling this the 90s Mystery Adventure Bundle, because both games involve a lot of deduction and…
Evil Trout- Added a piece of evidence to a list near the end of Roottreemania to make something more clear - Fixes a bug where you could lock in an incorrect occupation for a Roottreemania person - Makes it more clear where to find the Discord…
Patch notesJust a small one today! This adds a couple extra articles that expands in-game lore. It also has more support for the upcoming translations (FR/ES/DE) that we are working on.
Patch notesNew T-Shirt artwork Now creates a backup before saving game to increase resilience in the event of a hard drive failure Fixes a bug with the back button not working properly if you visited a result that didn't go in your history Fixes a bug…
Patch notesFixes a bug with "Search all Periodicals" where if you changed your keyword the links would stop working. A non-English search term was only working with a tilde. If you typed it instead of copying and pasting and omitted that accent it…
Patch notesThere's a link to sign up to our mailing list on the main menu. We've started working on something new, and if you're interested in finding out when we have something to announce, the easiest way is to join our email list. We promise not to…
Patch notes- Fixed a bug where "Search All Periodicals" would miss some Periodicals sometimes in Roottreemania. - Fixed an incorrect date for a magazine - Updated the newspaper image to fix a mistake - Updated a lot of text to clean up punctuation and…
Patch notesThis patch only contains fixes for typos and other text that was incorrect or misleading. Thanks to our eagle-eyed investigators for pointing these out!
Patch notesNew Rain effects! In Roottreemania, the intro now has a soothing rain visual/audio effect. It will also rain at random times throughout your mystery. A new music track added! This one is an easter egg. Fixes an issue where you could lock in…
Patch notesThis update changes the look of The Roottree Sisters (and our logos and key art, etc. - Trailer will be updated soon) The original piece was the first one illustrated for the game, and over the development we learned more about what we…
Patch notes- FIX: Uses a new approach to temporary files to hopefully make save files more robust when using aggressive virus scanners - FIX: Uses more complete Godot builds which might help compatibility for some people. - FIX: Cursor keys moved…
Patch notes- This build adds some safety to game threading code, to try and help out with an issue that some players are having where their saves are corrupted. - It also contains some basic scaffolding for other language support (coming soon!)…
Patch notesJust a small update today with some small fixes. Removed some background details from a couple illustrations in Roottreemania that brought dates into question. Improved the game's Danish by adding a ø - if this didn't count as a typo there…
Patch notesFEATURE: You can now add up to 20 pages in your notebook. It turns out some of our players are absolutely sickos for note taking and I wanted to enable that behavior. FEATURE: You can choose the locked in portrait for a person. Click on an…
Patch notes- New setting to enable searching "All Periodicals": This is a much requested feature but also makes some puzzles easier, so it is defaulted to off. Players who find it frustrating to search every periodical for the same thing can turn it…
Patch notes- The game now supports 16:10 screens like the one on the Steam Deck. Previously there were black bars at the top and the bottom of the screen but now it should take up the full screen. - There are performance improvements when zoomed in on…
Patch notes- Camera transitions can now be fully disabled, enabled, or only from/to the room. The default is still from/to the room. - There is a new control option for zoom sensitivity. This affects the scroll wheel on a mouse or magnify gesture on a…
Patch notesThis update mostly fixes regressions introduced by other fixes and backend work to support more platforms 😳 - sorry, it's been a busy time! - Fixes an issue with line spacing of some fonts on the family tree - Adds back a missing hint in…
Patch notes- Added a List of Names to make it clear your employer provided you with the list. Some players felt like it was cheating to use the list of names. It's not! - Adds 2 more notebook pages for those who love to take notes. - Adds an…
Patch notes- Added a note to the end of the first game to make what you have to do to lock in more clear - Added an accessibility option for reading font size (Small/Medium/Large/Extra Large) - Added a Compatibility option when launching the game on…
Patch notes- Fixes a bug where photos on the family tree would be black - Adds supports for some missing characters to the notebook font - Fixes more typos and some other small changes to articles. - Text changes thanks to helpful Brazilians - Adds a…
Patch notesEverything Steam lists as add-on content for this game, newest first. Prices are left out on purpose: the store answers this page in one currency and it is not the reader's.
| Name | Platforms | Released |
|---|---|---|
| The Roottrees are Dead Soundtrack | WindowsmacOSLinux | 01 Apr 2025 |
What Steam runs, and with what. Straight from the app configuration.
| Description | Executable | Arguments | Platform | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Launch | roottrees.exe | windows 64 | ||
| Launch | roottrees.app | macos | ||
| Launch | roottrees | linux 64 | ||
| The Roottrees are Dead (Compatibility) | roottrees.exe | --rendering-driver opengl3 | windows 64 |
The folders Steam Cloud syncs. The root is a token Steam uses for a location on your own machine, not a path this page can know.
| Root | Folder | Files |
|---|---|---|
gameinstall | *.save |
It runs on public data and somebody's spare time.
https://paypal.me/KintaroPalPay[email protected]0x4d559C765AA8BFe336E36d5b76024926767eD38dTJtctWU9uetJaTBoSybd1RErW7n9duTKVG