Roots Devour is unsettling. It doesn’t seem to go too far out of its way to provoke that initial reaction. There’s isn’t an video introducing the lore, no hastily scribbled note explain how you ended up where you are. There’s no investigation to find out who the big bad is in the sombre and dark surroundings that you find yourself in. In Roots Devour, you are the eerie and strange, the unexplained ravenous force that has decided to reach out with tendrils and vines and grasp the very life around you to sate some unexplained hunger for living creatures, be they rats, or deer or even poor unfortunate souls that you find on your journey. The lack of explanation or logical reasoning behind your existence, and your forced predator ways as you navigate the minimalistic environment.
Roots Devour is essentially a resource management, where you have a finite amount of energy to grow your predatory roots system, and every move that you make uses up a specific amount of blood to reach your next victim. As you chain your prey together, you’ll grow in strength overall at the cost of an ongoing dwindling resources in both blood and water, and having neither will push you into a game fail state. Every item on the map be it animal, vegetable, rock or human is represented in a card like format, and overall it fits in very well with the eldritch kind of vibe the game is aiming for. In games like these give me strong decided graphical design over an attempt at realism every day of the week. And while the colour palette in Roots Devour is limited to Red, Black and other muted colours, it works very well in the overall presentation, even drawing you a bit further into the screen as you play.
As with a lot of these games, dying is an opportunity to expand your skills and grow the power of your red tendrilled monster, and continued play is rewarded with the ability to give yourself extended plays, if that makes sense. We seem to be wallowing in this upgrade path of things as a main mechanic for most of the games that I play, and I’m still not tiring of it just yet. Look at my collection and you’ll see Slots and Daggers, Ball X Pit so the likes of Roots Devour is easily going to find a space. My days of speed running games are probably over and have been replaced by the gentle progression of roguelikes that draw you in but don’t necessarily require the swift type reflexes you need in a normal action game.
Concerns with Roots Devour are few for me. It performs well enough on the Steamdeck but as expected some of the text is small and might need your reading glasses to see, and that goes for the iconography on some of the cards and the ability to see more of the landscape as you explore. In terms of learning the game, it feels more of a discovery than a spoon fed tutorial. Even though the first section is a base introduction, it took we a while to grasp how the bonus card actions could be used. You have to spend some time reading the notes and description and rather than being annoying, it added to the emphasis on slowing down and taking your time. There’s a story there that is fine, and those that are seeking a gameplay rush should maybe stick to Ball X Pit if they are looking for demanding action. Roots Devour is about making you think a bit instead of knee jerk.
All in all, Roots Devour is interesting and different enough to warrant some time with it, another engrossing slow pace rogue like that ends up in the ‘slightly unsettling’ drawer, but definitely one that will be played to see where it goes.
From Rewinding Games
You can find out more on https://store.steampowered.com/app/2612690/Roots_Devour/
This review is based on the retail version of the game provided to us by the designer and publisher. We were not paid monetary compensation for this review. We give a general overview of the gameplay and so not all of the mechanical aspects of the game may be mentioned. Videogames are strange because the act of playing them will often cement if you want to keep playing them further. So we normally give a video game the benefit of the doubt and keep playing until we get an idea of what the game offers. Some games will not require a huge written piece to describe what they do and how they made us feel about them. We understand that behind every game is someone who has dedicated time, effort and money and so we'll often tell you about things that didn't gel with us instead of trashing someone's hard work. We hope this write up gives you an idea of whether or not this game is something that you will consider playing or even add to your collection. Even if we don't like something, hopefully it helps you to decide if it is something that you should find out more about. We always suggest you check out a gameplay video to give you a better understanding of the game as it is played. If you would like to support more content on the blog then please consider backing us on Patreon. www.patreon.com/werenotwizards
