A grim card adventure that feels hard to label but easy to get hooked on.
Welcome to the dark, Lovecraftian world of Roots Devour. Here you will extend the reach of your roots and see what mysterious cards you can uncover. Join me as we take a look at the game and see if it is something you would be interested in checking out for yourself.
You start out like most Lovecraftian monsters, unknowing cultists summon you just to be devoured by the creature they thought would help them conquer their enemies. After making short work of them, you do your best to lurk through your surroundings and consume anything that gets in your path.
The blood you get from your prey will help you to continue growing until you have consumed everything around you.
Roots Devour has cards and decks in the game, and in a way you might say you are deckbuilding, but the game feels more similar to something like Cult Simulator than a deckbuilder.
You will explore what each card does and how to use it best to suit your needs. Exploration is key here and the game’s main focus.
Each run, you will first select your starting location and the bloodvein stones that you wish to use. These stones are small boons that can give you a boost as you explore. Such as giving you free card packs after performing a certain task. Then, you start your run and try to get as far as you can. You will reach out your roots from card to card to consume and expand.
The different cards have different effects on your roots. Some are obstacles that you must find your way around. Others are animals that you can use to feed on and grow further. Each time you reach out your roots to a new card, you will be consuming the blood that you have gathered.
If you reach too far, then you will consume what little water you have. Once you are out of blood and water, then your run ends.
There are several different biomes that you will get to explore. Each biome has its own challenges for you to discover and overcome. Such as the mountains with their blizzardy environment. Cards will freeze after branching out from them and will cost you water if you branch out from them again. This forces you to choose your path wisely.
Sometimes there might be an obstacle you can’t get around, or the next card is too far out of reach. This is when you will want to place a card pack.
Placing a card pack does consume some of your blood from the supply, but the benefits are almost always worth it. These card packs will play cards from your deck. Cards in your deck vary and can be reviewed whenever you want.
The most common cards in your deck will be animals and items. The animals are the same as the ones that you will come across while exploring the biomes.
They will be randomly placed near where you played the pack and cannot be moved. Items, on the other hand, can be picked up and used later. The items have a wide range of uses. Some might be needed to consume larger animals, such as deer and moose, and others might reduce the cost of reaching your roots to further distances.
You do have a hand limit, though, so make sure you are making good use of your items and not just holding onto them the whole time.
Your blood and water meters at the top of the screen are the most important things to monitor. It’s ok to overreach and consume some water from time to time, but if you are not careful, you will quickly run out. Once you are out of water or blood, then you will retract yourself back down to the undergrowth.
The undergrowth is where you will use all the blood that you collected on your last run to upgrade your roots.
Upgrades include things like increasing the amount of blood you can get from a certain creature or unlocking new cards that you can pull in packs. This is also where you might visit your companions to get more lore or help you on future runs. Companions are interesting creatures that you might come across in the various biomes.
Once you have used up all your blood on upgrades, then it is back up to the surface for another run. Hopefully, your upgrades helped, and you can extend your reach even farther this time. The further you get, the more interesting things you will come across.
Roots Devour was quite an interesting game. I don’t mind the dark theme and atmosphere; I just have a hard time defining it. Like I said earlier, my best comparison is going to be to something like Cult Simulator. Even that is a bit of a stretch, though. It is kind of its own thing as an interesting mix of cards and exploration.
The real question, though, is whether it is any good? Should you spend your time and money on this game? I would say yes if you like dark, Lovecraftian-themed games. The whole game is about consuming blood and descending the world into darkness. If you don’t like that kind of stuff, then no one will blame you for moving on to something else.
I also think that you are really going to like this game if you like mystery and the unknown. The main focus of the game is exploration and experimentation. Honestly, that was my favorite part of the game. I loved unlocking new cards just to try them out and see how I might use them on the next run.
The only problem that I really had with it was that some of the stuff was not fully translated into English yet. That added even more mystery to my game, but hopefully that will be fixed by the full release. Otherwise, I quite enjoyed my time spent playing the game. If you are at all interested in the game, go check it out on Steam.
A review copy of the game was provided by the publisher Gcores Publishing.
