Rooted by Webox
A Puzzle game where you have to guide the last standing tree's roots to gather water and minerals. Connect to each water source and collect all the minerals to move to the next level Go deeper and deeper, Watch out for the moles and find your way through the rocks.

Controls:
- WASD to move the root
- SPACE to enter picker mode
- SPACE again to select another root segment and branch
- R to restart
- P to skip the level
How to play - Move the root to connect to all water nodes - Collect all the minerals in the level - Watch out for your strength, if you ran out the root dies - Find the exit
| Link | https://webox.itch.io/rooted |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/rooted |
Ratings
| Overall | 542th | 3.748⭐ | 103🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 536th | 3.594⭐ | 103🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 292th | 3.807⭐ | 103🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 347th | 4.045⭐ | 103🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 926th | 3.673⭐ | 103🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 1031th | 2.512⭐ | 83🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 1049th | 3.393⭐ | 100🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 59🗳️ | 102🗨️ |
The levels are great!! I would love to see some more.
sound design is really satisfying and the art is elegant.
The only problem I see is the contrast of the minerals and the rocks, kind of hard to differentiate.
Congrats on a great entry!
The art is a little busy-looking. I had no issues finding the minerals but with the earth tiles and non-passable stone tiles looking so similar it gives the game a pretty messy look. I would not have used the dark brown tone used in the diggable earth, thereby making a clear contrast between it and the stone. There are also some clear repeating forms in the stone--like if you have a tile floor in a house and each tile as the same noticeable mark on it.
The music is a pretty good vibe for the game, a little more variation in it might've helped as it did get a little repetitive.
All in all, I enjoyed playing it!
Good job
@wahyu-candra Tanks a lot for playing!! Undo button sounds like a really cool idea, I'll add it on a post jam version!
@jonah haha tanks for playing!! Yeah those damn moles eating up everything!! I wanted to make it so they could dig freely but I didn't make it in time, but also that could've made the game too hard.
Looks really nice visually! The most pressing visual thing I would have attempted to fix is the sprite that moves when you extend your branch. I assume it was the easiest way to do it this way. But if you would have used the endpoint of the root on a transparent background during the transition it might have looked better. Just as a suggestion :)
Another thing which is a bit annoying is that the branch-of-curser resets to the beginning if an invalid selection was made. Would have been nice if it would just stay there in close proximity of the invalid selection.
The level where you really start to run low on resources (maybe level 4 or something) was really nice to understand how you wanted the player to play the game. Loved it!
If I am right next to a water source I am still required to make an extra move onto it. That extra move doesn't cost any energy. I think you could have just connected the root to the water automatically once it moves right next to it. This is more relevant when you pass by a water source since you'll have to go back and connect it at some point.
The second last level seems to have louder sound. Or maybe it's just my ears :P Not much of an issue though :)
I had great fun playing your game. I really appreciated your feedback on my game as well. Maybe drop your twitter (or something) here in the comments if you would like to stay in touch. See you :)
You're 100% right, the non transparent tile was the easiest way to implement it and kind of "placeholder" that never got removed. The connection with water sources never felt right, I wanted to make it so it wasn't the same to pass through and to connect to elaborate some puzzles on that idea, but it ended being really confusing.
SFXs and music was added 1h before deadline, so I wouldn't be surprised at all that I messed up the volume on some scenes xD.
The good part of this "cahotic" LD was that I really put thought on the level designs, and I got some good feedback about that, so it's really great to learn that you enjoyed it too!!
Here's my twitter (tho I'm not super active tweeting, but I do read a lot) [@webocs](https://twitter.com/webocs)
Thanks Again for playing and for the cool feedback!
A very chill and fun experience with not much distraction or moving parts. Keep it up.
@0x746564 Thanks a lot for playing, glad you liked it!!
@keithswanger thanks for playing!! Yes I wanted to expand further on the moles, I had some more ideas like different path but didn't make the cut, for some reason I was super slow this jam and missed a lot of features and polishing.
**+** great art and sound effects
**+** the puzzles were fun to solve, the mole is a nuisance
**-** easy to mess up with accidental key-presses
**-** entry into cursor mode is sometimes jarring
**-** some of the text was hard to read
Very nice, keep it up!
I do wish there was an option to control with the arrows - kept defaulting to my arrow keys and then looked like the surprised pikachu when it wouldn't work before reminding myself to use WASD.
Overall though it's a solid game! Great job!
- The font was pretty difficult to read, itlo okedl ike textwa soddl yspaced :sweat_smile:
- The buttons that required you to click on them did not clearly indicate that they were buttons, I was stuck at the intro screen for a bit trying to figure out how to progress by mashing the keyboard.
Still, great job!
The movement was smooth and worked good for me. Good job!
This games mechanic is quite simple in design but I love it! Fits the theme nicely and the graphics are super cute and nice. Music was awesome and SFXs did the job. Great work with this awesome little puzzle game!
I really like this kind of game! Good job. :slight_smile:
You must be proud!
Luego de un par de niveles me di cuenta de que las fuentes de agua hay que dejarlas para el final ya que solo se necesitan para pasar al siguiente nivel pero no afectan a la cantidad de movimientos. Tal vez se podría pensar cómo el agua puede afectar de alguna forma a la fuerza, eso puede dar lugar a puzzles más complejos en los que a veces es necesario priorizar los movimientos para llegar a la fuente de agua antes que a los minerales.
Ojalá salgan más niveles <3
@rovernoon Great feedback!! Thanks a lot!! I agree with all the negatives, I'll try to fix them on a post jam version. Thanks a lot again!
@onlyallygrace Hey thanks a lot for playing!! Yeah music was added last minute so it needs a lot of polishing, it even varies the volume in some levels for some reason D:. Hahah. I'll sure add the arrow keys on a postjam version too!

@cannashblue That's some "deep" pun..haha, thanks a lot for playing and for the nice feedback!! I really liked how it ended up tbh, tho i'd love to give it a bit more polishing!
@tankou Thanks a lot for playing and for the nice feedback!! I love those moles too haha
@cg-fred hey fred!! That means a lot comming from you! I'm really glad you liked it, I agreee SFXs are weaak, I'l give them a tweak if I make a postjam version, I did just enough so players weren't lost while moving and when they couldn't move to a blocked tile. Thanks again for taking the time of playing and giving feedback! :D
@guimoliveira You did it!! :D great job!! I'm super glad you liked it, I really enjoyed making it!
@vuvuzela80 Thanks a lot!! I'm glad you liked it, I'm really proud of it tbh! :D I enjoyed making it and I enjoyed the final result!
@tomz-best Thanks a lot!!
I put the game in my _Play later_ collection to finish it at some point.
Oh no! I really wanted to try this game out! :(
@zimny11 oh noees, :( I'll try to add a windows version layer, I can ping you when it's uploaded if you want!
Also you might want to check out the thinky-puzzle-games discord, they talk about puzzles 24/7 there!
@gharliquebread Hey thank you!! I loved your root game, and the mole art was a "bit" better than mine haha. I'm glad you liked it! There's a level with a bit of a bug, maybe that's the one you had to skip!
* Mixing mouse and keyboard input at the start is kind of awkward and confusing; fortunately after that game can be controlled exclusively with keyboard for a while, so that was much better.
* Can be hard to tell easily how many objectives there are and where; a couple of times it wouldn't let me out the exit and I had to carefully scour the level to find what I missed.
* I found the rules for which segments I could branch from and which I couldn't a little confusing, and sometimes messed up because of that, leading to...
* Undo would have been very helpful (though obviously that's very tough on a jam timeline unless you already have a system for it!)
* Are the moles random? I felt like I would start a level the exact same way, but the mole would be in a different place, which was awkward on the levels where you had only just enough strength to get by. Speaking of which...
* It wasn't immediately obvious what replenishes your strength and what doesn't; a tutorial for that would have been helpful.
...but none of those are huge deals, and overall it's a neat, interesting puzzle game. Good job!
- I totally forgot enter to pass the menu!
- Yes!! 100%, this has been pointed a lot and needs to be fixed asap
- There's one confusing rule which is the "segment connected to the whater node can't branch" I's thinking about making some puzzles with that mechanic but didn't work out, and ended up being a frustrating thing, and almost looked like a bug
- No!! They weren't supossed to be random, I've no idea how I introduced that bug, but I saw some gameplays where that thing happened
- 100% agree, that needs to be explained better
Thanks a lot! awesome feedback!, thank youn for taking the time of writing it!
Great game! Left me wanting for more stages. At first I wak like "this is easy. where's the challenge?" And then I was constantly restarting the stage asking me where I should have turned left. Short, but the level design is really well thought. Congratulations!
@fractal-flower-girl THank you for playing!! And thank you for liking the moles, I wasn't happy with the sprites an animation tbh :)
@kotzi Thanks for playing!! I'm glad you liked the art!! It takes me a lot of time to do it, since I'm a programmer and not an artist
@eusekerci THank you for the feedback!! Yes a revert button sounds like a very cool idea, I had no time to implement it sadly, but it'll be in my mind for future iterations
Your game is great and polished, the gameplay is unusual and relaxing, although some levels are really hard to beat. I agree, the game could benefit from the "undo" button. Overall, it's an interesting and fun to play puzzle game. Nicely done!
I've seen a few games with root mechanics, but this one is completely different! The puzzles are really fun! Good job with this one!
@tucan thanks a lot!! I'm super glad you liked it!
@bereg Hey! YES! I saw a LOT of them, I thought I's being original with the interpretation of the theme, but there's a dozen more haha. Thannks for playing! And yes, the undo button wasn't in scope.. bearly made it with this version
@zimny11 no problem mate!! With unity is almost no effort to export ton windows, I'm glad you liked it! :D
@sharks thanks for playing!! Yes I'm aware of dontDestroyOnLoad, the issue was that I couldn't make it in time with a propper music player, I just attached some audiosources to an empty object, there's no more time left on the clock xD.. Thanks for the feedback!! I'm glad you liked it!
@ancient-pixel You know that's my idea with that mechanic! That it could block yourself, and you had to pick the node in other order!! The thing is that it didn't work for most players, it's annoying and not explained correctly. Thanks a lot for playing!
@morcado All levels are beatable, buuuut, there's a bug with the mole on some browsers, where the mole does not move 1 time per tick, I've no idea why that happened, that bug wasn't present in the editor version, nor is it present in the windows version. I have to look it up, because it breaks lvl 5 I believe. Thank you for playing!!
@zalos Hey nice to hear you enjoyed it despite not being a genre you like! :D That's good news!! Thanks a lot for playing and for the feedback
@finn-tr Thank you!! I'm glad you liked it!! It's always good to hear that players like your lelve design :D it's one the most important things in my book..
- When you reach a water node, you are forced to pick a new location to start your root from - why can't it just pick the closest one for you so you can get on with the game? I don't think interrupting the player like that makes for a good player experience.
- Getting set back to the top of the root is frustrating.
Apart from these minor interaction gripes, solid gameplay loop! Well done!
@bdenis Thanks a lot!! Yess! Skip button was a huge success apparently haha, thank you for the kind words about level design, I love making levels!
@tim77 Thanks for the great feedback!! I'm aware and agree 100% with both suggestions, the second one is a bug saadly.. that wasn't suppose to happen.. There's an error going on there that makes the cursor jump to the origin as a "fail safe" mechanism. In case something failed I didn't wanted the player to loose control of the picker, so I send it back to the origin
This one actually felt super novel. Once I got the hang of what I was doing it turned into a really interesting brain-teaser! I think with a little more time dedicated to communicating how to play to the player, this could turn a great expanded experience!
Your idea (moving tree roots) is similar to squareroot-mining game (created in ld48 by miraha)
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/squareroot-mining
But you implemented it in different way:) so, great work!
Good luck in implementing full version of your game!
Спасибо за игру, было интересно разбираться с кротами ^_^