I recently moved to a suburban area where there are a lot of relatively “wild” parks and a few ragged sections of forest. I like to walk through the woods in the evening, after a difficult day of writing stupid lists about Call Of Duty. Forests are a critical concern for me, check out this lumpen piece I wrote about Alan Wake 2, but they are also spaces of solitude and reflection, where I can cast aside my anxiety and lose myself in the spectacle of sycamores and silver birches arching over the path. Except. Except that sooner or later I start thinking about my roots.
Roots are everywhere and imperceptible. I can trace their presence through the different acoustics of the soil beneath, but I can’t map them precisely. I never know if there is one underfoot at any given moment. In my layman’s understanding of tree physiology (there’s probably a more precise term than “tree physiology”), roots drink water and nutrients from the soil. It sounds harmless, but drinking is an open-ended practice. A root that drinks water can certainly drink other fluids. Blood, tears, for example. The condensed substance of the human spirit. The terrible drops of bad dreams.
I’m toying with these concerns because I just read the description for Roots Devour. It’s a strategic management experience and card game in which you play a truly awful eldritch tree trying to become the supreme Elder God in a forest full of equally awful creatures. This is accomplished over the course of 30 in-game days by decaying roots and “organs” (do trees have organs?), collecting blood from other organisms, and dealing with unspecified threats. You can also, it seems, gain the allegiance of savage human tribes or control their fates from the shadows.
The whole thing is presented as an act of laying cards on the table, which I like because now I think of other card games as secret forests, hopefully not carnivorous ones. You can read more on Steam – the trailer and HUD elements are currently in Japanese, but I think an English localization is on the way. To get a real-time feel for the idea of being a ravenously expanding tentacle swamp, dig into Carrion.
