The Family Tree
Created in less than 48 hours for Global Game Jam 2023 (Theme: Roots)
- Click on the sticky notes and type in first names to complete the family tree.
- Search through letters and audio snippets to find clues on who's who.
- If you need a hint, take a look at this Google Doc or ask in the comments!
If you have trouble clicking the sticky notes, make sure to click in the center. The caret (the blinking line) is not consistent, and you may be able to type even if it doesn't show.
When thinking about the theme "Roots", I kept coming back to family tree, which has both literal and metaphorical roots. The idea was to give the player a sense of rediscovering where you came from and how the events of the past brought you to where you are now. Ideally, it also makes the player consider their own relationship with family (whether blood or found). Of course, you can also play it as a strict logic puzzle and detach yourself from all emotion. That is okay too.
Special thanks to my family members (and Zac) who provided the voices for this game. All background music comes from the Sessions: Vi collection.
Development log
- Hints Document Update!Jul 27, 2023
- New Hints Document!Jul 21, 2023
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Came here from Trapsweeper, the #1 free logic-puzzle for browser play! Congrats on being #2!
Voice acting! Good music! Nice simple game to ease myself into the genre, unlike TheRoottreesAreDead!
And now to play!
Would help if Tape 2's transcription noted who was speaking each line. But that's about it for now.
Yeah, I thought "junior" was just a nickname, like "kid", etc. After that, things seemed to fall into place!
Heartwarming ending! Nice short call!
Thanks for your kind comments! I have no idea how to view the rankings of the free logic-puzzle games, but I will take your word for it :o
https://itch.io/games/top-rated/free/platform-web/tag-logic-puzzle
btw. May you get more ratings soon!
Hi, I eventually figured out the correct solution, but I still don't understand how you're supposed to figure out that Daniel is younger than the twins? Great game though! Had a lot of fun playing it :)
Hi! Thank you for playing and I'm glad you had fun :D The clue for Daniel being younger comes from him saying "we used to hang out at Grandma Janet's place with the older kids", implying that him and Sophie are younger.
Hi, i have read every hint and even copyd a comment name for name, word for word but it still says that i'm close, what am i missing
Hello! You just have a small typo. "Barbra" should be "Barbara" with 2 a's.
Hey, I have a question. Who are we playing as? If were Playing as Sophie that would help alot
Hello! Yes, you are playing as Sophie =)
Thanks for playing! :D
I can't find my mistakes. What did i sort wrong?
Hello! You just have a small typo, it should be spelled "Janet" with an a.
hey, i've followed every hint and comment and it looks correct but it keeps telling me i'm almost there. any help?
Hello! You are very close. There's a small mixup in whose child is whose. Cassette tape 3 will probably be the most helpful to review!
I'm having an issue with filling in all of the post-it notes, I have figured it out but cannot write in Richard Sr, Dorothy, Janet Richard Jr and Emily.
By 'write in', I mean that when I click on the note, it does not show the cursor for me to start typing the way it does on the rest of them. There were no issues with any of the other notes, at first I assumed once I had filled in certain names it would 'unlock' but that doesn't seem to be the case. I have checked the hint sheet in case I had gotten some of the names wrong but they all appear to be correct.
I am unsure whether this is a problem on my end but thought I'd let you know just in case it wasn't.
Hello! Can you check if you're still able to type even if the cursor does not show? Sometimes the cursor doesn't show up properly, but it still allows you to type. There is no unlocking in this game, so every post-it note is typeable from the start.
Hi! You have a small mixup in the couples. I think Daniel.mp3 will be the easiest to review. (This couple mixup is a little common, sorry about that! Let me know if you need additional hints)
you got quite a mix up there
Hello! If you view the hints document, you can check the hints labeled under "I can’t find all of the names / I am missing a name". The last hint (#6) will reveal the last name to you.
I finished this game and omg this is awesome :DDD It took some brain power and a few hints to figure out but I'm very proud of myself to say I figured out like... Nearly everything on the hints sheet before looking at it. I was just confused about a few placements since I'm slow but NONETHELESS THIS GAME IS VERY CUTE AND VERY WELL MADE ILY FOR MAKING IT THANK YOU FOR THE EXPERIENCE
Thank you so much! :D I'm glad you were able to figure everything out! Great job and thank you again for playing and for your kind words! :D
heyy this came looks really good however it will not let me type on the post-it notes :)
Hi! Make sure you're playing on a desktop browser, because the game does not work on mobile. Have you tried clicking on the post-it notes and typing even if the caret (blinking line) does not show up? Sometimes it's bugged and it lets you type even when it doesn't show that. You can also try playing in full screen or changing your browser window size.
i will do thanks :)
The part I'm most stuck on is which way around Richard and Junior are. In the cassette tape Richard uses Dorothy's name and junior's name which is kind of odd If it was his Mother and Father but he is talking about "girls" so I assumed it was his daughters. However now that I'm writing this I've realised he could be talking about his Granddaughters and wanting a grandson. But then Lisa mentions her husband being self-centred, which Richard seems to be as he wants his family name to continue and we don't hear anything from Junior which seems wrong if he's self-centred in that he would want to talk about himself a lot.
This is by far my favourite game I've played on itch so far!
Hello! Thank you so much for playing and I'm glad you're enjoying it so far!
[SPOILERS]
The only thing you're missing is that the reason "Junior" isn't underlined, is because you're supposed to use Junior's real first name.
If you need additional help with that, you can check out the Hints Document under "I can’t find all of the names / I am missing a name".
Great work so far! And thank you again!
I'm stuck. Please help!
Hello! Unfortunately it looks like the image you uploaded doesn't work for me. You can try attaching an image again in another comment, or please check out the Hints Document and let me know if it's useful for you!
You need to swap Janet and Barbara over as Janet is the only grandmother that Sophie and Daniel are related to.
still doesnt work.
Hello! You just have a small typo: It should be "Elizabeth" with a z instead!
YES FINALLY THANKYOU.
nice game btw!
You're welcome! And thank you for playing!
This game was great ! It took me a while, and I was ready to give up, but I finally got it !! Thank you, this was really fun
help me pleaseee
Thank you so much! It has turned out to be a long and difficult game (even if I didn't intend it to be haha), but I'm glad you made it through and had fun! :D
The game is excellent however, I got stuck while playing and it took me an excessive amount of time to figure it out. That's not on you or your game but I was left pretty confused for a while.
First things first when I opened the folder with the letters I struggled to close it when I was done. I thought I would just have to use my mouse to click on the background to get back to the main screen but that didn't work, then I tried using the Esc button on my keyboard, and the backspace button didn't do anything either and there isn't an X to close it once you're done, I stupidly sat there starring at my computer wondering if I had actually lost my mind. I ended up just reloading the game and not opening the folder again for fear of getting stuck there again. So maybe adding something just for the late-night sleep-deprived gremlin people like myself. I thought I had reached a mental break of not being able to get out of a folder in a game.
The "to my dear s daughter" letter made it seem like the writer was going to write out the name of the person before they crossed it out before daughter was written. Being that only Sophie, Samuel, and Sabrina have an S in their name. (Is the crossed-out s intentional? is it part of the clue?) It makes me think that it is for one of them. Once you read the contents of the letter it seems more like the letter was written out to Mary or Angela since they are in a lesbian relationship as the letter has info about trying to understand and needing time but how the writer still loves them regardless. This just threw me off.
I got to the point where John, Janet, Barbara, and David were left and I really needed to go through all the clues to figure out how they were paired and who was related to who. Seems like I wasn't the only one who struggled though so makes me feel a little better.
Once I figured it out it seemed so obvious and yet I struggled for so long. Like SO LONG. lol
Regardless of how long it took me and how tired I was, this was such a cute game and I love it. The design is cute. The music was so relaxing almost too relaxing for me I was fighting off the sleep demons to try to finish the game. The different recordings and tapes really helped to put together the generations. The letters were so adorable. I loved the love letters and the way that the subtle things like how old the paper looked also contributed to the generations and how it was a clue all in itself. If I wasn't playing at 2:30 in the morning it may have not taken me so long to figure it out but I'm so glad I came across the game and decided to play. :)
Hello! Thank you so much for playing the game and persevering through it :'D I hope you're able to get some good sleep now haha
Exiting out of the folder has turned out to be a bit of a problem! I'll write a note somewhere for it.
[SPOILERS]
And oops! I didn't mean for that clue to point toward Sophie/Samuel/Sabrina. The letter is indeed for Angela, and her father was about to write "son". This story point was going to be expanded upon in another clue, but as I mentioned in another comment, the clue I originally wrote was no good, so I took it out but didn't have time to rewrite it.
Glad you were able to enjoy the game regardless of the little hiccups! Thanks for playing again!
This is as far as I got before I got stuck! This game is amazing and definitely a brain teaser! Great work overall!
Thank you so much for playing and thank you for the kind words! :D
and ooo you are very very close! This one may be a bit of my fault: since the clues aren't very explicit, the interpretation you have is understandable as well.
You could review the letter that starts with "To my dear
sdaughter" and some of the related cassette tapes.[SPOILERS]
Its meant to be that one side of the family was more accepting of Mary and Angela's relationship. And Angela has more going on, but unfortunately you only get glimpses of it in that letter. This is because as I was writing clues, I wrote a clue related to Angela that turned out to be useless for the puzzle, so I took it out of the game but was unable to rewrite a new one before the game jam ended.
This is an interesting game. The music is very relaxing and nice to listen to.
At the time of this comment, I'm very stuck and can't complete it. To my knowledge, there's 18 names available in the hints, but 19 names needed to complete the game.
I wish there was a hint feature to help those who really get stuck like I did.
This picture shows the best of what I could do.
this is as far as i got too
Hello! I responded to Synthetic Star with a hint that should help you out as well.
i'm still stuck :(
I've created a document to help give hints out! You can look at it here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/14B83HLol7H_T1eJwakzfkMpWJb6PX5MVEryfnW7uBNA/...
Feel free to continue asking questions when you're stuck, and I'll add more hints!
Hello! First, thank you for playing the game! I agree that a hint system would've been very cool! For now, I'll just try my best to give hints in the comments.
[SPOILERS]
You are correct that 18 names are underlined. This is because one of the names is repeated. Let me know if you need additional help!
Thank you for the hint! It was a major help!
However, I'm still not getting it right. But I'm sure I'm much closer to the answer than I was before. I don't really know where I'm going wrong.
Hi! This is pretty close! The only things are you have a mixup with generations and a small mixup in the couples.
To double-check the generations, I'd recommend taking a look at the letters again. Some of the letters look much older, and that's because they are!
For the couple mixup, I'd take a look at the notebook paper (the one that begins with "Oh David," and try to understand who wrote that letter. I'd also look at cassette tapes 1 and 2. Who is "the girls" referring to?
Is it not Lisa who wrote the letter? David is worried about her parents liking him or not and Lisa comforts him by telling him of their love poems. As shown in the letters underneath, Elizabeth and Frank are the parents of David's spouse (Lisa) because it's a love poem as she mentioned earlier. ALTHOUGH.. David can't be Richard and Janet's child as they only had girls. If you try to switch them so Lisa and Mary are "the girls" in the cassette tape then Lisa's parents are no longer correct. Lisa is Sophie's mother and assuming by how new the "Oh David," letter's paper is David should be in the second row from the bottom and the only open spot is our father.
[SPOILERS]
You have a lot of things correct here! Just some small stuff that is mixing everything else up
All of these things you have are correct:
1. The parents of the person who writes the "Oh David" letter must be Frank and Elizabeth, since they wrote the love poems
2. Richard and his spouse only had girls, as discovered in the cassette tapes.
3. Lisa is Sophie's mother, as discovered in the mp3.
I think the major thing that is mixing you up is the placement of Frank and Elizabeth. The letters they wrote to one another are meant to look the oldest, so they're meant to be much higher up in the family tree. I think from there you're on the right track to sort everyone else out.
Thank you for taking your time to play the game, and let me know if you need anything else clarified!
This is amazing and clever and I loved every second of it! I love how this manages to combine both story and logic puzzle into one cohesive experience! I love how it seems like you don't have enough information from what's given but it's enough to figure it all out. And I love how every bit of the design and the clues themselves make the entire experience more immersive, almost like we really are seeing through Sophie's eyes as she tries to piece together her project about her family (which, just from the few bits and pieces gathered from the tape recordings, letters, and interviews, feel like real people).
Overall, this is amazing and I thank you for creating this! :D
Thank you so much! Really, it means a lot to me that you took the time to play the game and left such a kind comment. I'm really glad you enjoyed the game, and thank you for playing it all the way through!