Rooted in Darkness 1.0

Low-budget indie games tend to be some of the most creative around, assuming they aren't just flipping assets poorly in Unity. Without the budget to dazzle the audience with beautiful graphics, they instead need to focus on something else to stand out. These restrictions can lead to some very creative premises. Let's look at Rooted in Darkness.

To install Rooted in Darkness, simply unzip the files inside the archive into any folder you want.

The premise of the game is extremely simple. You're trapped inside a house that's infested by roots. You wake up in a locked room in the basement and need to figure out how to get out of the area from there. As you do so, the area gets freakier and freakier.

The most unique part of the game is its graphics. While the environment is pretty standard 16 bit inspired art, the right hand that the protagonist has reached out all the time is much more interesting. It's clearly a real hand that was filmed by a camera that was converted to a pixel art style. The animations are similarly rotoscoped, but chopped up into a much lower FPS for it to fit into the art style of the game.

This game was developed for a game jam, so it's very short and lacking in depth. The room you're locked into is incredibly easy to escape from, with there only being about five item interactions before you're done with it. Unfortunately, you're very much just here for the visuals.

All in all, Rooted in Darkness is an incredibly unique game that everybody should check out.