Newsletter

Hey everyone.

As I write this, I have officially wrapped up importing the full inventory and its crafting recipes into the game’s registry. Granted, not all of these items are fully functional (some require more work as art arrives) and several won’t appear in the game at launch. Even so, their metadata provides a roadmap.

Admittedly we’ve taken a small break here at the Rootreach team. Seeing how Artin needed some time off, I also decided to step away for some days and recharge my energies, so I’d feel ready for the next rounds of development.

Now that we’re back, I am happy to report this break has paid off. Artin is wrapping up on the emblems and is also in the process of conceptualising two quite important cave related textures. As for me, I have fully implemented all of Rootreach’s presently planned gun related weapons: the revolver, the hunter’s rifle, the confetti launcher, the spear gun, the scorcher, the ice blaster, the sylvatic sniper, the dark matter discharger and the star killer.

Each of these weapons is biome bound in the sense that exploration through Rootreach’s worlds enables the player to gather the resources which unlock their crafting. Weapons are directly tied to Combat and Science skills. This means upgrading either of these improves each weapon’s distance, fire rate, duration and damage. As for the items themselves, they are a lot of fun.

Projectile based weapons such as the spear gun or the confetti launcher provide creative ways to tackle one’s enemies. My friend suggested the confetti launcher looks fun at parties, and in a dangerous way I’m inclined to agree. Each individual piece of confetti deals damage and the amount of confetti fired is upgradeable. The sylvatic sniper has the edge of being able to fire poisonous darts. A chunk of the energy based weapons expulse a unique glow which permits the player to see in darker parts of the underground. Red for the Scorcher, light blue for Ice Blast, purple for Dark Matter and orange for Star Killer. Star Killer is unlike the rest; it emits a powerful solar beam which incinerates its targets at great distances. It is quite science fiction-esque.

I have been thinking through the dilemma of how soon these items should become available to the player. The problem with some of the later gun recipes is they require resources which are impossible to collect until their biome exists in the game. As we will be launching with four out of eight mainline biomes, not every gun may be immediately craftable. We may end up compromising by selling weapon packs ahead of a biome’s release or dropping rare late game resources as awards in some of our more challenging boss battles. The point is I want players to get their hands on most if not all of these weapons from launch.

Thanks for indulging me. I am very happy with how the combat is shaping up and I intend to deliver an equally satisfying system for melee. After this, I’ll be moving on to adding some creatures. I’m planning on designing place holder stick figure sprite sheets for the bosses. I have also asked Artin to concentrate his next efforts on blocks and wallpapers since their finalisation allows me to commence on my previously discussed bunker goal.

Love,Eirwen

Welcome back. Now that the new rounds of systems have been implemented, I suppose it’s time for a debriefing.

Also 250 views on the website? Wow. People from all over! Hello ☺

In my last post, I wrote that I will focus my efforts on two new features: World names and Map UI.

Let's begin with the first! Name generation went smoothly and without a hitch. I began by vomiting all the first and last names I could think of. My goal was to find words which played into a whimsical aesthetic, and left wiggle room for humour. The categories I focused on were nature, animals, materials, weather, people, towns, mystery, geography and comedy. By both wracking my brain and researching various thesauruses and word banks, I landed on 100 different words within each of these categories. E.g. Buttercup, Sandpiper, Mountain, Moonlight, River, Blacksmith, Labyrinth, Observatory, Croissant… There is definitely a bit of everything!

Without giving anything away, one of my priorities was to include boss names and nouns which apply to Rootreach’s diversity of biomes. Thereby, the generator sorts through the various names at its disposal and selects ones which specifically correlate to its world’s properties. Many of these names also allude to lore…

A final category which greatly benefitted the generator was the ‘of’ section. ‘Tower of Wisdom’, ‘Staircase of Secrets’, ‘The Sunken Ship’. With this expansion, there are now enough sensical combinations to last some lifetimes. And a few nonsensical ones too (I’m looking at you Croissant Bottom!).

My intention is for each server to ooze personality and for these names to capture the odd and adventurous spirit of Rootreach. Of course, players will also be able to rename their worlds.

Moving on, I have wrapped development on the map. I will admit this one required more tinkering than I’d originally anticipated (certainly from a presentation standpoint). When it comes to UI panels, I greatly obsess about minor details. Colour theory, sizing, style, positioning…

Nevertheless, I think the hard work paid off. The map now accurately represents where the player is located, what the name of the world is, the contour of the terrain, how much of the world is explored, whether the biome’s respective boss has been defeated, player built structures and landmarks. Not all of these features are accessible from when you begin playing. As you upgrade your character, the map gains more details. By Awareness Level 10, you have the tactical advantage of previewing where a world’s caverns are located.

With the map and the name generator complete, this means my next task is to mature the inventory. I have prepared for this by spending a month typing a plan. Now it is a matter of moving each item (and allocating their characteristics) from my Word Document into the game’s registry. It may not sound very interesting, but this is an enormous milestone: All the mechanics are developed enough for bunkers to be brought into Rootreach after this is done. Bunkers are all which stand in the way of chests and enemies, the two other elements which will lead me to wrap development on Rootreach’s first biome!

By comparison, the subsequent biomes should be a quicker implementation process.

I still need to wait on art before I can begin designing the bunkers. My hope is that by the time the inventory is up to speed, we will have moved on to designing Blocks and Wallpapers. In the meantime, the gift of making a game is that there is always something to do. Whether it is further UI, transitioning the client to multiplayer, combat or animal behaviour – our work is cut out for us.

Art wise, Artin has shared some sketches of what the ranks could look like and I’m looking forward to dripping out my character in one of his badges.

Do I need to share all this? Probably not. But if you are reading this, thank you, this is as much an outlet for me as an informational resource for you.

Until next time, this has been your geeky indie dev signing out.

Love,Eirwen

Hello and welcome to Rootreach! I have been developing this game since November 2025 and so it won’t be long until we cross the 1 year development milestone. In this time a lot has happened. Rootreach has evolved from a stick figure bouncing around on simple rectangles to a fully fledged seed generated terrain with worlds of multiple sizes, caverns, loot, a plethora of building, exploration and flight mechanics, cosmetics, accessories, fireflies, pools and more!

Today, I’ve been working on optimising load time efficiency (we need this multiplayer beast to run smooth as butter baby) and I also finished up the sign system. My next problems are the world name generator and map UI. I’m looking forward to both!

I won’t be sharing any footage yet, you know the saying, first impressions are important! However, I am very excited about how it’s shaping up (may be a little biased as I am the one who is pouring sixteen hour days).

My vision for Rootreach is that it finds a community who has fun with the game and interacts with each other in positive and meaningful ways. I have faith, you guys.

I won’t hide from it: Minecraft, Terraria and Deepworld are huge inspirations to me! Particularly the latter. This was my favourite game growing up!

If you enjoy any of these games, I think Rootreach could be for you. If you have stumbled across this post near to its publication date, don’t get too excited, there is still a road ahead of us ~

I am aiming to begin marketing in 2028 and to release by 2029, but I am an indie dev.

Finding Artin, has been a huge blessing and I certainly could not do this without him! He is helping me craft something truly special (no pun intended ;)) and if you find yourself dazzled by some of the artwork on this website, give him a follow. I’ll leave his link below.

https://www.instagram.com/artin_farazfar/

Love,Eirwen