Branching Out: How Below the Root Helped the Platform Adventure Subgenre Grow

This blog entry is part of a series covering games that are featured on my website about the Platform Adventure (aka Metroidvania) subgenre's history. It's a site created mainly as a quick reference guide for those looking for the next game to play or relevant and detailed info on earlier games in the subgenre for their other projects.

Below the Root (AII/C64/PC, 1984), developed by Windham Classics, is a game that was based on the Green-Sky Trilogy by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. In this post, I'll explore how it fits into the larger context of the platform adventure subgenre and how it helped to establish the subgenre's defining features.

The game takes place in the world of Green-Sky, where the people known as Kindar, have developed a society in harmony with nature, and essentially magical skills. These include the use of a form of telekinesis known as "kiniporting" (which in-game translates to moving items around or even the player character around) and "grunspreking" which in the game allows for slowly growing out temporary tree branches to traverse certain pits. Players take on the role of one of five different playable characters, tasked with exploring part of Green-Sky, interacting with its inhabitants and solving puzzles to ultimately rescue someone called Raamo, a gifted boy who reunited the once separated two race (Kindar and Erdling) that inhabit the game's world.

Wikipedia tells me that Below the Root has been cited as an early example of the metroidvania subgenre by at least one publication, but it is a mostly forgotten game nowadays and one that saw no sequels*. Which is a shame, because it has more to offer than one might expect.

The game's world is relatively large and well interconnected, with a variety of environments to explore, including forests with giant trees, small towns consisting of buildings that players can enter, an underground cavern and even a brief visit to a dream world at one point. Players can climb trees, glide jump using something called a shuba, use the aforementioned magical skills for further exploration, and interact with various characters. While the game is mostly linear in terms of what one must do to progress, a first time player is likely to stumble around quite a bit early on, just trying to figure things out. It's also possible to get some items in any order in the first area, and to explore part of the cavern before getting what's required to complete the game. An interesting design choice related to this is having players start in different homes depending on which character they choose to play as. This was perhaps done to differentiate them more as, while a couple of them belong to the Erdling race (affecting some NPC interaction) and they have different starting stats, they all gain the same skills.

One aspect that set Below the Root apart from other similar games, around its time as well as for years to come was its emphasis on NPC interaction and world-building. These aspects are relatively rich and complex - players can trade, uncover clues and piece together parts of the backstory through NPC interaction and exploration of Green-Sky. Mechanically speaking, this translates to a verb system with 15 verbs including for example buy, drop, examine and rest. In fact, not engaging with this system is discouraged as using violence (even on animals and insects) actually makes the player character lose so called spirit levels which are needed to use certain skills. Instead, something like a sword can be used to get rid of certain obstacles.

Besides that there's a day/night cycle, and players have to keep both fatigue and hunger in check to survive. Interestingly, not all NPCs are trustworthy even if they at first seem harmless, and this is where an interaction-focused skill called pensing comes into play as it lets one read the mood and later the mind of the person it's used on, which is also used to gain spirit levels needed to use certain skills. Some people, if one tries to rest in a bed in their house, will actually kidnap the player character and this forces a restart back at their house. On top of all this there is also a time limit of 50 days, however this seemed pretty generous to me. At the same time the game both gives players an item inventory of 9, unlimited "lives" (the character just gets knocked out and wakes up at their house) and the option to restart where they started at any point. There's also the option to save via the main menu seemingly at any point, so it's actually pretty forgiving for its time. One last notable feature relating to worldbuilding or immersion, which I think is also a first in this context but was probably inspired by Adventure (1980), is item persistency meaning one can place something on the ground and it will still be there if one leaves and comes back. This seems to work on all but one type of item in the game. All in all, it's pretty impressive stuff for 1984.

Before we round this one off, let's briefly talk about that one other game from 1984 that I would say qualifies as part of the subgenre. No, not Pitfall II. Nope, not Impossible Mission or Montezuma's Revenge either. It's Journey to the Centre of the Earth (C64), a game that in some ways is more similar both to the previously discussed Aztec (1982) and to Metroid (1986): It mainly takes place in an underground environment, it consists of a single maze (although it is more straightforward in its overarching structure than the other games mentioned here), it features no NPC interaction at all, and like Metroid it scrolls - an uncommon sight in 1984. Using tools to progress is required as expected (including bombs which can destroy the environment). However, Journey to the Centre of the Earth is solely focused on tool gating with persistent inventory items, making it a bit of an oddball in its own way. The standouts here are using water to grow a plant (not unlike grunspreking in Below the Root) which can then be climbed, and using a magical egg as a teleporter beacon. Sadly, the game has an annoying habit of making players move back and forth between the underground maze and the surface to drop off collected treasure repeatedly due to its limited item inventory, which is also why I didn't finish it yet.

In terms of its place in the history of the platform adventure subgenre, Below the Root certainly shares enough with later games such as Metroid to be considered one of the first among them, even including one or more examples of sequence breaking through clever use of a shuba. Still, it is often overlooked in discussions about early examples. I would say it's likely due to a combination of things: 1. its limited availability on early platforms, 2. its methodical pacing reminiscent of games like Prince of Persia (here you unfortunately get knocked back even from walking into a wall, and the verticality of the world sometimes slows things down further), 3. it having no sequels or remakes, and 4. its non-violent approach to problem solving which as I'm sure you all know isn't as popular among action (as in real-time) game fans. However, it's a pretty unique game even now, and one that deserves recognition as one of the pioneers of this now beloved subgenre.

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A few games that may have influenced Below the Root:

-Adventure (1980) - Another early graphical and real-time representation of early adventure games, this one also features an interconnected, maze-like world in which the player navigates a series of rooms, solves basic puzzles using persistent tools, and avoids enemies to reach their goals. Meanwhile, Below the Root features characters to interact with, a more fleshed out world, and a dialogue driven story to unfold.

-Previous adventure games - Below the Root was released during the golden age of adventure games, and it shares similarities with other games of the time, such as King's Quest and Enchanted Scepters (seemingly the first game with an on-screen verb menu accessed at the top of the screen, which also came with hotkeys). Like these games, Below the Root features a rich and detailed world to explore, puzzles to solve, and a story to unravel which relied more on text than the average AA game for years to come.

-Aztec (1982) - Aztec is a game released in 1982 for the Apple II and Commodore 64 that shares some similarities with Below the Root. Both games feature a nonlinear world where the player can explore and interact with various characters and objects. However, Aztec is set in ancient Mexico and focuses more on combat than exploration and puzzle-solving.

-Hydrax (C64, 1983) - Hydrax is a game released in 1984 for the Commodore 64 that also shares some similarities with Below the Root. Both games use a side view perspective, feature an interconnected world to explore, NPCs to interact with and puzzles to solve. However, Hydrax is set in a science fiction world and uses a text parser system even for basic movement, plus it's not a platformer.

A few games that may have been influenced by it:

-Spellbound (1985) and Knight Tyme (1986) - These are side view graphical adventure games that also feature an interconnected world for players to explore. Like Below the Root, they're set in fantasy worlds and feature magic as a central theme. All three games also feature puzzles that must be solved to progress.

-Dan Dare (C64, 1986) - A side view graphical adventure game that shares some similarities with Below the Root in terms of its world structure and puzzle-solving elements. However, Dan Dare is more focused on action and combat than Below the Root.

-Everyone's a Wally (1985) - An action adventure/puzzle game with basic platforming elements and pretty advanced NPC AI for its time. While it is not an adventure game in the same ways as Below the Root, it does share some similarities in terms of its structure and there are five playable characters with different skills.

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*It is actually a sequel to the books it's based on. I recently learned that the majority of the trilogy's fans were disappointed with how the third book concluded. Some time afterwards, a programmer named Dale Disharoon approached the author to see if she was interested in making a game based on her creation. Seeing this as an opportunity to continue the story, and hopefully produce a new conclusion that would satisfy fans, Snyder agreed to help make the game. There was also a spiritual sequel of sorts, Alice in Wonderland, made in 1985 by the same developer.

For a brief overview of the game's features, see its page on my Platform Adventure history website.