Review - Tales From The Other Side: Beneath The Roots

Jordan Cooper
7 hours ago
4 min read

Developer: CATFURY

Publisher: CATFURY

Available on: PC

Of Course, A Creepy Cabin

When things get rough in life, you are presented with a choice. Deal with it or run to your grandfather’s abandoned cabin in the middle of the woods. In Tales From the Other Side: Beneath the Roots, you choose the latter and immediately regret your life decisions.

The evening begins normal enough as you turn the lights on, make dinner, and start rummaging through your missing grandfather’s journal. I, for one, would like to take a moment to stress that if you ever go to a cabin in the middle of the woods and start finding journal entries that suggest a horror scenario, you leave. But hey, that’s just my basic survival instincts.

The night progresses into an atmosphere of being watched and manipulated along a path to find the answers no one in town ever found about your grandfather or the other missing townsfolk.

Mechanics of The Psychological

Tales From the Other Side: Beneath the Roots does a very good job of keeping tension. Most horror games just stick you in an eerie environment and hope that keeps you locked into the experience. This one, however, keeps you on your toes by showing you that something else is watching you.

The game leans very hard into Slavic mythology. If you are anything like me and actually read the books and stuff you pick up in games, it gives you a basic understanding of guardian spirits and how they act in the lore. Not to mention, this is a giant clump of foreshadowing!

It also makes you feel a bit more on edge with a book stating you never know exactly how a spirit will act toward a person. It could be helpful, or it could be waiting for the right moment to trap you in an abyss of Legos you have to walk on for eternity. Guess we will find out!

As the game progresses, you start getting into the puzzle aspects, which, in this game, aren’t too brain-heavy. Some basic navigation skills and a light dusting of math. So long as you have fingers and toes, I promise you can figure out the math portion of the game, as it isn’t Fermat’s Last Theorem or anything.

The inventory system is also pretty slim, as most of what you pick up will be used very soon afterward. So there are no grueling “where did I put that pen I found three levels ago in that random drawer?” moments.

Digging Beneath the Roots

Here comes the part where I dig into my thoughts on this indie developer’s first go, and I must tell you I’m very pleased with how the game played out. It’s a shorter horror story game, which in this case is a good take. It reminds me of the days of reading a Goosebumps book. Short, sweet, and to the point without finding out information three books later.

The inventory system follows that same philosophy. You pick something up, and chances are you’re going to use it pretty soon. Though not everything gives you proper direction on where to use it, the game is still on a scale where you can figure things out fairly quickly.

Beneath the Roots also does a great job of keeping the tension on you, as the game doesn’t rely solely on jump scares. Instead, it uses the eeriness of the environment mixed with the lore found in the books along the way.

There are a few things that may get some of you, though. The game’s spoken audio is in Russian, so if you don’t speak the language, you’re going to be relying on subtitles to follow along. That didn’t ruin the experience for me, especially in a game already built so heavily around reading and uncovering bits of lore, but I can see it being a hurdle for some players. There are also a few rough edges here and there, but nothing that pulled me far enough out of the experience to outweigh what the game does well.

“My goal was to tell a mysterious story through exploration and an immersive atmosphere. Horror is part of the experience, but it's the world and its secrets that take center stage. I hope players enjoy taking their time, exploring every corner, and uncovering the story piece by piece.” - CATFURY

Should You Dig Beneath the Roots?

At the end of the night, Tales From the Other Side: Beneath the Roots knew exactly what kind of game it wanted to be and didn’t overstay its welcome. It gives you a creepy cabin, some unsettling Slavic folklore, puzzles that won’t have you questioning whether you actually graduated high school, and enough of that “something else is here” feeling to keep you uncomfortable.

For CATFURY Games’ first outing, I think they did a damn good job. There are a few rough edges, and the Russian-only voice acting may be a hurdle for some players, but neither took enough away from the experience for me to regret my trip into the woods. If anything, I walked away wanting to see what CATFURY can do with another story and a little more room to grow.

If you enjoy shorter horror games that care more about atmosphere, exploration, and uncovering a mystery than throwing a screaming monster into your face every time you open a door, Beneath the Roots is worth digging into.