Below the Root
I grew up playing video games on my Commodore 64 computer. (Kids, ask your grandparents.) One of my favorite games that I played for hours and hours and hours, over and over and over, was Below The Root. It was a gentle platform/text adventure hybrid in which you played an elfin denizen of Green Sky - a civilization of tree-dwellers with psychic powers - who must venture underground in search of a lost spiritual leader.
You run around and explore the trees, meeting people and animals, gathering clues and tools, and strengthening your psychic powers. There are multiple factions of people, some good, some evil, and you eventually gain the ability to read emotions and thoughts and can thus avoid the baddies before they can do you harm. You gain psychic abilities by seeking out spritual leaders and talking with them and by communing with squirrels, rabbits, and monkeys.
As with most of my Commodore 64 games, I only had the game itself, not the instructions. In those pre-internet days, you just had to figure these things out through trial and error. It was ages before I learned that instead of finding a way to unlock a gate that barred access to a certain area, I could develop the ability to grow tree branches and allow me to climb over the gate. That was a mind-blowing development to 12 year old me.
This game was so replayable because even once you've solved the puzzles and beat the game, you can play again as a different character with different strengths and weaknesses and to whom the NPCs in the game react differently. You can have very different play experiences depending on who you pick as your character. But what really drew me in was the world-building. The politics and the spirituality and little touches like certain characters being vegetarian and getting sick from eating cooked rabbit, and losing your psychic abilites if you kill, are all super cool. It's a lovely game that meant a lot to me as a kid.
Now, imagine my shock when, while visiting The Book Rack, a used book shop initially located in the long-defunct Duck Creek Plaza mall, with my mom, I came across a book published in 1975 called Below The Root. I had no idea this beloved game was based on a book, but here it was! I had already picked out a different book or two to buy that day, so I put it back, vowing to pick it up next time. Well, next time we went back, it was gone. I've been casually hunting for it ever since. Once the internet became a thing, I learned that there's actually a trilogy of books and that the video game is a canonical fourth book of sorts that the author wrote to correct a plot-point she later regretted.
Fast forward to last week. I received a phone call from The Book Rack saying that they'd received a book on my wishlist. So now, 30+ years after first learning that this book exists, I am the proud owner of Below The Root, purchased at the same store where I first saw it.
It's been in and out of print but never seems to sell for under $40 on Amazon. And yes, I could have shelled out the cash at any point in the intervening decades, but half the pleasure is in the hunt. Plus, I got my copy for $17 thanks to my massive amount of in-store credit. This trip to The Book Rack was my first time in Davenport since March. Not only did I fulfill this lifelong dream, but I also picked up Y: The Last Man volumes 2-5 for $3 each. I've owned volume 1 for years but want to collect the whole thing before reading and now I'm halfway there. Now that's a good Saturday!
You run around and explore the trees, meeting people and animals, gathering clues and tools, and strengthening your psychic powers. There are multiple factions of people, some good, some evil, and you eventually gain the ability to read emotions and thoughts and can thus avoid the baddies before they can do you harm. You gain psychic abilities by seeking out spritual leaders and talking with them and by communing with squirrels, rabbits, and monkeys.
As with most of my Commodore 64 games, I only had the game itself, not the instructions. In those pre-internet days, you just had to figure these things out through trial and error. It was ages before I learned that instead of finding a way to unlock a gate that barred access to a certain area, I could develop the ability to grow tree branches and allow me to climb over the gate. That was a mind-blowing development to 12 year old me.
This game was so replayable because even once you've solved the puzzles and beat the game, you can play again as a different character with different strengths and weaknesses and to whom the NPCs in the game react differently. You can have very different play experiences depending on who you pick as your character. But what really drew me in was the world-building. The politics and the spirituality and little touches like certain characters being vegetarian and getting sick from eating cooked rabbit, and losing your psychic abilites if you kill, are all super cool. It's a lovely game that meant a lot to me as a kid.
Now, imagine my shock when, while visiting The Book Rack, a used book shop initially located in the long-defunct Duck Creek Plaza mall, with my mom, I came across a book published in 1975 called Below The Root. I had no idea this beloved game was based on a book, but here it was! I had already picked out a different book or two to buy that day, so I put it back, vowing to pick it up next time. Well, next time we went back, it was gone. I've been casually hunting for it ever since. Once the internet became a thing, I learned that there's actually a trilogy of books and that the video game is a canonical fourth book of sorts that the author wrote to correct a plot-point she later regretted.
Fast forward to last week. I received a phone call from The Book Rack saying that they'd received a book on my wishlist. So now, 30+ years after first learning that this book exists, I am the proud owner of Below The Root, purchased at the same store where I first saw it.
It's been in and out of print but never seems to sell for under $40 on Amazon. And yes, I could have shelled out the cash at any point in the intervening decades, but half the pleasure is in the hunt. Plus, I got my copy for $17 thanks to my massive amount of in-store credit. This trip to The Book Rack was my first time in Davenport since March. Not only did I fulfill this lifelong dream, but I also picked up Y: The Last Man volumes 2-5 for $3 each. I've owned volume 1 for years but want to collect the whole thing before reading and now I'm halfway there. Now that's a good Saturday!