Root Board Game

Dire Wolf Digital

In-app purchases

About this game

Play the digital adaptation of the beloved tabletop board game. Root is a game of adventure and war where 2 to 4 players battle for control of a vast wilderness.

The nefarious Marquise de Cat has seized the great woodland, intent on harvesting its riches. Under her rule, the many creatures of the forest have banded together. This Alliance will seek to strengthen its resources and subvert the rule of Cats. In this effort, the Alliance may enlist the help of the wandering Vagabonds who are able to move through the more dangerous woodland paths. Though some may sympathize with the Alliance’s hopes and dreams, these wanderers are old enough to remember the great birds of prey who once controlled the woods.

Meanwhile, at the edge of the region, the proud, squabbling Eyrie have found a new commander who they hope will lead their faction to resume their ancient birthright.

The stage is set for a contest that will decide the fate of the great woodland. It is up to the players to decide which group will ultimately take root.

Ratings and reviews

One of the best digital adaptations of a board game. The tutorials are great for teaching Root, and I have spent way too many hours on multiplayer when I should have been doing other stuff. Sadly, the app is a bit buggy. Notably, the game sometimes freezes during AI's turn after a player resigns. And the devs are slow to add content from new Root expansions. But overall, I have had a great experience with Root Digital (and Root in general). It's so fun!

Root is my favourite board game, and learning each faction has to be the best part. But the digital version has issues. There’s no penalty for leaving online matches, and no competitive mode for players who want more than casual play. Also, you can get all DLCs for free by cancelling the Google Play purchase through play store, and you still keep it, which clearly needs fixing. I think a proper way to deal with the first issue is to do what Age of Empires II did with their elo system.

I heard the AI was bad, but WOW is it bad. In two back-to-back 4-faction games, the Woodland Alliance AI did almost nothing. In the second game (with hard AI), they only got a handful of warriors on the board in the last few turns and did nothing with them. I think they ended with a score less than 10. That's the HARD AI. In the first game (with medium AI), they literally never put a warrior or a base on the board, just kept playing sympathy. Strangely, this was more successful, but only marginally so. The visual presentation in this game is amazing, as is all of Dire Wolfs games, but its quite telling that I've kept almost none of them. Unless you're playing with other human players, I wouldn't bother, because there is almost no effort put into AI

What’s new

Bug fixes and improvements.