Roots of Pacha

by Aethyna May 4, 2023 | 1 Votes | 23 Played | 0 Reviews

9 rate

Genres:

Simulation , Adventure

Graphics:

Labels:

Music , Mini Games , Animals , Building , Cozy , Mounts , Tribal Theme , Crafting , Adventure , Pixel Art , Fishing , Farm , Romance

Platforms:

Publishers:

Crytivo Roots of Pacha is a tribal-themed life simulation game where you play as an adopted member of the tribe. Not only will you get to build a home and a life for yourself here, but you’ll get to contribute to the advancement and growth of the village by farming crops, gathering crafting materials, and more. Play Now Similar Games

People Also Played

Summary Plotline Gameplay Community Graphics/ Sound Conclusion

Summary

Roots of Pacha is a tribal-themed life simulation game where you play as an adopted member of the tribe. Not only will you get to build a home and a life for yourself here, but you’ll get to contribute to the advancement and growth of the village by farming crops, gathering crafting materials, and more. You’re apparently also chosen by the spirits during your Rite of Passage, and whatever Pacha’s plan for you the clan will stand by your side.

Plotline

The Pacha clan has always set up their home under the shade of the massive Pacha tree, that is until one fateful day, their great shaman, Vvak, received a troubling message from the spirits. They demand that the tribe must move to find a tree in the far east as danger awaits them if they stayed.

And so, after deliberation by their leader, the clan packed up everything and walked east. The journey was grueling and they found no Pacha tree. After crossing the savanna, they finally made camp, but only to have their efforts ruined by a ground-shaking earthquake. It blocked the path back, which the clan took as a sign. However, the Pacha tree the tribe has always relied on is still nowhere in sight.

Vvak was downtrodden. Thinking he might have misled the clan in some way, he walked away from the clan in distress with your character following suit. That is when both of you came upon the biggest Pacha tree you’ve ever seen... and so, the Pacha clan has finally found their new home.

Gameplay

The goal of this game is to contribute to the tribe so it can prosper. You can contribute anything you gather or produce in this game to the Contribution Box by the Pachan hearth and at the end of the day, you’ll be given a set amount of Contribution points (CPs), which functions as currency among the clan’s folk, based on what you’ve contributed. Naturally, some items are more valued than others, usually because they are harder to obtain, whether because they are rarer or require some form of crafting skills.

Farming is a main part of the gameplay and is possibly an important source of your “income”. In this game, you’ll discover new crops simply by finding undomesticated versions of them in the wild and harvesting their seeds. You can then plant the seeds on your own farm plots to grow your crops. You can also randomly get seeds by harvesting the crops you’ve grown but the drop rate seems rather low. At one point, you’ll also be able to buy new seeds from your plant nursery in exchange for CPs.

In the beginning, you’ll probably spend quite a bit of your day tending to your farm since crops will need daily watering unless it’s raining that day. You may need to make several trips from the river to your farm plots until you unlocked the “water well” technology (more on unlocking new technology later). You’ll even be able to skip all your farming chores once you’ve researched and built an irrigation system.

Considering the large plots of fertile land you’ve been given to grow your crops, that is once you’ve cleared them off stones, sticks, and weeds, you can also design your farm by adding beautiful footpaths or archways. As you grow, water, and harvest your crops, they will eventually turn from wild crops into domesticated ones as well, which yields more stamina when consumed. You may even happen upon good quality ones which grant even more stamina when eaten or cooked!

Besides crops, you’ll also be able to grow trees, including fruit trees. However, you won’t be able to grow herbs which you’ll need for seasoning your dishes or crafting poultices and other forms of helpful medicines. Cooking in this game comes a bit later than expected since you need to have a home to call your own first before you’ll have access to the fire pit.

In this game, all the cooking recipes are unlocked from the start… well, at least in a way. You see, you can straightaway see what ingredients you need to cook something but the recipe will be grayed out until you’ve actually cooked up the food item at least once. Food in this game isn’t really required for survival but they do help restore quite a bit more stamina, which you’ll need to do almost anything in this game, than raw food.

Building new structures and expanding the village is another goal of the game, but naturally, you’ll first need to research the “blueprints” a.k.a. the idea or technology associated with the building as well as to gather enough materials to actually build it. The tribe starts off with primitive tools and tech at first, but eventually, you’ll unlock helpful advancements via research that really change things up for you and the village, such as researching and building an irrigation system for your massive farm, metalworking, pottery and art, animal taming (and domestication), and more.

However, research doesn’t work the way most RPGs or games do, in which you invest research points you get into specific tech you want or need on a tech tree. Instead, the game opts to go the more realistic route and having various people in the tribe thinking up new ways, a.k.a. ideas, to do things, such as finding an easier way to irrigate your crops without having to make multiple trips to and from the river to fill a small waterskin. You can track all the research ideas that you’ve unlocked, along with any quests, via the Smoke Signals tab.

Unlocking new technologies will often come with new buildings for you to construct. Most of the construction work will require materials like wood that you can get by chopping down trees (though, you might need better tools first to get to the larger trees), stone which you can mine from stone deposits either on uncleared farmland or in the caves, and grass that you can collect by clearing the wild grass on uncleared farmland.

I should also point out that the caves also house various puzzles that you can solve to unlock new areas within the caves to explore. The further you progress, it’s more likely you’ll encounter new minerals or materials, like flint or obsidian, to further improve your tools or structures. The caves apparently also house various spirit totems and you can present the correct (based on hints given) offerings to gain special abilities such as being able to fly like a bird or jump like a monkey that is only valid within the cave's area.

These materials collected can be used to craft a variety of items that you may have unlocked as well (Note that Crafting can be accessed via your Inventory), including paths for your farm or even furniture and décor for your home, once you have it built.

That said, your Inventory can be quite limited at the start, and even if you could build a stone (storage) box to keep anything you may not immediately need, it’ll still hamper your efforts to collect everything you can while venturing into the caves or the forests. Thankfully, the game does give you a way to expand your “belt” without too much hassle – all you need is to have enough CPs to spend.

Of course, besides farming and gathering materials, herbs, or items, you can even try to catch some fish in shallow waters. Similar to taming which requires you to complete a rhythm-based mini-game, fishing in this game also comes with a mini-game. In this one, you’ll need to “track” the fish you want to catch by hovering your cursor above the fish as it darts around the pool it’s in.

Once the catch meter is filled, you can then click to catch the fish. However, some fish are more alert than others and if that happens, you’ll need to cool things off a bit by moving your cursor away until the fish’s alert level drops back to zero. Be sure to continue tracking the fish once the alert is gone though or you’ll lose any progress you’ve made on the catch meter!

Naturally, higher-quality fish will have a longer catch meter and will require more time to catch. They also tend to be more alert to tracking so you’ll really need to be on your toes. Fishes don’t usually last very long without any preservation, so you might want to process the fishes you catch by smoking or drying them. Some fruits and crops can be dried too. Preserved food usually grants more stamina restores than raw food but of course, cooked food is still the best.

As mentioned, almost everything you do in this game requires stamina. You can restore stamina by consuming food items, either cooked, raw, or preserved, but the best cost-free way to do so is to make sure you make it to your bed before the cutoff point. Sleeping saves your game and fully replenishes your stamina for the next day. However, if you failed to make it back in time, you’ll still get a free stamina restore for the next day, except that it’ll only be a 50% restore rather than a 100%.

Sometimes, you may encounter village events after you went to bed for the night. The events could range from meeting neighboring clans to unlocking a new area that you can then travel to, usually once you have reached some hidden milestone in the game.

Keeping the tribal spirit alive is also another important aspect of Roots of Pacha. You’ll be expected to foster relationships with your fellow villagers by interacting with them, either by talking or helping them with something. Some of these clan folks are traders and skilled craftsmen (or women) and will be able to sell you some useful items such as a belt (a.k.a. inventory) expansion, better tools, as well as other fun cosmetic items in exchange for CPs. The village builder will also be able to build what you need as long as you can provide the materials. You’ll get to participate in various village festivals and rituals too, such as the Rite of Passage that you’ll go through very early on in the game.

Community

Roots of Pacha can be played in co-op mode, giving you the chance to live in the village, gather resources, and explore the world with your friends. You can compete in fishing contests with them and enjoy festivals together. To spice things up, you’ll get to see unique cutscenes when you reached certain multiplayer milestones.

Graphics/ Sound

The graphics in Roots of Pacha is truly amazing. If you’re a fan of pixel art, you’ll definitely fall head-over-heels with the game’s gorgeous pixel art. The environments are well-designed, and the cutscenes are enjoyable.

In terms of sound, the game features a chillax tribal-themed flute-based tune that matches perfectly with its cozy gameplay and theme. This changes noticeably, while retaining its tribal theme, when you enter the cave though, providing players with a rather distinctive atmosphere. I also love the little tunes you have to play on your flute (hopefully, correctly) when taming animals. The tunes vary from animal and animal, and they all sound so catchy.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, Roots of Pacha offers fans of village builders and life sims an experience that’s uniquely different from other games within the genre. Besides an intriguing storyline filled with mystery that you can unveil as you progress, there is an incredible number of things you can do here every day, and progression feels satisfying enough to keep you going. Of course, the game itself is also very well packaged with breathtaking pixel art and wonderful on-theme music. So, if you’re a fan of life sims, especially farming-themed ones, you don’t want to miss out on trying Roots of Pacha!