How The Roottrees are Dead ditched AI and became a hit
Robin Ward was recovering from a broken arm when he fell in love with The Roottrees are Dead, a free browser game hosted on itch.io, an indie games salesfront. He reached out to its creator, Jeremy Johnston, and told him, 'This should be a bigger deal than it is.' At the same time, Ward says, he 'knew why' it couldn't be.
The browser version of The Roottrees are Dead used AI-generated art for its images, a central part of the puzzle game that tasks players with investigating dozens of people and filling out its complex family tree. At the time, Steam, the biggest platform for PC games, did not allow the use of generative AI in games released using the storefront. In addition, Ward and Johnston agreed that they felt it was 'unethical to sell artwork created in this way.'
Johnston had originally released the game for free, despite spending 11 months building it up from what was originally a Global Game Jam project cobbled together in less than a week in 2023. In the jam's tight time constraints, and in a time before generative AI was quite so well known, he reached out to a friend who was 'super into' using Midjourney and asked if he'd be willing to generate images based on prompts he had come up with for his puzzles.
The images were far from perfect. Both Johnston and Ward point out a warped, staring image of a young girl in the original version of the game (which is still available for free) — Ward calls it 'demonic.' Other portraits have the twisted hands that were a telltale giveaway of generative AI at the time.
But despite expanding the game for almost a year, adding to the story and puzzle aspects, Johnston says he 'never really thought' to replace the art. Not being an artist himself, he was focused on the photographic quality of the existing artwork, and he knew he would never be able to afford to hire models and a cameraperson to recreate it.
And although he was putting a lot of work into the expanded version, he wasn't expecting the reaction it would eventually get. 'I've released other things — not games, necessarily, but things that I spent a lot of time and energy on, and then they came out and no one cared,' he says. So although he spent a lot of time on Roottrees, he did not want to invest money he was never expecting to get back.
When he did release the itch.io version of Roottrees, though, it was surprisingly popular. It spread on forums and Reddit, and it received some attention in the games press. He did not charge for it, on account of the AI artwork, although he did include a donation link and says he made around $2,000-$3,000 from more than 10,000 players.
And one of those players was Ward. After reaching out to Johnston, they agreed that Ward would reprogram the game and hire an illustrator to replace the AI artwork and get it ready for a Steam release. The illustrator he brought on, Henning Ludvigsen, says he used the AI art as a kind of concept sketch. Ludvigsen then did his own research into the era and style the picture was supposed to evoke, eventually making almost 40 illustrations across nearly a year of work.
'I'm not a big fan of generative AI,' he says, saying his peers in the illustration industry have seen a reduction in work, particularly concept artists. '[Companies] kind of skip that step now [using AI], which I think is not great.'
When it comes to finished products, though, he still sees generative AI as 'not doing that well in general' among players. Large video game companies like Take Two Interactive have noted that players tend to not only avoid games that use AI but also react negatively to them online and in ratings, calling it a potential avenue for 'loss of players, revenues…and reputation harm.' Johnston mentions the case of Cyan Worlds, the developer behind Myst, receiving backlash for using 'AI assisted content' like texture assets in its latest game.
The Roottrees are Dead seemed to skirt these issues by being transparent about its use upfront, as well as releasing for free, Johnston says. Ward also points out that 'in this case, it's the case of 'there would be no game' versus 'there is a game.'' Johnston agrees that without the use of AI-generated artwork, the initial version would never have been released, meaning the eventual full version with Ludvigsen's work in it would also never have existed. Ludvigsen himself says he 'really enjoyed' replacing the illustrations, given he's 'not a big fan of' AI art generation in general.
'I think some people would say, 'Well, I would prefer that there is no game in this case,' and I think they're entitled to their opinion,' Ward says, citing the environmental concerns and the scrapping of artists' work for training corpuses as potential arguments for that approach. 'But I ended up playing something that I really loved,' he says.
The game was released on Steam in January 2025. 'The vast majority of people are like, 'I'm very happy you got rid of the AI,'' Ward says. Although some have said they prefer the more photographic quality of the generated art, Ludvigsen's work is undeniably an upgrade, from the untwisted fingers to the increased consistency in design for characters who appear in multiple photographs, which makes some puzzles more understandable.
The Roottrees are Dead is now a critical and commercial success, which would not have happened without both generative AI and a human artist. Both Ward and Johnston note that the game took an unusual route to its current state. But with the increasing prevalence of AI tools, it's possible more games will end up on the same path.
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