Road Not Taken
Road Not Taken is a rogue like puzzle game about surviving life’s surprises. You play as a ranger adventuring through a vast, unforgiving forest in the aftermath of a brutal winter storm, rescuing children who have lost their way. Procedurally-generated levels deliver a limitless supply of possibilities to explore and challenges to overcome. Your actions will influence not only your own story, but that of the villagers you hope to befriend and the town you call home. Each time you play Road Not Taken, you're likely to experience a very different story. The paths you take will change the relationships you pursue will twist in ways you did not expect. Which, as it happens, is just like real life. The villagers of Road Not Taken believe that there is an optimal path through life: a good person gets a job, falls in love and has children. You won't follow this path. Can you find your own unique way through a life?
Steam User 214
Lore-wise, this game is interactive poetry. Instead of beating you over the head with a point that can't be avoided, it delivers bits and pieces to not tell just a story, but to provide deep themes about life, love, and loss. The keenly aware will pick up on the things that make up these themes, and what the final message appears to be, yet there's plenty of room for interpretation - In much the same way classic poetry does. I wish more games were like this.
Gameplay-wise, it takes elements of classic block sliding puzzles and crafting-based matching, dresses it up with beautiful art, and packages it in rougelike tropes. Success relies on thoughtfulness, planning, and situational adaptability. It's both casual and challenging. The better you get at the game, the more rewarding it becomes to finish each year with all the children saved and at a minimum cost to your energy levels.
There are lots of secrets, tactics and strategies, and surprises.
Steam User 100
Road Not Taken is a roguelike puzzle game about surviving life’s surprises. But life is so often content with stagnation and repetition, offering what seems the same grind over and over and over, soon only occasionally taunting with the glimmer of something new. But that’s just the way of things; everything new becomes old, in time. Eventually, new just begins to run out. RNT follows a similar cycle; in the beginning, discovering all these new things and how you can change and adapt them to your uses is exciting and intoxicating. But soon enough, the new is exhausted , and with it, the allure of the prospect of new discoveries waiting just behind each locked gate. RTN is profusely entertaining up until you realize this point has come, but even after then, its unique and challenging formula saves it for a time, despite other issues, both glaring and minute.
RNT plays off its theme of “life’s little mysteries” remarkably well in its gameplay. As the town’s new ranger, you’re tasked in each of your years with rescuing the children lost to the woods during each winter’s storm. To deliver them safely, you’ll have to guide each to any of the waiting mothers, wherever they may be, using your limited amount of energy in carrying the odds and ends populating each level. The greatest joy had in this game also provides its greatest challenge; the discovering of new items and creatures that can both greatly hinder or assist you in your search. There’s a surprising amount of variety in the number of ways things can interact, with many even able to change into new forms entirely, given the proper combination. You’ll quickly begin filling your travel book with all manner of creatures and their respective “recipes”. Eventually, puzzles that seemed impossible in the beginning are soon found to have only been so due to your own ignorance of some combination relevant to the situation.
But here’s the rub, and it’s one that eventually hinders all games of this sort. After a while, it’s very noticeable which pieces the game favors, and which ones have yet to appear more than once, if even that. There’s a handful of items and creatures that are exceptionally common, changing in relation to your years. In my playthroughs, those handfuls have been identical. The aforementioned variety in items and enemies becomes less so when the same few common assets are used ad nauseam, which is a shame, given the inventiveness of some of the lesser used pieces.
In between winters, your time is spent in the town you call home. Here, you can take your hard earned coins, rice, berries, etc, and trade them for townsfolk’s friendship, a la the story of Rainbow Fish. In return, you may receive helpful recipes for your book, or even better, equip-able trinkets. Early earned trinkets’ perks are useful in smaller capacities, but the greater are earned through repeat visits. They, along with the tradeables found in the forest, make up the other half of the Roguelike formula, namely the part that you lose upon death. Make too many mistakes, resulting in zero energy or too few children saved, and all of these are lost. Given the time investment needed to get the better ones, I’ll admit to believing this a bit harsh, especially since death can often be the result of truly unfair elements brought on by the roguelike system, like unavoidable loss of children to enemies or rare, impassible gates due to poor default placement of pieces.
A point of contention for me lies here as well, particularly in the store page’s embellishment of a winding, twisting narrative, unique to each journey. The only narrative comes in the townsfolk, who remain constant, personalities and dialogue alike. Even their preferences in tradeables remains identical between playthoughs. The only change is that of color scheme, and which one is most willing to marry you, which becomes readily apparent early on. Despite store page promises of offering the opportunity to lead a unique life each playthrough, the character with obvious affection for you will always yield trinkets and info for fewer tradeables. There’s no reason to invest in anyone else.
Regardless of my issues with it (mostly with the not-so-random level randomization), RNT is tremendous fun, and it’s a unique challenge that I’m going to continue playing, if only to try and earn the remaining pages to my travel book. In retrospect, my biggest issues could easily be rectified with a few randomization patches, or better yet, a future DLC expansion. As it is, the journey slowly loses its luster more than several hours in, but it never loses its shine altogether. The combination of some amusingly humorous travel book entries, a charming art design and some legitimately unsettling sound work help to mask the budding feeling of familiarity on repeat journeys. I think what’s most disappointing is that despite the game’s want to emulate the unpredictability of life, it has instead exemplified how easily it can fall into routine and predictability. While the initial few hours and playthrough are wholly the most entertaining, a lackluster attempt at differentiating narrative and the occasional sense of déjà vu on later playthroughs only slightly diminish an otherwise fantastic puzzle-rogue.
Steam User 40
I´ve been playing this game for the last month and the more I do, the more I like it. It is a good puzzle game with a storyline that is actually consistent throughout! The graphs are super cute, the music and sound effects are great, the character interactions are very nice too (and the characters looks vary on each career).
Your choices have an effect on the outcome of the game: everything -from how many kids you decide to save to what gifts you give and what relationships you build with whom or what bonuses you decide to use- determines what pluses you´ll get and whether you´ll end up your career more or less successfully.
As I said, the game look is really cute, but one thing I really liked is that despite it´s design cuteness -or maybe because of it- it is still able to also give a slightly creepy and even acid atmosphere: The doctor, or the way the Mayor takes your choice of saving more or less kids could be good examples. Other surpirses I rather not reveal as to not spoil the fun, but let´s just say that experimentation and interaction has its rewards.
As for difficulty, the game instructions are fairly simple, so it is easy to get started. The gameplay itseld has a gradual increase of diffculty in its main story mode, plus it also has a timed version and a extra-difficult option too. It is worth mentioning again that inside a career, your performance on a year will affect the difficulty of the years to follow, if only because of the amount of energy you´ll have to deal with each level. So besides dealing with each level´s intrinsic difficulty you should have some strategy and consider future levels.
To me this is a very entertaining and well thought game. I don´t feel too guilty if I spend time playing it because not only do I have fun, I actually have the feeling I am using my brain. It can be re-played several times, which is a plus to me. If you like puzzles, charming design and eerie sense of humor try this one out.
Steam User 27
I would not describe this game as rogue-like. It is more of a puzzle game that has rogue-like puzzles.
While it is cute, I found it lost it's charm rather quickly as the puzzles became very difficult fast.
I would blame the mis-labeling of this game in my frustration with it. I came into this game expecting one thing and getting another. If this were something I was looking to play, I would recommend it. As it is now, I say it is nice but it was not and this confusion left me not liking the game. Just be sure to read the other better reviews if you care to pay attention to reviews.
Steam User 31
Road Not Taken is great. It is a really well done puzzle-roguelike with a FANTASTIC core mechanic. It is one of those games that absolutely nails the concept of easy to learn, difficult to master. It also has a bleak yet hopeful atmosphere coursing through the entire thing, which I found very charming.
Winter is slowly overtaking a small village. You play as a forest ranger tasked with recovering children lost in the woods. The core mechanic involves combining objects in the forest together to make new ones by picking them up and throwing them. You can also cary objects, but doing so depletes your ever dwindling energy reserves.
There is a staggering number of items and combinations, and it's a LOT of fun to expirament with all the different objects. Some combinations are beneficial, replentishing your energy, allowing you to manipulate the forest easier, and save the kids easier, but others are dangerous, and you should take care not to clumsly throw things around, creating hazardous items accidentally. However, many of the dangerous items can also be turned into bigger benefits if combined correctly. It strikes a really great ballance between risk and reward.
Being a roguelike, it has a LOT of replay value, especially since you can forge relationships with a few of the towns folk. If they like you, they will tell you tips, secrets, and even give you items and accessories to make your job easier, or harder if that's what you're in to! You have the ability to replay the previous year if you really screw things up, but I have also tried starting over from year 1 to leverage all the new combinations I have learned.
Steam User 29
Love the game. The artwork is great. I love the soundtrack, and the story makes me want to know more.
The game is a rogue-like puzzle-game. You are a ranger who's job is to save the kids who are lost in the woods. While not in a level you can socialize with the npcs in the town by giving them gift. You will get items and secrets this way. You can also have a wife/husband. Personally i got attached to one of the npcs quite fast.
If you love puzzlegames that can be played through multiple times (random level generation) you got to play this game. The money you spent on this game will be worth it.
Steam User 16
You want a roguelike that thinks outside of the box? Look no further. Road Not Taken is a hard-as-nails, puzzle based, story-rich, atmospheric roguelike that breaks boundaries. This title was expertly crafted. Lots of attention to detail, and my-oh-my is there depth. It is quite a dark game, as well.
Pros:
+Like any roguelike worth its salt, Road Not Taken has a lot of content and mystery to unravel and master. Tons of gameplay here. I haven't even scratched the surface at 5 hours.
+Puzzles are super challenging, in a good way.
+Atmosphere and artwork are absolutely stunning. Really well done here. Lots of attention to detail.
+The story is rich and is a welcome addition to modern roguelike/lites.
Cons:
-Yeah, its difficult, but do-able. I mention this because it looks like a fairly cute puzzle game, but it can be overwhelming at times (especially if you want to avoid spoilers), IMO. Even in 5 hours, I haven't gotten very far.
-Addiction factor isn't the highest, but I can generally look past this, since its got tons of depth. Hard to explain. It isn't like BoI where its 'One more run!!' kind of thing.
A must have for any fan of the modern roguelike genre. Totally worth full price, even.