Road Not Taken – An Unexpectedly Sombre Rogue-Like Puzzle Game – Preview

Road Not Taken is a rogue-like, randomly generated puzzle game where you play as a stranger visiting a small village. Every winter you come back to this village and attempt to find the children that have become lost in the forest. While you can develop relationships with the NPCs in the village (and even get married), you can never have children of your own, which probably plays into the character’s motivation for saving other characters’ children.

The puzzle aspect of Road Not Taken comes from combining certain objects on a given screen. Doors will be locked until you do something like put three trees next to each other or two rocks. While you could just pick up the objects and move them together, each step you take while carrying something will sap your energy and if your energy goes down to zero you die. However, anything you pick up can be thrown to the opposite side of the screen without cost. The end result is a game where you try to rearrange the objects on the screen in as few moves as possible in order to maintain your energy.

Of course things can’t be as simple as “walk up to Object A and then push it”. Instead, each object you’ll find has its own nature to it. For example, moles will actually swap with objects you throw them at instead of stopping when hitting the object, and deer are tough to handle because they run away constantly. Bumping into an object will give you a bit of flavor text about it, which adds to the excitement of seeing something new. There’s also a crafting system in which certain objects can be turned into something else when put together. For example, putting two logs together can make a bonfire, which makes carrying objects on that puzzle screen cost no energy.

This is an excerpt from the full story which was originally featured on gamrReview, read the full version here – Road Not Taken – An Unexpectedly Sombre Rogue-Like Puzzle Game – Preview

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