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.

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.

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.

What a great little game. It's a top-down puzzle game where you have to reunite lost children with their families and create useful tools by "combining" objects in the area. Music is especially nice; it's a series of New Orleans dirges.

Pretty challenging; highly recommended.

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.

Road Not Taken is described as a Roguelike Puzzle game, in which you throw and move objects around with your magic staff to rescue children trapped in the Forest. Some puzzles are hand-crafted, but the majority are procedurally generated.

The Good: The Art and Music are great! Wonderful Art Style and the music is a nice addition to the levels.

The Bad: Procedural generation is a double-edged sword. Yes, you're going to get rooms in which things are laid out in an easily-solvable manner, but you're also going to get rooms that are basically broken (or quickly made so by a bad move). For example, Bear Statues "stick" to nearby objects, so if you get an object in a corner behind a Bear Statue, you are pretty much out of luck. Good luck corraling six Deer or other animals (which move around on their own) to unlock a door. A single novice move can render entire areas of the map inaccessible.

The Ugly: The difficulty curve is brutal, and saps fun out of the game. Year 4 (of 15) seemed to be my Year of Death for a while, but with practice I've made it all the way to Year 8. Of course, Roguelikes have death, but after you die you should have some incentive to want to play again. In RNT, Death only occurs after several frustrating rounds of losing life/energy, and then when you are at your weakest, the Doom Spirits hunt you down and kill you. Where is the fun in that!?

The Save/Checkpoint system actively discourages you from using it - what is up with that?

I know people will argue that the game is about hard choices and you aren't intended to save every single child in each individual year - but that makes me wonder about the narcissistic sociopaths who lack empathy for children freezing to death in the Forest.

In summary, my chief complaint is that the game is more frustrating than fun. There’s potential here, but in Road Not Taken’s current state, I cannot recommend it.

When I first saw this game I wasn't sure what to think, but I gave it a go, and I'm glad I did.
It's definitely worth the price. Even if you're not normally in to puzzle games (I'm not) it's still very fun. Though there is a puzzle element (okay, more than just an element) it's mostly a logic thing. There have only been a few "puzzles" that I've seen that have any distinct way of beating, and for the most part, it's just matching/moving things around so you can get to the children to rescue them, in whatever way ends up being the most efficient for you.

The good:
-Procedurally generated levels mean there's a lot of replay ability.
-You can make friends with the villagers and they'll give you gifts, and you can even get married! :3
-Challenging, in a good way. If you think and plan enough you should be able to overcome any challenges it throws at you.. and it will throw a lot at you.
-Adorable graphics (as I have come to expect from Spry Fox)
-The music and sound effects are perfect.

The bad:
-Eventually, constant failing gets aggrivating... though that could just be me.
-As far as I can tell, when the villagers get sick there's no way to make them better... I've pumped them full of medicine for DAYS and they stay sick... not really sure what to do about that.
-If you die, you lose your stuff, which isn't a problem (I'm aware that that's what Rogue-likes are like) except that there isn't really much of a way to get them back. You can become friends with the villagers, and they MIGHT give you an item.. but there's no way to really guarantee that you'll ever be able to get back the items you've lost (EG the "Fork of eating alone")

This game is amazing, the flaws aren't really flaws.. I mean, if you never fail then you never have to worry about losing your gear, or the heartbreak of losing (though you may have heartbreak of a different kind if the villager you want decides to leave you, and start dating a man...), it's more than worth the money that you pay for it, on sale or not.
I'm not normally into puzzle games, and I can't really get enough of this one :)

+ Beautiful graphics
+ Requires your brain
+ Unique mix of puzzling and roguelike games

- A bit too hard for the casual gamers out there
- Failing often makes the game become boring too soon, it's very unforgiving

[Rating: 76/100]

What can you say about this game? Well, it's georgeous and a new take on the whole puzzle-genre. Imagine a mix between Spelunky or The Binding of Isaac, a new take on chess and Braid. Hard to imagine I guess, so try it for yourself. It will blow your mind. I would say this is THE best puzzle game I've played this year, it might even be one of the best games released this year, all-categories. A strong recommendation. And you might notice that this is one of my few reviews, which means this has a special place in my heart. 10/10, simply amazing art-style, magical music and sound, great gameplay, simple but touching story and a whole new idea for how a puzzle game should be like. Again, 10/10.

Beautiful looking and sounding game with a strong underlying theme and almost flawless puzzle mechanics. It lacks content though: for a roguelike Road Not Taken burns out a bit too fast. Definitely looking forward for the updates (I hope there will be some, since rules of the game are pretty easy to expand).

Full review in Russian: http://www.igromania.ru/articles/234004/Road_Not_Taken.htm

A simple puzzle game which gets complicated quick. Simple designe and cute, with a variety of options. But yeah, real cute, and a good way to kill time without getting to stressed out over head shots and kill scores. You even get the option to cop out and leave up to half the kids for dead! Go you!

This is just a first impression review of the game and it is most definitely fun and entertaining, to the point where I am writing my first review ever! A great puzzle game with art that is enjoyable and entertaining to play around with.
Just a side note: I'm not sure about the "rogue-like" tag. I am still on my first play several hours in and have yet to die (as a huge fan of rogue-like games this doesnt tend to happen) In no way do I mean that with any sort of negative connotation, just pointing out that its not typical of rogue-likes, but so far so good :)

More to come!

I watched a video of this game online and it looked pretty cool. However, nothing could prepare me for the degree of unilateral cruelty of the random level generator, nor how immediately repetative the game becomes.

It initially reminded me of long lost point and click adventure games when I first viewed the trailer videos. However, it quickly becomes apparent that with no clear direction or reliable strategy involved, it simply becomes a matter of randomly flinging groups of items together until you get a favorable reaction. These are then noted in an in-game journal, and you spend the rest of the game desperately flipping through its pages looking for some sort of advantage to be culled from the horrific assortment of hazzards and obstacles that work to make your gaming experience both futile and frustrating.

NOT ONLY are some levels seemingly impossible to pass, but "saving your progress at shrines" only means you respawn at the beginning of the current level... with NONE of your items or relationships SAVED!! Rogue-like indeed!

The designers do win points for a creative new type of game, great art, music and cut scenes.

I literally cannot recommend this game enough. In my opinion so far this year this deserves the Game Of The Year award. It has an incredibly simplistic and yet compelling story, interesting relationship mechanics with others living in the game, (Talking to a character and sharing items makes them like you, ignoring them makes them dislike you etc.), terrific puzzle gameplay mechanics. The best way i can describe this game is almost Animal Crossing meets Binding Of Isaac. This is the single best roguelike ive ever played and it keeps me wanting more. I really want to see where my relationships with other can go and how rescuing children or not alters my status in the community. Overall this game is incredibly smart, with a bit of difficulty curve and a gorgeous graphics style. I don't throw this around often but I think this game is worthy of a 10/10 rating!

Gameplay (Is it fun?): 4/4
Visuals (Does it look good?): 4/4
Originality (Is it one of a kind?): 4/4
Playability (Is it free of errors and other issues?): 4/4
Overall Rating: 100% out of 100%

I'll be honest. I don't even normally play puzzle games. But Road Not Taken had me from the start! The first thing you should know about this game is that the artwork is beautiful and the music charming. You won't find any pixelated graphics or annoying tunes here. The characters and environment are so well illustrated that it left me feeling as though I had exited reality and stepped into a pop-up book. In this game, you play the role of a cloaked ranger who has arrived in a town full of townsfolk with distinct personalities. Why the ranger has come to this particular town is as much an enigma as the staff of blue flame he/she carries. The artfully animated cut scenes intcluded in the game add to this sense of mystery.

How does the gameplay in Road Not Taken differ from other puzzle games? It presents the player with choices. It is up to you to decide which townsfolk to socialize with and befriend. Give one of them a gift (in the form of a coin, rice, berry, bunny, or medicine) that you earn from successfully completing a level and that person may tell you a secret to record in your book, give you a useful charm to equip, or boost your energy for the next level. Go about this the wrong way, and there's a chance the character may even scorn your gift. Choosing which charms to equip before entering a level impacts gameplay drastically. The effects of a particular charm can make all the difference in surviving a level.

Playing a level involves entering the snowy wilderness in order to rescue children who have gone missing. Your success depends on whether you can reunite at least half of the children with their parents or the mayor before your energy (measured in points) is drained. Energy is depleted in various ways, such as when your character carries things or is attacked. To progress through the level, the player will have to match the things required to open a door, whether they be inanimate objects or creatures. At times, there may even be other characters wandering through the wilderness who do not appear within the town. Will you rescue all of the children before completing a level? The decision is yours to make.

With its haunting storyline, Road Not Taken stands out because of its high quality and challenging but enjoyable gameplay. I recommend this game.

Touching, simplistic, cheerful.

As of when I write this review, I have only gotten into the game a little bit, but from playing this game, I love it. I am pretty sure I have played games like this, but this one sticks out. As a ranger who stumbles on a random village, you hear about children who have gotten lost due to a huge storm and go to save them. It's just hard to describe how much I enjoy this game. To say the least, it is very heart-warming and definitely a game I would recommend buying.

A solid game. Good story, nice message, beautiful art style.





I was bored out of my mind.

Excellent piece of work. Fantastic design, with a lot more than I expected. I did not expect any kind of story or dialog, but there is. I figured it would just drop you right into a simple (but deep) rogue-like similar to The Binding of Isaac. I was wrong, and there's a lot more to this gem than meets the eye.

Spry Fox upped the quality off of their mobile release Triple Town, and the raise in price is absolutely worth it. Don't think the game isn't of value just because it was made by a previously mobile-only developer. It's a great piece of game -- and art.

This is an amazing game, that is not about preventing your death. No matter what, eventualy you will die, but it's about living the best life possible. Get married have kids, or fall in love with all the ladies. It's up to you how you want to spend your life, but you will always remeber the road you didn't choose, the kid you didn't save, the child you never had. You can even be a homosexual if you are in to that kinda stuff.
I would recomend this game to anyone who is willing to slowley dicover a new beutiful world with all sorts of goodies and monsters

A lot deeper then it seems. The cheery yet dark puzzle/roguelike hybrid offers a lot to fans of both genres. Despite being randomly generated it's open ended puzzles allows players to craft there own solutions while still requiring careful planning to solve. The addition of an energy system, in which a players hp is deducted when carrrying a object, offers a surprising amount of depth as it encourgages players to play efficiently while introducing another risk-reward mechinic that allows you to skip saving children allowing you to conserve hp and the expense of the resources rewarded. Central to this is an expansive crafting system in which players combine mobs and objects into unique items. After a few levels you begin to unlock perks and monster/object bans creating for a unique personified experience. Highly reccomended to anyone interested.