Roadwarden
Game Title: Roadwarden
Released: September 12, 2022
Game Length: 20 Hours
Grade: A-
Goal
Quest: Your primary quest is to explore the peninsula to the north and gain the support of the locals for Hovlavan. You can choose to play a casual game with no time limit, standard game with 40 days, or restrictive game with 30 days. For someone who doesn't know how all the mechanics work or what events will happen, 40 days will not be enough to do everything. An event will happen after 20 days that will allow you to end your adventure sooner. The game also allows you to decide whether you want to report back or to indefinitely stay in the new lands. Your decision will play out in the epilogue.
Reputation: Depending on your appearance, your choices in conversation, and little things like whether you display the Winged Hourglass around your neck can make or break the respect of each faction. If you outright tell someone you aren't going to help them, you can lose a little bit of reputation, lose out on speaking with that person until they cool off, or be permanently kicked out depending on the circumstances. Investing in the town's services or taking action elsewhere that gets their attention can increase the reputation to a point where you can start the next event. This can be excruciatingly difficult when you return time and time again to see if their attitude towards you has changed to make any progress in the game.
Events: Once you establish a connection with the locals, there will come a time where you have to pick sides. If you complete your achievement with the Beholder tree, who will reap the benefits? How will you handle the town of White Marshes, with a raid of bandits or a battle of words? After you find out the truth about what happened to the broken wagon and Steep House, would you bring anyone to justice? One big event regards retracing the steps of Asterion, the previous roadwarden, and figuring out where he went and how to get there. This ultimately leads you on an adventure where you will need to choose 4 out of 11 possible crew members or hiring a crew from one of the towns.
Classes
Fighter: The first choice provides you some very good benefits in combat from the beginning with a well-crafted battle-axe and a crossbow with three quarrels. Risky fights where physical combat comes to a roll of the dice are much easier to overcome. You may also have additional options available from close combat. Your advanced training makes you more acquainted to win in a betting match against others without risking your money on lost rounds.
Mage: While you aren't as equipped from the start with only a simple battle axe, you are able to be flexible in situations with the help of your magical amulets. Unlike how some believe mages shoot fire from their fingertips, you carry a wand made of willow branch that channels energy. You can emit light in dark areas with a leather pendent instead of needing a lantern, repel enemies without needing a shield, emit barriers, and create a magical blast in tough situations. Whenever you sleep, a ritual can be performed that will increase your vitality. In some cases, pneuma can be offered to living things or pulled from objects. Your expertise allows you to determine whether there is any pneuma present around you by placing down special wooden spheres.
Scholar: Your primary weapon of choice is knowing your options in any kind of situation. You may find shortcuts in dialogue, your environment, or against beasts. While others may need to ask the locals for advice, you already seem to know how to read languages, identify strange marks, and work with foreign objects. The writing on signs and the old way is not foreign to you. You also can craft potions that can be useful in different situations. You can forage special ingredients you find on your journey or buy them from someone who collects them to make healing potions, bug repellent, dust that kills plants, and other useful material found in bottles that people might sell a premium for in dragon bones.
Roleplay
Personal Quest: Very early in the game, your character will be able to answer a few background questions. One of these will determine your goal in the game. These include: helping others by completing quests, saving money with a hundred dragon bones, doing something heroic, make connections for the merchant guild by striking a deal or two with settlements, or finding a new life in the peninsula by receiving an invitation by a settlement after maximizing your reputation with them.
Religion: Your answer to the other question that appears will determine your religion. Three religions believe in The Wright (god) but go about it in different ways. The United Church follows The River of Order who are zealots that actively judge people of their actions, Orders of Truth that follow The River of Truth generally inside a monastery, and Fellowships that follow The River of Freedom who feel free to use their pneuma to manipulate things around them. Your faith is determined on how you respond when certain beliefs are expressed in conversation, whether you burn corpses, how you view the Winged Hourglass that you can wear around your neck proudly or hidden, and praying when the option is available. You can follow the traditionally forbidden Pagan religion or choose no religion at all. Your religion will determine whether you are familiar with things associated with that background.
Journal: Information will constantly be updated to reference at any time in the game, even during combat. The Pelt of the North has an option where you can learn about 20 different beasts in exchange for a medium amount of dragon bones (currency), but most of the information will either consist of running away or dying. The lists of humans and settlements can come in handy when the innkeeper asks you for who or where you want information. This doesn't come as a listed choice but a blank field where you can type your answer. A very convenient list of quests can keep you in check with important proper nouns in bold letters. There's also the occasional option to correct others if their opinion doesn't match your experience. There is a spot where you can write your own notes.
Response: At key moments, you will have a chance to decide how to respond to people. There doesn't seem to be any right or wrong answer here. Sometimes, you can choose from a list of buttons that alter your speech to be more playful or threatening. Occasionally, you can choose from a list of flavor text that might describe how things are back home, your past, or how you might see things as they occur. From a gameplay perspective, there isn't really any consequences for your choice other than the alternative dialogue afterwards. What does matter is if you are steering a conversation in an argument or choosing what is explicitly listed as a lie.
Status
Vitality: Your health primarily determines if you stay alive after an encounter. You start with three when you enter the peninsula, can restore up to a maximum of four points, and can be increased to five if you complete your personal quest. Some encounters will only deplete your vitality if your gambeson gives out, but there are occasions where sticking around too long can slowly drain you for each action taken. You can restore vitality through sleeping through the night, resting during the day, using healing potions at any point in the game by accessing your inventory, and being healed by others. You take damage if you travel through the night depending on the distance traveled and whether your actions in the game cleared the road. There will be an option to Seek Shelter to the nearest rest area when it is three hours to dusk. You cannot die this way.
Appearance: The main reason to keep clean is to have better exchange rates at settlements. You can sell things for two dragon bones more or buy for two dragon bones less. The chances to persuade people during conversations, your reputation with the locals, the amount of dialogue volunteered, and sometimes options during interactions all increase the higher your appearance. Activities like getting your shoes muddy or sleeping on the floor can decrease your appearance. Jumping into the river or taking a bath can increase it. Your vitality can also modify your appearance. Tearing your clothes or getting blood on them takes a special course of action to remedy. There are three bathing items you can accumulate in the game, but how much you can restore depends on the location.
Nourishment: Whether you do things while hungry or not can determine how the roll of the dice plays in certain encounters. You can eat wild plants that are foraged on the road, food rations, cooked fish, or roasted chicken to satisfy your stomach. There are many opportunities to be fed from the locals as well. A minimum of two points is required if you want to restore vitality while sleeping. You aren't harmed if you go to sleep hungry.
Gambeson: Standard attacks made against you will first deplete chunks off your armor. There are many occasions where you are given an option to purposely lure an animal in to striking or biting your armor. You will need someone or a special kit to restore your armor. Spider silk can strengthen the maximum amount by one point.
Pneuma (Mage Only): Using your abilities will require a certain amount of points: creating light costs one, sleeping ritual to heal wounds costs two, and exertion through combat costs three. There is the rare case where five points can be spent as a last resort. Sleeping and even using spirit rocks can restore some pneuma.
Miscellaneous
Options: There are some interesting things you can change in the main menu. These include changing to a pixelated (8-bit style) font or having the sounds you might hear in the background described to those that are hard of hearing. While there are three clear difficulty options, there is an advanced window that allows you to personalize the differences yourself. The option to type in developer commands is available too if you want to cheat. You can quick save/load or manually save/load from a long list of slots. Feel free to save scum or let the game automatically reset back at the beginning of an encounter when you die. Right clicking your mouse anywhere will automatically pull up your last menu. Music does not stop and start again whenever you pull up another file in the same location.
Travel: In the early stages, there will be one-time encounters as you discover new locations. Once visited, you can pull up the map and click on the location to travel as long as there is still time left in the day. You cannot travel during the night, but the game permits you to "Seek Shelter" with a vitality penalty. If there are three locations on the way to a place that requires four hours of travel, you can prompt to visit each location and the time to your destination will remain the same (as long as you don't take any action). Muddy roads when it rains can increase the time (the druid can tell you the weather for the next day) and clearing pathways can decrease the time. Time doesn't advance while chatting. The days do slightly become shorter the longer you play like in real life. Animals will attack when you travel an hour sooner when you are in the bog. Fish traps can be placed and return to later, but there is a chance of them having no fish, one to three fish, your fish dead and eaten, or the trap being broken entirely depending on how many days might have passed. Fish can also rot away after a few days if not roasted or sold ahead of time.
Reactions: While most of the game will provide you choices you can click on, gray text can display additional information such as whether there is nothing more that can be done at a location or if more reputation is required. Early on, you have a chance to type in your name and that of your animal companion. Some settlements will offer you a chance to type in specific people or locations that may unlock additional features. Unfortunately, some events may also require you to type in specific commands. This is reminiscent to the old style text-based adventures where you had to type words like "look" or "smell" to make any form of progress. This is perhaps the biggest drawback of the game since it isn't always clear what to do. Key aspects such as the Beholder tree or Gale Rock services has a ton of different commands. Being a scholar will outright tell you what you need to type for one puzzle and the option to learn about one encounter becomes available if you return later on. Though, the updated bestiary from the Pelt can be extremely helpful since you practically encounter each and every one of them in the game at some point.
Summary
Review: The adventure alone is worth the price of admission. There are slight variations to the fantasy setting that takes some getting used to like how "shells" is mentioned instead of bodies, but there is a long list of fun mythical beasts to encounter, the concept of "pneuma" as magic, and the existence of the undead. There are a ton of options in your background, dialogue, and how events unfold from your actions. Earning the respect of the locals to make any progress can become difficult at times, but there are generally enough clues to determine what needs to be done next. Hiding features behind a text prompt was perhaps the most frustrating aspect of the game. I definitely give this game a chance.