Roadwarden is without a doubt one of the best story-driven fantasy games I've played in years. Fans of The Witcher, the Farseer Trilogy, LotR, Earthsea, and many other classic fantasy novels will all find something to enjoy here.

Roadwarden is a gamified Choose Your Own Adventure book, tarred and feathered with sepia and pixels. The old school aesthetic combined with RPG system mechanics lured me in, then I got hooked by the low fantasy worldbuilding that's beautifully complimented with weighty roleplaying consequences. You're placed in the boots of a freshly trained, and soon to be overworked, civil servant on horseback armed with an axe and a customer service oriented focus. The primary objective is to uncover why contact was lost with the previous Roadwarden, who was assigned to patrol a peninsula at the unmapped edges of the kingdom's frontier.

Class choice significantly changes your available approaches to problem solving, and a 'personal quest' of sorts is selected to provide another narrative angle with its own benefits and pitfalls. There's 40 days on the clock to accomplish your goals before the region locks down for the winter, so avoid becoming like the bodied players in the negative reviews and manage your time wisely whilst roaming the untamed wilds. Don't hyper focus on a single region, act like the militant postal service you're equipped to be and macromanage your neighborhood route. Engage in local politics, accept Jesus Christ into your heart, condone necromancy, consider the social ramifications that misdemeanor and felony aren't in this fantasy lexicon yet, then die violently because a bunch of flesh eating gibbons induced a full body stroke with magical screams. Spoiling any of the characters or plot points would be a great injustice, but know that this meat's dripping with flavor. Just as a note-- using a fighter with no guides, I finished up everything my heart desired with a whole week remaining, and my play was definitely not super optimal 100% of the time.

Definitely try to make the most out of your first go-- it might be because I'm not the typical visual novel player, but for me, this is one of those titles that can only truly be experienced once since prior game knowledge invalidates much of the mystery and intrigue. My only real complaint, and I'm gonna be really vague to not spoil anything, is that there are some potential forced sequences where the player may be given the impression that a particular plot point can only be resolved a certain way, however, the game's epilogue does allow the player autonomy to choose a different outcome as long as the proper conditions are met. There could have been a better way for the game's systems to account for a player's potential shifting motives but, ultimately, it isn't a huge deal. Just put some faith in the system.

By the way, game is woke AF and would be on that Steam woke content blacklist if its moderators could read.

pretty good jaunt