A picture is worth a thousand words, so an animated gif should paint at least 10,000 of them. A feature film has to run into the millions, and a triple-A RPG over 60 hours has to paint billions, if not trillions of words. But sometimes I prefer the words. That’s not to say Roadwarden’s pixel art maps aren’t worth writing about, it’s just that they are overshadowed by the wonderful storytelling that comes with them.
Roadwarden’s art is beautiful, but it’s there for functional rather than aesthetic reasons. It’s a map of the environment, the peninsula your titular Roadwarden must navigate, slowly revealing itself as you continue exploring. It is immediately noticeable that the art takes up about a third of the screen, while the text takes up about half. Your options and stats are in the last part, where the RPG elements come in – managing your vitality, nutrition and hygiene is important to survive the wilderness and make a good impression on local villagers – but it’s clear that the text is the most important part of Roadwarden.
The words themselves are also expertly crafted. All game writers are magicians in my book, but the Roadwarden writers and the head of the Magic Circle, experts who create a buildable adventure that reads more like a great fantasy novel than a video game. The vivid descriptions of people, places and things evoke a deep sense of history and personality – details like how a soldier takes care of their bastard tell you more about a character than triple-A graphics ever could, and the aura that emanates of a particularly supple tree root means its importance, the sentences sink in reverence as they describe the towering tree.
Nothing is overstated though, Roadwarden is overrun with a sense of mystery and suspicion. Once I snuck past a bald wolf in the deep woods instead of rushing towards it to rescue the poor soul whose leg was caught between its voracious teeth. Only later did someone tell me the true nature of the beast, and I was doubly pleased with my covert approach. However, there were plenty of mysteries, side missions, and storylines that remained open when my time was up. You quickly admit that you’ve been defeated and realize that you can’t and won’t discover everything in the in-game month you have to explore this mysterious peninsula. You will meet many people, learn many secrets and discover many truths, but just as many questions will remain unanswered.
These narrative threads don’t necessarily relate to each other, but all weave a huge tapestry of a fantasy world that feels real. The characters feel like they actually live there, your actions feel like they really affect them, and the stories have an impact in a calm way. You get some medicine for someone’s daughter, pick some berries in exchange for a hot meal. You’re not here to save the world, you’re here to charter, report to the city and, if you like, help.
Roadwarden evokes the greats of narrative RPGs, Disco Elysium and Citizen Sleeper, albeit in style rather than substance. However, as with both of the above, capitalism is a constant and overbearing presence, but it almost feels more subtle. Your job is to oversee the peninsula so that the town guild can expand its presence there – you are an agent of expansion, an invader in the wilderness. Unless you play this role and do double duty to kick these people into the ground, every village you discover and every person you help will be filled with guilt. No matter what your own intentions are, which can range from trying to protect a family member to trying to escape your past, the guild uses you to sink its claws into the peninsula and unleash its oppressive regime. expand.
I’ve never been more excited to see a revival of text-heavy story RPGs, and Roadwarden is the best of them. While Disco Elysium has its unique painterly aesthetic inspired by the art of Craig Mullins, Citizen Sleeper has the beautiful character designs of Guillaume Singelin and Roadwarden are complementary pixel maps, but these games are all about the stories they tell with their words. Whether it’s paragraphs of vivid descriptions, alcohol-induced introspection, or conversations with strangers about the deepest facets of humanity, this wave of words proves you don’t need triple-A hyper-realism to tell a great story.
0 Comments