Roadwarden Proves That Games Are About More Than Just Graphics
A picture paints a thousand words, so an animated gif must paint at least 10,000. A feature film must be in the millions and a 60+ hour triple-A RPG must paint billions, if not trillions of words. But sometimes, I'd prefer the words. That's not to say Roadwarden's pixel-art maps aren't worthy of writing about, it's just that they're overshadowed by the beautiful storytelling that accompanies them.
Roadwarden’s art is lovely, but it’s there for functional reasons rather than aesthetic. It’s a map of the local area, the peninsular your titular Roadwarden is tasked with navigating, slowly revealing itself as you explore further. It’s instantly noticeable that the art takes up around a third of the screen, whereas the text takes up about half. Your options and statistics are in the final portion, which is where the RPG elements come in – managing your vitality, nourishment, and hygiene is important to survive the wilds and make a good impression on local villagers – but it’s clear the text is the most important part of Roadwarden.
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The words themselves are expertly crafted, too. All games writers are magicians in my book, but Roadwarden’s writers and the head of the Magic Circle, experts crafting a build-your-own 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 cares for their jerkin tell you more about a character than triple-A graphics ever could, and the aura emanating from a particularly supple tree root signifies its importance, the sentences sinking into reverence as they describe the towering tree.
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