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Road Not Taken review: Take it
The developers at Spry Fox aren't sure how to describe Road Not Taken. They say it's kind of a puzzle game and kind of an RPG. It's a little cute but also pretty dark. There's survival, crafting and randomly generated levels like in Don't Starve, but it also has a rich narrative. Okay, it's time we put this descriptive ping pong to rest: Road Not Taken is a roguelike. This is the most important game mechanic to remember when booting up Road Not Taken – you will die and lose progress and it will suck, but you will keep playing. You will keep playing for the puzzles that test your ability to strategize and plan movements three, four steps ahead of time. You will keep playing so that no more helpless, freezing children die alone in the forest. You will keep playing to discover new friends, lovers and enemies around the town, or to figure out new crafting recipes in the woods. You will keep playing to see what lies underneath the protagonist's hood, and what happens to him when his limited years of life are done. Road Not Taken is a roguelike, but it's also so much more.
PlayStation Plus nabs Road Not Taken, Dragon's Crown in August
Sony has unveiled next month's PlayStation Plus lineup, announcing that subscribers will receive free downloadable copies of Road Not Taken, Crysis 3, and other featured games across its platforms in August. PlayStation 4 owners will receive Polytron's brain-bending puzzle-platformer Fez and Spry Fox's stylish roguelike Road Not Taken. PlayStation 3 subscribers get Crytek's futuristic FPS Crysis 3 and Ed Key's first-person exploration game Proteus, while PS Vita owners can look forward to Vanillaware's fantasy-themed beat-'em-up Dragon's Crown and Digital Dreams' "infographics action game" Metrico. Fez, Proteus, and Dragon's Crown are also available as Cross-Buy titles for the PlayStation 3 and PS Vita. All featured games will be freely downloadable for PlayStation Plus members in North America when the PlayStation Store updates next Tuesday. [Video: Sony]
Joystiq Streams: Rambling down the Road Not Taken [UPDATE: Relive the stream!]
Road Not Taken, Spry Fox's new roguelike puzzler for PlayStation 4 and PC, is nowhere near as outwardly forbidding as The Long Dark, which punished Joystiq Streams earlier this week, but seeing its little hooded hero huddled up against a fire in the dark, trying to make it a little bit further, fills the Joystiq crew with a lurking dread. Blame this stream on our overactive imaginations and our love of freaking ourselves out. Joystiq Streams Mid-Summer Terror Train continues its existential journey with Road Not Taken at 4PM EST on Joystiq.com/Twitch. Our own Jess Conditt will play through an early look at the game while Spry Fox's David Edery hangs out. Joystiq Streams broadcasts every Tuesday and Thursday at 4PM EST on Joystiq.com/Twitch. [Images: Spryfox]
Road Not Taken hitting PS4, PC August 5
Spry Fox's stylish roguelike puzzler Road Not Taken will launch for the PlayStation 4 and PC platforms in August, the studio revealed today. Road Not Taken is an overhead-view adventure game in which players have a limited number of in-game years to solve environmental puzzles, befriend NPCs, and advance the game's evolving narrative before death claims their character. An energy mechanic defines gameplay throughout, as players must carefully weigh their options in order to avoid burdening their character with too much physical strain. Road Not Taken will debut in the PlayStation Store and on Steam August 5. A PlayStation Vita version will launch this fall. [Video: Spry Fox]
Here is IndieCade's E3 showcase lineup
With E3 just over a week away, IndieCade revealed its lineup of games at the event. The "Showcase @ E3" will feature 34 games and installations, marked by Dennaton Games' top-down shooter sequel Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, Spry Fox's Road Not Taken for PS4, Vita, PC and Mac and Hohokum. Sony Santa Monica revealed earlier this month that Hohokum will launch this summer for PS4, PS3 and Vita. Games included in the showcase were selected from submissions for the upcoming IndieCade Festival, slated to be held in Culver City, CA in October. IndieCade will also host a Sportsfriends PS4 tournament at its booth during the week, which qualifier periods held on Tuesday, June 10 and Wednesday, June 11 with the tournament planned for the morning of Thursday, June 12. Head past the break to see the full list of games in the showcase. [Image: Dennaton Games]
Road Not Taken's quirky cast of characters in gifs
Steam, PS4 and Vita game Road Not Taken features a lineup of lost, lonely and lovable characters. Some of them hang out in the town square, some are worried parents of children who've wandered into the forest, others are those scared children, and still more are beasties of various sizes and shapes. The game allows you, the hooded and magical finder, to form relationships with these NPCs, 15 years at a time. Whenever you enter a forest to save lost children, one year of your life passes. After 15 years, you die and have a chance to start anew, making new friends and lovers, with some talents from your previous life carried to the new one. Spry Fox has shared a few of these characters and settings with Joystiq in the best way possible – gifs. Check out the adorable art style and spooky things of Road Not Taken below. There's also a contest happening right now that asks you to submit a sound effect for the in-game fox. Yes, the contest is called "What does the Spry Fox say?" [Images: Spry Fox]
The fox says whatever you want in Spry Fox's Road Not Taken contest
Road Not Taken, the deep strategy-puzzle game from Spry Fox, has a problem. The game has a bunch of foxes, but Spry Fox doesn't know what they say. This is a question that has haunted humanity for months – and now you have the opportunity to answer it. The "What does the Spry Fox say?" contest is live now. It asks you to create a sound effect for the sassy foxes in Road Not Taken and upload it to YouTube by April 23 with the tag "#WhatDoesSpryFoxSay." You can tweet your video to @spryfox with the same hashtag. The more likes your entry gets, the better its chances of winning: Spry Fox will pick a victor from the most popular sounds, and that noise is going straight into the game. Before you try to make the foxes drop f-bombs, note that Spry Fox won't accept offensive material. "Keep it classy," the team says. Read the full contest details here, and get inspired by the adorable dancing foxes from Road Not Taken after the break. [Images: Spry Fox]
Road Not Taken is deeper than you think
Road Not Taken looks like it could be a mobile game. The gameplay itself takes place on a series of grids, in cold, fantastical forests, where players must combine objects to clear paths and rescue children lost in the woods. It looks as if you could tap, tap, tap a tablet screen to move your little hooded character around the map. But that's only the first layer of the game.
Crafting the crunching leaves and childish laughter of Road Not Taken
Road Not Taken is indie developer Spry Fox's roguelike set in a mystical wooded land in which players solve puzzles to rescue lost children. The environment is rife with natural noises, such as crunching leaves, birdsong, wind and children's laughter, and all of these sounds were created by hand by the game's audio producer, Daniel Simmons. For the sound of leaves, Simmons picked up some dry leaves from outside of his home and crunched them. For the kids' talking and laughter, he recorded his children, ages 2 and 6. Even the music of Road Not Taken has an earthy feel, provided by his friends and bandmates playing wooden flutes and singing with a haunting vocal dexterity. Take a listen to some sounds and songs of Road Not Taken below.
Road Not Taken takes road to PS4, Vita
Road Not Taken will come to PS4 and Vita, developer Spry Fox announced during Sony's PlayStation Indie Arcade event at PAX Prime. The developer behind Triple Town plans to launch the game in 2014. Road Not Taken is described as a "puzzle roguelike," in which players set out to rescue children from forests and solve ever-changing puzzles along the way. The game includes permanent death upon failure, and with each entry into the forest, the woods will regenerate to keep the challenge going. Road Not Taken will also launch on Windows and Mac via Steam.
Road Not Taken is coming soon from Triple Town's creators
Triple Town is one of my favorite games on iOS over the past few years -- it's a puzzle game with a simple ruleset and a whole lot of complexity. The creator of that game, called Spry Fox, has announced a new title in development called Road Not Taken, and you can now see some concept art from it over on the official blog. The game is sort of roguelike, according to the developers, and as you can see above, it has some similarities to the grid-based Triple Town. But instead of building up a world, it's more about finding a path through the world, and avoiding or confronting various dangers on the way. As you can tell from the title, which refers to the famous Robert Frost poem, the game will offer various paths, and it seems like most of the strategy will come from choosing your own way. Sounds interesting. Road Not Taken isn't coming too soon -- Spry Fox says it probably won't be ready until the end of the year. But we' hope to see it on the App Store when it finally is ready to go.
Roguelike puzzler 'Road Not Taken' coming late 2013 from Triple Town dev
Triple Town developer Spry Fox has announced its next project, Road Not Taken. Like Triple Town, Road Not Taken is a puzzle game, though it looks like Spry Fox is trying something a little different this time, injecting the game with an interesting narrative structure and roguelike elements. Yes, it's a roguelike ... puzzle game. Inspired by the Robert Frost poem of the same name (minus "The"), Road Not Taken hopes to explore the idea of what happens when someone goes against the grain of society, wandering off the usual path. Spry Fox is touting a "pointillist" narrative. The idea is that, just as hundreds of tiny dots can reveal a work of art when viewed from a distance, multiple plays of Road Not Taken will begin to reveal "a greater theme." Yeah, it all sounds pretty hoity-toity, but hey, look at this adorable trailer and artwork!%Gallery-188145%
