Video Game / Roadwarden

Roadwarden is a text-based RPG developed by Moral Anxiety Studios.

The player controls a "roadwarden", a mercenary and monster hunter dispatched to a remote northern peninsula after the previous roadwarden's disappearance. They have been hired by a merchant guild to scout the region, to make connections with local leaders, and to make the roads safer for future travelers. Turns out, the last roadwarden did a pretty terrible job, and the new one is forced to clean up their mess. Given forty days to complete their mission, the roadwarden must grapple with monsters, bandits, dark magic, and tense relations between the locals.

Gameplay is left open-ended, with the player given freedom to travel across the map and progress quests in any order. In the process, they must manage their health, hunger, supplies and cleanliness, all of which affect their performance in combat and during social interactions. The roadwarden's name, class, backstory and religion are customizable, which influences both how they interact with the word and how other characters view them. Though gameplay is entirely text-based, it is supplemented by pixel art and music.

Roadwarden was released for PC platforms on September 12, 2022. On the game's one year anniversary, a final update was released that added a new side quest and a whole new ending to the game.

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Roadwarden provides examples of:

• Abandoned Mine: One of these is situated on the road to Gale Rocks, but it’s long been locked up due to the undead roaming inside. The roadwarden can venture through and unlock it to make their journeys to Gale Rocks shorter.
• Brawn Hilda: Foggy, the innkeep of Foggy's Lake, is described as a towering woman with a very stout, muscular build.
• Broken Bridge:
  • White Marshes can’t be traveled to until the roadwarden convinces the local herbalist to retract the thick, gnarled vines snaking over its road.
  • High Island is inaccessible for most of the game due to the deadly, rocky waters surrounding it. To reach it, the player needs to buy a boat or convince Aegidia to lend them her own, as well as find four people willing to join you for an expedition.
• Cave Behind the Falls: The entrance to High Island’s soil is hidden behind one of its many waterfalls.
• Consummate Professional: The roadwarden often insists on payment when undertaking a quest, a dialogue choice that can't be avoided. This can be occasionally subverted by choosing a dialogue option that involves more spiritual rewards.
• Crisis of Faith: Religious roadwardens may have one of these depending on their actions throughout their game, especially their treatment of those who practice different faiths. By the end of their journey, they may have abandoned their faith entirely.
• Difficulty Levels: The game has three: Casual, Standard and Restrictive. Casual mode removes the time limit and makes certain quests more forgiving, while Restrictive mode tightens the time limit and makes camping more punishing. The Anniversary Update added being able to customize the difficulty: number of days (45, 40, 30, or infinite), how much money they start with (10, 5, none), whether quests are easier or not, whether damage taken at night is increased or not, and whether to skip the tutorial or not.
• Do Well, But Not Perfect: Many players consider the best endings to be the ones where you do not convince the settlements to fully throw in with Hovlovan. Settlements that do fully commit themselves will fall prey to the trap Thais spoke about when you met her, gradually losing their culture and independence.
• Driven to Madness: One of Tulia’s fellow soldiers deserted the squad after losing his hand. Though he survived in the wilderness long enough to find shelter at Foggy Lake, he went mad from the ordeal.
• Driven to Suicide: It is implied Asterion impaled himself after failing to find the treasure on High Island. After finding him, the roadwarden may reflect on the stress that both of them have faced, wondering if they could end up the same way.
• Everyone Has Standards: A sidequest at Howler's Dell involves you leading a group of workers clearing up a nearby fishing dock. Midway through, the team encounter and successfully fend off a skeleton. Afterwards, the overseer desecrates the corpse by kicking its bones around and making a few jokes, wanting to get back to work as quickly as possible. However, you can argue that the dead deserves dignity and a proper burial, and the overseer will immediately agree to spare a few men putting the bones to rest.
• Even Evil Has Standards: For all her posturing and maneuvering to make Howler's Dell the cultural center of the peninsula, Thais does care enough for the rest of the settlements so that they don't lose their culture and independence. She also cares enough about the Tribe of the Green Mountain to help keep them hidden.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: If the undead are not expelled from White Marshes, the undead workers will destroy the town in the post-game once the necromancer dies.
• Exactly Exty Years Ago: The destruction of Steep House at the hands of Howler's Dell happened 10 years prior to the events of the game.
• Faking the Dead: One of Asterion’s failures was causing the death of Aegidia, Thais’ daughter, while he was escorting her to her Arranged Marriage. It’s later discovered that he actually helped Aegidia fake her death to allow her to escape her controlling mother’s grasp.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: During the opening of the game, you have the choice to be a fighter, mage, or a scholar.
  • The fighter can perform different combat abilities while they have high vitality and start with a well-crafted battle axe, plus a crossbow with three bolts.
  • The mage can use their pneuma to perform minor magical phenomena (more healing while resting, creating light, magical blasts), and start with a simple battle axe and a set of magical amulets.
  • The scholar is the only literate class and is more knowledgeable of the world, starting with a simple battle axe, writing tools, the knowledge to perform basic alchemy, and a single healing potion.
• For Your Own Good: Can be one of the reasons why the player might expel the undead from White Marshes, one way or another.
• Gaia's Revenge:
  • Settlements that expand too quickly in the Nameless Peninsula will attract the ire of beasts, which will attack and destroy the settlement in retaliation.
  • In most endings, the local Order of Truth monastery, built into a mountain cave system, is destroyed by an earthquake after the roadwarden's trip through the peninsula. Subverted if you recommend the merchant guild set up in Old Pagos and they heavily colonize the peninsula, in which case the city artisans reinforce the monastery enough to survive the earthquake.
• Golem: Eudocia, a sorceress, uses animated stone golems to do her bidding.
• Gray Is Useless: If a choice is unavailable it will be grayed-out. This also includes "thought" choices representing the roadwarden's thoughts.
• Hello, [Insert Name Here]: The player names the roadwarden and their horse early on in the game, although their default names are Leto (roadwarden) and Sodal (horse). Depending on how satisfied the merchant guild is with the roadwarden's work, you may also get to name the previously nameless peninsula.
• The Hermit: An old hermit can be found living in a cave south of Howler’s Dell. Though he is suspicious of outsiders and refuses to talk to the roadwarden, it can be discovered that he is a powerful healer and is crucial to curing the plague in Old Pagos.
• Hidden Elf Village: The Tribe of the Green Mountain. They inhabit a hidden village past the eastern road, which the other villagers have sworn to keep secret. They have isolated themselves out of fear of Hovlovan and the United Church, who destroyed their previous village.
• Honor Among Thieves:
  • Glaucia’s bandits are a good example of this. Having been driven from their long-destroyed hometown, the bandits live in a close-knit band deep within the forest. Though they prey on merchants and outsiders, they are loyal to one another and have helped those close to them.
  • Averted in the case of the thief who Glaucia might ask the roadwarden to hunt down. Once a member of the bandit group, he stole valuable gunpowder from Glaucia before fleeing.
• Island of Mystery: High Island, a deadly, uncharted isle off the cost of the peninsula. It’s filled with monsters and ruins, and is only possible to get to by rowboat, making it accessible only to the hardiest adventurers. It was the previous home of the Tribe of the Green Mountain, before invaders and a volcanic eruption drove them away. It’s also where Asterion ultimately went.
• Knight Templar: The United Church’s inquisitors are heavily implied to be these, persecuting pagans, sorcerers, necromancers and other “disrupters of peace”.
• Knowledge Broker: The innkeep Foggy acts as one of these, providing knowledge about the various other figures around the peninsula. Some of them, she’ll only tell you about for a price.
• Late to the Tragedy:
  • By the time the roadwarden arrives at the fort leading further into the peninsula, the squad inhabiting it has already been massacred by bandits and monsters, leaving only Tulia and her partner to guard it.
  • Later in the game, the fort is attacked by a troll during the roadwarden's absence, killing Tulia's partner and leaving her bedridden.
  • A long-ruined village can be found to the southwest, leaving the roadwarden to try to decipher what happened to it. It was once known as Steep House, and its population was massacred by monsters after their defenses were destroyed by the residents of Howler's Dell.
  • The roadwarden can be tasked with finding three missing hunters from the village of Creeks. All have already been met with various tragic fates deep in the woods.
  • Should the player reach the end of their search for Asterion, the previous roadwarden, all they find is his zombified corpse in an empty treasure room. At least they're able to finally put him to rest and give closure to his family.
• Locked Door:
  • The exit to the abandoned mine near Gale Rocks is locked off and inaccessible until you retrieve the key.
  • An old tower along the eastern road can be rested in, but its door is locked. The roadwarden can either search for the key or hack the door down (though doing the latter will reduce how much shelter the dolmen provides).
  • The abandoned dolmen has a secret room, which can be unlocked with a key provided by a local merchant.
• Manipulative Bastard: Thais manipulates the population of Howler's Dell to her own ends and is seen as a tyrant by many other characters. Her ambitions led to the destruction of a neighboring town, Steep House.
• Mirror Character: If you ask Glaucia about Asterion's motives for going to High Island, his goal for coming to the region ends up mirroring whatever you chose at the beginning of the game.
• Modular Epilogue: The ending is split into several short scenes: the first few deals with the roadwarden's return to Hovlovan and their meeting with the merchants' guild, and the rest describe the fate of the various settlements and noteworthy characters along the peninsula.
• Multiple-Choice Past: At the beginning of the game, the player gets to pick the roadwarden's backstory and goals. Throughout their adventure, they are also presented with multiple-choice options that let them shape certain elements of Hovlovan, and how the roadwarden spent their time there. Notably, along with their task to make connections for their home guild, the player chooses the roadwarden’s own personal quest at the beginning of their adventure. Fulfilling it during the game offers extra bonuses. At the end of the game, when the player returns to Hovlovan, its current state reflects the dialogue options chosen about it over the course of the game.
• Multiple Endings: The Anniversary Update added a second ending where the roadwarden abandons their job for the merchants' guild and stays in the peninsula.
• Necromancer: Orentius, the priest of White Marshes. He uses a small army of undead corpses both to protect the village, and to help them with tasks such as farming. The undead put the village in conflict with both the roadwarden and other settlements, as they are seen as a threat to the safety of the North. The roadwarden can try to deal with the necromancer by either convincing him to give up his ways, or leading a raid on White Marshes with the peninsula’s other towns. The former is much more difficult to do without the correct magical knowledge.
• Nice Day, Deadly Night: Though daytime travel is hardly free of threats, monsters and undead become so active during the night that safe travel becomes impossible. The player needs to either find safe lodgings before nightfall or hunker down and try to survive the night (and take serious health damage in the process).
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • The previous roadwarden, Asterion, tried to improve things in the region, yet he became mostly known for screwing things up and breaking promises. Ultimately, few of them are surprised or upset to learn about his death, aside from a few people he managed to help, like Aegidia and Eudocia.
  • If the player does too good of a job with their mission, the peninsula ends up heavily colonized by the merchant guilds, who wrestle the region tightly under the grip.
• Not Using the "Z" Word: Undead are referred to as “shells”, which is the same word used to refer to a body, living or dead. The implication is that in the game's setting, the body is seen as separate from and ancillary to the spirit.
• Our Zombies Are Different: Anyone who dies without their body being burnt is destined to have their "shell" — their body — change into an undead. This change is linked with the fogs that drift over the peninsula at night, making nighttime travel even more dangerous.
• Permanently Missable Content: It's possible to run out of ways to build up your relationship with several groups and individuals, resulting in you being unable to complete quests requiring a high level of trust from them. Notable examples are Caius and the Tribe of the Green Mountain, where making a good first impression is required to get any further interactions.
• Persona Non Grata:
  • The roadwarden becomes this in Howler’s Dell if they betray Thais but fail to overthrow her.
  • If the roadwarden leads a raid on White Marshes to rid it of undead, they will be unable to return afterwards.
  • Should the roadwarden convince Gale Rocks to retract its support for Glaucia’s bandits, the roadwarden will be beaten, mugged and banned from her camp upon their return.
  • If the roadwarden ventures to High Island without the permission of the Tribe of the Green Mountain, they will chase them off should they try to visit again.
• The Plague: The western settlement of Old Pagos was stricken by an unknown disease, leading its population to impose a self-quarantine on the entire village. The player may try to assist them, or they may leave the town to its fate. The plague can only be cured with the help of the mysterious hermit living near Howler’s Dell, who can expel the disease with the exposed fruit of the Beholder tree. It takes a lot of effort to force the fruit to bloom, and Howler’s Dell’s residents won’t be happy. However, Old Pagos’ residents will quickly recover, and the village will get back on its feet by the following year.
• Posthumous Character: You only get to know Asterion via second-hand sources: what other characters have to say about him, his actions and his impacts to the peninsula. By the time you get to encounter him in person on High Island, his soul has long left its shell.
• Regenerating Health: Zigzagged. Your health indeed regenerates, but generally only if your hunger bar is full and you’re getting proper rest at an inn or other lodgings.
• Resources Management Gameplay: You have four important meters: health, hunger, armor and cleanliness. You also have to manage other supplies, along with your money ("bones").
  • Health can be lowered in combat (and obviously, if you run out, it's Game Over). It can be recovered through resting while well-fed, magical healing, or by drinking a rare health potion.
  • Hunger lowers over time, or after taking certain exhausting actions. If it runs out, you perform poorly in combat and can't heal while resting. It can be raised by eating food, or by staying in an inn that provides meals.
  • Armor can be damaged in combat, and must be repaired by a tailor. You can also buy a repair kit to do it yourself anywhere, though your lack of experience means it will take longer.
  • Cleanliness is reduced by combat or certain actions such as exploring in unhygienic areas. Though it can be partially raised by washing oneself, the player needs certain cleaning supplies (e.g. soap) to raise it further.
• Run or Die: Several of the combat encounters have the roadwarden hopelessly outmatched against multiple enemies, resulting in running being the only option where you'll survive.
• Second-Person Narration: Given this is a text adventure game, this is almost a given. However, "thought" choices and journal entries are written in the first person.
• Secret Room: A dark, seemingly-empty dolmen has a secret room hidden beneath it, containing a valuable health potion. To find it, the roadwarden needs to purchase a lantern to safely see around the darkened room.
• Self-Care Epiphany: The personal quests of helping others or becoming a hero both have two endings when completed. If the roadwarden realizes they've done a lot of good and avoids pursuing their goal any further, this leads to the better of the two endings as the roadwarden puts their own well-being and safety first.
• Solitary Sorceress: Eudocia, an enchantress living alone in a large, stone house. She is disliked by both villagers and monks, but is still willing to help the roadwarden if they gain her trust.
• The Team: When journeying to High Island, the roadwarden can gather together a team of companions. Potential teammates can either be hired, or they can be recruited if their trust has been earned.
• Timed Mission:
  • The roadwarden is given 40 days to accomplish their mission (though this differs between Difficulty Levels: Restrictive mode gives you a 30-day limit, while Casual mode removes the limit entirely).
  • The scavenger in the ruined village has a time limit somewhere around 10 days before his hideout is discovered by the goblins. If you give him food, he won't have to risk hunting and can stay a few more days.
  • The quest to hunt the bird expires after some time. If you complete the hunt, you'll be tasked with passing a message to Creeks so they can expect the bird, and this expires the day after.
• Unicorn: These exist deep within the woods, though they subvert common tropes by being both aggressive, very deadly toward perceived attackers, and monstrous in shape and size.
• Untrusting Community:
  • Gale Rocks is known for its distrust for outsiders, partially due to its associations with bandits. This makes the town especially difficult to navigate for newcomers.
  • The villagers of White Marshes have isolated themselves in the western bogs, due to their fear of outsiders and monsters. They aren’t too welcoming toward the roadwarden, should they be resourceful enough to traverse the swamps.
• Video Game Caring Potential: The game offers plenty of opportunities to help out residents of the peninsula, often at the player’s detriment.
  • The player often gets opportunities to take good care of their horse, grooming and feeding it when appropriate.
  • Most encounters with wild animals can be ended non-lethally, and the game keeps track of how many animals you've spared.
  • Quintus is faced with almost certain death, perpetually guarding the pass through the center of the woods. The player can give him a small fortune so he can afford to relocate somewhere safer during the night.
  • A woman in White Marshes asks the roadwarden to retrieve a bag of her savings, but when they find it, only a single coin is left. The player can choose to give her the full amount she’d expected anyway, allowing her to afford a caravan out of the peninsula.
  • By giving up the fruit of the Beholder tree, which is only obtainable by sacrificing your own blood and pneuma-filled items, you can cure the plague of Old Págos.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: The game offers plenty of opportunities to leave the peninsula worse than you found it, often to your own advantage.
  • You are typically given the option to lie when told to keep secrets and when reporting back to someone.
  • You can spy for Thais in exchange for coin, and can assist her in raiding White Marshes.
• Worthless Treasure Twist: One of the characters was trying to find a large cache of enchanted blades, but if you discover the location where they were supposedly stored, all you find are some ordinary metal scraps in the room where Asterion died.
• You Are in Command Now: Tulia became a lieutenant in the field after the deaths or desertions of nearly her entire squad.

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