Factsheet

Developer:
Moral Anxiety Studio

Publisher:
Assemble Entertainment

Website:
http://moralanxietystudio.com/roadwarden

Contact:
moralanxietystudio@gmail.com

Social:
twitter.com/MoralAnxiety
facebook.com/MoralAnxiety

Release Date:
12 September 2022 (digital download)

Platforms:
Windows, Linux, Mac

Price:
About $10.99 (in local currency)

Stores:
Steam
GOG
Itch.io

Language Support:
English

Target Age Group:
14+

Used Engine:
Ren’Py

Description

Roadwarden is an illustrated text-based RPG in which the player explores and changes a hostile, grim realm. It combines complex dialogues and simplified graphics of Visual Novels with mechanics and an open-world story structure of an RPG. The game is meant to provide 10+ hours of a dark and humble adventure.

The protagonist of the game is a roadwarden - one of the few people willing to put their lives in danger by traveling through wilder parts of the land, protecting travelers, connecting isolated villages, supporting merchants and facing dangerous creatures, bandits and undead. The player shapes the personality and background of their character, and prepares themselves for the journey by selecting one of the three character classes - a warrior, a mage or a scholar.

The protagonist is sent to a mysterious peninsula by a merchant guild, which hopes to expand their influence by taming this wild realm. The player is meant to explore this place and gather as many information about it as they can. Secondly, then need to find out what happened to Asterion, the previous roadwarden who was patrolling this area. There are also various sidequests and hidden activities, which can be optionally completed in various ways.

Roadwarden involves mechanics borrowed from RPGs, Visual Novels, adventure games and interactive fiction: inventory puzzles, dialogue choices, character abilities, simple survival systems, hit points and other resources, and quests restricted by in-game time.

Especially notable is the attitude system. Whenever the player encounters new characters, they can select one of the five attitudes (friendly / playful / distanced / intimidating / vulnerable) which impacts the following interaction, changes the mood and the direction of the conversation. Another advanced system involves occasional problem solving through text parsers. The player uses a keyboard to input simple commands, what creates puzzles that are not limited to a list of dialogue options.

The game uses isometric pixel art, with a color pallet limited to 8 basic colors and their additional shadows. These graphics portray areas, items and events. The music is going to be inspired by moody post rock. There is no voice acting and almost no animations.


Videos

Roadwarden - release trailer YouTube


Images

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There are far more images available for Roadwarden, but these are the ones we felt would be most useful to you. If you have specific requests, please do contact us!


Demo

Roadwarden demo is available on Steam
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1155970/Roadwarden/


Roadwarden logo dark
Roadwarden logo light

Devlog on Itch.io

The detailed description of the world of Viaticum





Description

Moral Anxiety Studio is an independent game development project led by Aureus, a Polish writer and designer. While none of the released games were made by a single person, Aureus is happy to stand behind the stories, designs, art direction and worldbuilding and he considers himself to be the creator of these games.

Aureus is building his own style of storytelling in video games, especially by focusing on small, personal tragedies, which he presents through complex dialogues. The games take place in Viaticum, a fantasy setting that has been under development for over 10 years. Aureus loves it wholeheartedly.

The most ambitious project of MAS so far was Tales From Windy Meadow, a slice-of-life Visual Novel about choosing your path and living in a community. It was developed together with Oray Studios that were responsible for a large part of pixel art graphics presented in the game.

Aureus thinks that he may have found something amazing by merging Visual Novels, RPGs and adventure or even text adventure games. He loves storytelling and artistic projects that try to do something outside of the mainstream.


Videos

Roadwarden - release trailer YouTube

Tales From Windy Meadow - trailer YouTube

Tales From Windy Meadow - 2nd trailer YouTube


Images

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logo-moralanxiety-black

Interview: Aureus
An interview with Aureus on Exilian, focused on Tales From Windy Meadow and the Viaticum setting
https://exilian.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=5907.0.

Article: Cartography and Navigation
Aureus for Worldbuilding Magazine
https://www.worldbuildingmagazine.com/2018/10/cartography-and-navigation.

Article: Technology
Aureus for Worldbuilding Magazine
https://www.worldbuildingmagazine.com/2019/04/technology.

Blog post: Themes and Worldbuilding of Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2
https://medium.com/@moralanxietystudio/the-themes-and-worldbuilding-of-pillars-of-eternity-2-deadfire-24cf469d3656.

Viaticum world
The detailed description of the world of Viaticum


Contact

General Inquiries
moralanxietystudio@gmail.com


presskit() by Rami Ismail (Vlambeer) - also thanks to these fine folks