Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Röki - A Scandinavian Folklore Adventure by Polygon Treehouse

WallaceChambers

Learned
Joined
Jul 29, 2019
Messages
311


Röki is an adventure game inspired by Scandinavian folklore; a dark contemporary fairy tale underpinned by a touching narrative, alluring art style, ancient puzzles and atmospheric exploration.

We join Tove on a fantastical journey to save her family. A journey that takes her deep into a hidden and long forgotten world of lost folklore filled with strange locations and even stranger creatures.

Explore the ancient wilderness, solve its mysteries, save your family in this modern adventure game for all.

There's a demo available for 48 hours as part of the Festival of Games promotion on Steam:


I played the demo and it was really fun. A lot of heavy studio ghibli vibes in this one, it's very polished.
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
Played it for a couple of minutes and it does look very nice indeed. Great atmosphere and seems to have proper puzzles. The only thing that bothered me were the Tove's grunts.
 

WallaceChambers

Learned
Joined
Jul 29, 2019
Messages
311
Just started playing, got through the opening sequence where
you're escaping from the Jotnar and Lars is kidnapped.
Theres a good build to the story and a lot of puzzles so far. All of them have been very easy but the opening is clearly a tutorial sequence and it's covering the very basics of exploration, interaction, item combination, etc. Which makes sense because I've actually seen ppl get stuck in the demo because they didn't know to combine items. In any case I've now made it to the part where the game has opened up to its first big explorable environment. The puzzles are starting to ramp up a bit so we'll see where they inevitably settle. But I'm enjoying the story and the game is absolutely gorgeous to look at.

It's been getting a lot of really positive reviews and most impressions I've seen have the game clocked at ~10 hrs. So I'm expecting great things to come, I hope it delivers.
 

WallaceChambers

Learned
Joined
Jul 29, 2019
Messages
311
So yeah I'm way deeper into the game now
(just freed the wolf Jotun from the parasite)
and I'm not exaggerating when I say this game is an instant classic. It's dripping with personality, the characters are full of charm, the game opens up in a big way and is full of well designed puzzles that aren't frustrating but still satisfy me as a longtime adventure fan.

Unless Polygon Treehouse totally shits the bed after the first big area of this game (I'm 5 hours in out of a supposed 10~15 playtime) then this will be easily be a 9/10 imo if not slightly higher.
 

WallaceChambers

Learned
Joined
Jul 29, 2019
Messages
311
I think the only way someone wouldn't like this game is if they just have no interest in this sort of Ghibli esque child-lead fantasy adventure story. But if you connect with that style on a narrative level this is a must play game imo. It's only getting better as I continue on.
 

WallaceChambers

Learned
Joined
Jul 29, 2019
Messages
311
Just finished the game and I was thinking of tempering my praise so I wouldn't come off as overstating the case, but I'd be straight up lying if I didn't say this was one of my all-time favorite adventures. It really blows me away that this was the first game from a studio that's (mostly) two people.

Roki's got the puzzles, it's got the characters, it's got the story, the music and it for damn sure has the art. I was so worried it wouldn't stick the landing like so many other great adventure games, but it does that and then some.

Roki doesn't rest on its laurels, either. Right until the very end the game is introducing cool new concepts while simultainously peeling back narrative layers. It's entirely possible that someone might not be as enamored as I've been with the game if they're not similarly in love with the art style and folklore fantasy plot. But if Roki doesn't count as a great adventure I'd really like to know what does. For my money the game has it all.

I hope this is a massive success for Polygon Treehouse and I can't wait to see what they do next.
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
If I have one criticism of the game it's that it's a bit too fond of busywork. Like Lars' toilet break, freeing up the tomte, or making the second mask - things that don't really pose any challenge and just pad playtime. But I'm willing to let it slide because the rest of it is so damn good.
 

WallaceChambers

Learned
Joined
Jul 29, 2019
Messages
311
If I have one criticism of the game it's that it's a bit too fond of busywork. Like Lars' toilet break, freeing up the tomte, or making the second mask - things that don't really pose any challenge and just pad playtime. But I'm willing to let it slide because the rest of it is so damn good.

I can agree with that.
If I'm getting into critiques, the entire deer jotun puzzle area with the enlarging & shrinking wand is my least favorite part of the game. I didn't outright dislike it and there was a particular puzzle in the section that I really enjoyed but on the whole it felt less creative than the wolf & bear areas. Mechanically, its probably more creative than the wolf area (although I really liked the statue puzzle.) but since it reuses an environment you've already been to it feels less special than the other ones.

But Chapter 3's big open area right after that, though... So good.
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
If I'm getting into critiques, the entire deer jotun puzzle area with the enlarging & shrinking wand is my least favorite part of the game.
That part with mushrooms was actually the only one so far where I legitimately got stuck - it took me a long time to realize you can shrink the mushroom ladder from the central area. Which is quite brilliant in retrospect, so it redeems that part of the area for me. Although it did have some pointless busywork as well, when finding the correct alva home.
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
Fun fact: I was wondering if naming the main character Tove has something to do with Tove Jansson, and apparently it does - she did have a younger brother named Lars.
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
Ok, finished it. Sorry, toro, but I have to (mostly) agree with WallaceChambers on that one. The game absolutely nails the "fluff" - art, story, sound design - and the overall puzzle level is fairly good, especially by modern standards. I'd say overall it's bit more challenging than Whispers of a Machine or Gibbous, but a bit easier than Monkey Island. At times it felt a little too generous with clues. But it also might be that it seems a little easier than it is because most of the time it's very open-ended, so you can always do something else while waiting for an idea to pop to your mind.
MRY, if you're looking for something to play with your children that would be a very good fit - it deals with some adult themes, but the framing narrative is a very archetypal fairy tale about a girl venturing into a magical forest to save her brother. And the game does a pretty great job of recreating the fairy tale feel.
 

agris

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Apr 16, 2004
Messages
6,764
Sounds delightful, I’m going to put it in the list for when mine are a bit older.

I saw there was controller support listed, is it any decent? I’ve never played a PnC adventure game with one before.
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
I saw there was controller support listed, is it any decent? I’ve never played a PnC adventure game with one before.
I have a suspicion it was designed with controller in mind first, because it doesn't support mouse - without a controller, you just use keyboard. It's a wee bit fiddly but at a couple of points, but otherwise works very well, and I suspect with a controller it'll be actually better.
 

WallaceChambers

Learned
Joined
Jul 29, 2019
Messages
311
Ok, finished it. Sorry, toro, but I have to (mostly) agree with WallaceChambers on that one. The game absolutely nails the "fluff" - art, story, sound design - and the overall puzzle level is fairly good, especially by modern standards. I'd say overall it's bit more challenging than Whispers of a Machine or Gibbous, but a bit easier than Monkey Island. At times it felt a little too generous with clues. But it also might be that it seems a little easier than it is because most of the time it's very open-ended, so you can always do something else while waiting for an idea to pop to your mind.

I should say that early on I recognized the Journal and conversations with the Tree of Many acted as the game's hint system, so I intentionally limited my time with them. I read a journal entry where Tove preemptively mentioned her use of a grindstone and noped out of reflexively reading each entry afterward.

From that point I only read journal entries after clearing an area and consulted the tree one time
about needing to find the water monsters name.
So apart from me literally not knowing exactly how many clues there actually are, I'd probably agree that the hints are too generous. But the game also makes it really easy to forego that extra help and solve things for yourself, with only the observational nudges and whatnot.

Which I'd definitely reccomend for ppl who play a lot of adventure games.
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
I should say that early on I recognized the Journal and conversations with the Tree of Many acted as the game's hint system, so I intentionally limited my time with them.
I don't mean the hint system - I almost never looked at the journal myself. But it's also sometimes when Tove comments on an obstacle she's too explicit about what she needs to overcome it.
Like the dark cave near the wolf shrine, where she says she needs a torch, or in the second dream where she needs a bridge. I wish the game was a little more vague/cryptic at such points, saying instead something like "I need a light source" (not a torch) or "How do I cross this gap?" (not mentioning the bridge).
Granted you still need to figure out what exactly to use at such points, but I felt it was made a bit too easy.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom