PC; Ariel JurkowskiStylish and minimalistic, this gentle, quietly demanding game offers escape and satisfaction and will entertain for hours
f the success of Wordle proved anything this year it’s that, in times of stress and uncertainty, good puzzle games provide a means of temporary escape for the brain. And while there’s no shortage of competitors in this crowded genre, Please Fix the Road is a stylish and pleasingly minimalistic newcomer that deserves an audience.
As the title suggests, this is a game about mending transport routes – not just roads, but canals and railway tracks too. On each level, you’re given a small landscape with an incomplete route, and you must use the tools available to allow travellers to get from A to B. Bombs clear land, while road tiles let you fill in the missing sections of your network.
Extra complications soon emerge. The ground isn’t always flat, so you may have to work out how to use hills and bridges, and on some levels you need to simultaneously complete a road and a rail or canal network, requiring some clever spatial thinking and multitasking. A few levels in, a copy and paste trick allows you to manipulate terrain blocks in new ways, and places fresh demands on your planning skills and your ability to mentally manipulate three-dimensional spaces.
In the background, a light, jazzy score underlines the fact that this is very much a game you’re allowed to take your time with; there’s no ticking clock, and the tension is minimal. You can always undo unwise moves or start again from scratch if you get it wrong, and hints can get you started if you’re stumped. Also, there can be gaps and dead-ends all over the grid as long as you make at least one functioning route.
Please Fix the Road is a gentle, quietly demanding puzzler that will keep you entertained for many hours, especially if you ration out the 150 levels. There’s always something new to experiment with or some cute little visual flourish to enjoy, and watching the last tile slot into place, then seeing the car whizzing along to its destination never stops being pleasing. In these discombobulating times, here is a little puzzle box that brings order to chaos, if only for a few stolen seconds.
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