Please Fix the Road

Genre: Puzzle

Players: 1

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Review:

Please Fix the Road is a Puzzle game released on PC in 2022, then ported to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch in 2024. This game has players using limited resources to try to repair or connect disconnected roads and paths in each of the game’s diorama-like levels, ensuring that everyone can reach their desired destination.

The presentation in this game is a wonderful example of how you can do a lot with a little. The visuals use fairly simple 3D for these little scenes the game presents, but the nice lighting and grid-like nature of the pieces makes them seem almost like little modular scale models, and the way levels transition from one to the next is almost like each level is being deconstructed and remade into the next level, which is a really nice touch. This is all backed by a relaxed soundtrack that is pitch-perfect for this sort of Puzzle game.

For the gameplay itself, it would have been really easy to make a game like this into a simple task of “put the right pieces into the right spots”, but Please Fix the Road is actually a bit smarter than that. Players need to clear away pieces with bombs before placing pieces, and both bombs and pieces you’re placing can take up far more space than what you actually need, forcing you to find the extra room without destroying pieces in place that you need to use. Later on, there are additional types of pieces that add further complications, keeping things interesting throughout the game.

I do have a few problems with this game, though. First, pieces are elevation-specific, meaning that a low road won’t attach two road pieces on a high hill, or vice versa. This is all well and good except that it’s not always clear exactly what elevation a piece is, and sometimes you’ll have to place them and then undo that action in a manner that’s far too much like trial and error and wastes players’ time.

Tied into this problem is the issue that even though this game uses 3D visuals, you are very limited in how you can move the camera, and you’re not allowed to spin things around to view the other side, or even see any alternate angles other than a higher angle from the same perspective. When you’re trying to figure out the height of a piece that’s behind another piece, this can be needlessly frustrating.

Still, while Please Fix the Road isn’t without its problems, this is overall a well-made, creative, and relaxing Puzzle game. There are definitely places that could be improved here, but despite this I think Puzzle fans will want to give this game a look.

tl;dr – Please Fix the Road is a Puzzle game about destroying disconnected parts of roads and then connecting them using specific pieces. This game has some issues with perspective and piece height, but overall this is a surprisingly fresh take on this type of puzzle with a good presentation. Gamers looking for a relaxed puzzle experience will want to check this out.

Grade: B

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