Some games provide you with abstract titles that don’t fully describe the breadth of tasks you need to complete to reach the end. Please fix the road so we won’t suffer from that problem. As you play through 160 byte-sized puzzles, each asks you to do exactly what the game’s title says: fix a road, path, sidewalk, or river so that vehicles and animals can reach their destination. But despite the simple premise and casual attitude, developer Arielek offers no shortage of clever twists on the core concept and, in the process, kept me guessing as to what challenges I’d face next.
Each puzzle presents a small, attractively rendered piece of land with at least one broken road. In the lower left corner, the designated movements that you must do to solve the puzzle. While I initially found this direction restrictive in a specific order and running counter to the more casual experience I was hoping for, it ultimately led me to some incredibly rewarding moments as I solved the puzzles as the developer intended. Additionally, it provides breadcrumbs towards relief; In many cases, I wonder why a certain move is necessary at one point, only to realize that I’m overlooking a key piece of the puzzle.
It starts as a puzzle game where you simply plug in logically matching provided tiles, where you have to blow up, rearrange, swap, copy and rotate the entire land to get letters from point B to B. , problems can be solved in a couple of minutes; I immediately found some solutions. For others, I spent several minutes looking at them while trying different solutions. As I reached puzzles in the 80s, 90s, and hundreds, that trial-and-error element came into play more as the developer threw more complex puzzles my way.
Fortunately, since the action unfolds on a move-by-move basis, Please Fix the Road gives players an undo button that undoes the last action you performed. This is especially helpful for experimentation. In some cases, when I got stuck, I enjoyed using the hint button, which offers step-by-step hints but not full-on solutions; If I’m stuck on a particular step, I can get a hint from the developers about the right first move to make. This is helpful without playing the game itself, even if it completes the opening moves in your favor.
It’s a bit frustrating to have to play the clues in sequential order, regardless of any correct moves I’ve already made; It didn’t matter if I got the first three moves right; The clue mechanic is going to undo all my moves and show me the first move I’ve already made for the first clue. Fortunately, most of the time, I relied solely on my own puzzle-solving skills. Some of the puzzles later in the game had me wondering what my first move should be, which can be frustrating but ultimately satisfying once I crack the code.
The levels are not only balanced but well paced. For every level that took me longer than usual, there was always an easier puzzle around the corner to help rebuild my confidence. This constant ebb and flow kept me on my toes, not killing the momentum I had built up as I worked through the many challenges on offer. Completing each puzzle gives added satisfaction thanks to fun animations with each solution; With a charming art style, relaxing soundscapes, and gorgeously animated transitions between puzzles, Please Fix Road’s minimalist design conventions appeal to the senses in a wonderful way.
While the gimmick eventually wears thin and the complexity sometimes overwhelms the simple concept by the time you reach puzzles in the triple digits, Fix the Road shows that creativity and clever puzzle design are more important than a robust toolset or wide-ranging player freedom. It offers a tight, curated puzzle-solving experience that draws you in from the first puzzle and, through steadily evolving mechanics, delivers satisfaction at every turn.