The Traveler's Path Review

Sometimes, all you need from a game is a simple premise and a satisfying gameplay loop, and that’s exactly what The Traveler's Path sets out to do. This logic-based puzzler will have you swapping and rotating sections of roads on a grid to ensure our traveller reaches their destination safely. This is all about the puzzles, as aside from a short introduction introducing players to the controls, you won’t find any dialogue or narrative design of any kind. Sometimes it’s just all about the journey, not the destination, you know?

The Traveler’s Path is a very easy game to understand. Each of the 54 levels has a start and end point, and various tiles — some with sections of path, some with obstacles — that begin all jumbled up and need to be swapped around with one another and rotated in order to secure an unobstructed trail to the goal. This is done using one button to select a piece, then another to rotate it, as well as using the analogue stick to move the selected tile to its destination. There’s a variety of path shapes too, from T-junctions and crossroads, to the simple straight or corner pieces, so our traveller doesn’t always have the simplest path to follow!

And, for the most part, that’s it! There are the occasional levels that include multiple travellers, each with their own separate exit point, or coins which must be collected in a specific order, but the main puzzle element remains the same. Certain blocks are colour-coded, though; brown pieces can’t be moved but can be rotated, and the opposite is true of dark green ones. However, at no point did any of the levels stump me, but I could see this being the perfect amount of challenge for children.

There are often times when only a small amount of the path pieces are needed to reach the goal, meaning you end up with a surplus of unused path tiles. So remember, don’t overthink it!

Visually, The Traveler’s Path is charming, albeit simplistic. The different environments — from grassy areas to snowy tundras — are well-designed, and though the game doesn’t feature an abundance of detail (this is essentially Pipe Mania, after all) the small touches like rocks and shrubbery on certain tiles do bring it to life a bit more.

Combined with the visuals, the audio can actually be very relaxing! The almost lullaby-esque nature of the game’s soundtrack will certainly help you unwind (if the uncomplicated puzzles didn’t already) and despite the fairly repetitive nature of the music, it’s hard to knock such a small indie title when what is included is just so peaceful.

It may be a short experience, with my time to unlock the Platinum trophy clocking in at around 45 minutes (you only need to beat level 32 to unlock it) with my total completion time for all 54 levels was around an hour and a half. Sure, it’s a simplistic puzzle game that older gamers will breeze through with little to no thought, but for younger gamers, the cutesy aesthetic and impossible-to-mess-up gameplay may have them scratching their heads for a few hours!