And that has made all the difference.

People often mistake Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” for a sort of morality tale; an explanation of how taking the road less-traveled is somehow the way to lead a good and righteous life and doing so has, as the poem’s final line claims, makes all the difference. The funny thing is, upon closer inspection of the preceding stanzas, it’s readily apparent that both roads are equally attractive and easily traveled, and the amount of difference that the choice between the two has made is negligible at best.

What all of this has to do with developer Spry Fox’s new roguelike, Road Not Taken, is unclear, though. In the game, players take control of a mysterious ranger tasked by the town’s mayor with saving “at least half” of the children that somehow manage to find themselves lost in the woods every winter. Do this for fifteen years (levels), and you’ve beaten the game.

It’s easy to fall in love with the first few hours of Road Not Taken, given its adorable art style, quaint music, and the promise of secrets to unlock and puzzles to solve. However, the game’s relative lack of substance and incredibly stilted learning curve prevent it from becoming the instant classic that it could otherwise have been.

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Upon entering the forest at the start of each winter, players are greeted with procedurally generated grids populated with any number of objects ranging from trees to bears to evil mutated rabbits which must be navigated in the course of returning the lost children to their respective mothers. The catch is that moving around while carrying an object drains your energy, which upon depletion results in permadeath. The easiest way to move things around, then, is to throw objects in order to minimize the amount of energy expended.

Additionally, the game’s true dynamic results from the interesting matching mechanic it implements, with a large number of secrets to be obtained through matching different objects and creatures with each other. All of these secrets are recorded in your journal and are the only things that stick around after death and into the next attempted career. While this starts out as rather interesting and appears to allow for a great deal of experimentation and exploration, after throwing things around willy-nilly for several hours and discovering most of the game’s secrets, it becomes more tedious than novel.

Outside of the woods, players have the ability to interact with the townsfolk and build relationships with them – eventually working towards a marriage. Unfortunately, all of these relationships are built entirely upon gift-giving, and as such seem a tad shallow; however, this is the best way to get modifiers for your game. In return for your gifts of rice, berries, and coins, the NPCs will furnish your home with charms that modify the game’s difficulty (often in ridiculous ways such as providing fewer children to save, making the game easier while simultaneously making the puzzles harder for the few children that do remain) and models of the various critters and items found in the woods. These models allow players to ban particularly annoying items from showing up in the woods, which is truly a saving grace.

The game’s learning curve also leaves a great deal to be desired. While the first few levels are engrossing and charming, after the fourth or fifth year, the difficulty takes a turn for the Dark Souls, punishing players for a single wrong movement or placement. While, of course, the simple nature of  Road Not Taken being a roguelike does make repeated deaths something to be expected, the absolutely absurd jump in difficulty so early in the game is likely enough to frustrate and potentially turn off a number of players — particularly since this is a free title for PlayStation Plus subscribers.

Mel Brooks references aside, the difficulty ramps up quickly after the fourth year.

Despite its flaws, Road Not Taken is a fun roguelike with plenty of charm and personality. While the novelty of the game’s driving mechanics might wear thin after a couple of attempts, they offer enough depth and challenge to provide players with more than enough replay value. Unfortunately, it doesn’t offer enough to distinguish itself in any truly meaningful ways – making the choice between it and any other example of the genre negligible at best.

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