Bad North: Jotunn Edition.
I originally picked this game up several moons ago when I was still subscribed to Humble Bundle, and as with most of my Humble Bundle games it very quickly became just another title in my library that I skipped over every time I was searching for a new game to play.
For the letter B in my A-Z, I ended up looking at a few different games and basically eeny-meeny-miney-moe'd to choose what would be the lucky choice. The decision was between Blasphemous, Basement, Basingstoke, Bad North and Bastard Bonds... and Bad North was the victor!
First off I just want to say that the UI, at first, is not intuitive. I mean the checkboxes in particular. I didn't know if things were turned off or on because it was either a white box, or a grey box. 🤷♀
So, as a result, I turned off blood splatter when I wanted it on. And I turned off the tutorial when I wanted it on. A simple X in the box would have solved this problem.
Anyway. You start off with two commanders for your defending armies. As you play through the game you can unlock other traits and things, but since this is my first playthrough I start the game with a blank slate.
My two commanders are tasked with defending this tiny landmass with two houses built upon its minuscule space.
Soon some enemies approach on a boat, so I send forth my commanders and their men to where the boat shall land and prepare to murder any who dare set foot on this island.
When all the boatspeople are defeated, I am victorious! And the people in the houses kindly give me some money as thanks for protecting them.
I died on the next island, however. 😅 So started the game anew.
As you continue on from island to island, defending the people from what I can only assume is an enemy viking faction, you make money to upgrade your people, can find items to equip your people with, and can also find more people!
Like this merry fellow, who has also given me a new starting trait for when I inevitably die again! (it is a rogue-lite afterall.)
Your commanders start off with a basic company of sword wielders, but you can upgrade them to be staunch protectors with shields, train them in the art of archery, or give them some pikes so they can thrust their way to victory.
I personally didn't find the pikemen very useful until later on in the game as more difficult enemies started to trespass upon my shores.
So straight off the bat, training your two initial people into swords-and-shields and archery seems the best choice.
The enemies pictured above are the slightly more difficult ones that I found the pikemen excelled at murdering. As soon as the bad guys made landfall, I select my pike wielding maniacs and set them forth to THRUST with all their might at the incoming pillagers.
They're dead in a second.
Without the pikemen, the swords-and-shieldsmen will wail on them for quite a while, and they seem impervious to the archer's arrows.
At first the game is quite easy and you can send all your people to each encounter as they happen, but as you progress more and more boats will start approaching at the one time.
I was lucky in the above screenshot, they all headed for the one direction so all of my people could be prepared. But as you progress, more and more you'll need to split your people up to defend different sides of the islands.
Although you can find more commanders as you play, you can only have a maximum of four active at any one time also, so there'll be plenty of splitting up the forces!
All in all, Bad North is a very, very, very simple real time tactical rogue-lite.
But it also has that special air about it that makes you want to keep playing. A good rogue-lite has that air. That addictive "one more try" and "I must keep going!" and "I need to find ALL the traits!"
Another thing I really like about this is there are island checkpoints from time to time!
So you can just turn the game off, do something else, and when you come back you don't need to start all over again like in a few other rogue-lites. Woo!
The checkpoint islands are several islands in though, but at least they're there.
Anyway. I'm enjoying it! 😊 It's definitely something I'll keep playing every now and then, now that I know what it actually is in my library and not just, "Yeah, yet another viking game, whatever, scroll past."
It's a good little chill-out game where you don't really need to think overly much. I like that in a game. It's the main reason I love those little grindy gathering games so much. This isn't a grindy gathering game, but it gives me the same non-thinking chill-out feeling!
Until next time! ⚔️
All screenshots in this post are courtesy of me, 