It’s snowing outside Rogueliker Towers today, so what better time to curl up on the couch and pretend it’s Viking times (any excuse). I’m harking back today to a game that’s been out a few years (2018), but has proven well worth the trip back in time. Come, noble warrior, to Bad North.
What Is Bad North?
Bad North is a strategy roguelite from Plausible Concept, and it’s a great little game. The setup is simple: you must defend your island home from invading hordes of Viking bad guys. Succeed, and you can lead your people across a dangerous (but still kind of cute) archipelago of increasingly treacherous islands to a new, safer home. Fail, and you have to watch a load of meanies destroy your village and everyone in it. High risk: high reward.
Along the way, you will cross paths with all sorts of dangers, mostly in the form of increasingly murderous Vikings wielding increasingly murderous weapons in ever-increasing numbers. If you successfully defend a new island, you can move to the next and collect items, skills, and new troops along the way. Succeed in crossing the map, and you will be victorious, rewarded with gold (and getting to remain alive – yay!). Fail, and you and your subjects fall to the annals of forgotten history… Until you boot up a new run, that is. On easy, this is a fun little strategy puzzle. Turn up the difficulty, though, and prepare to watch a lot of your subjects die… It’s cute, brutal, and brilliant.
Cute Aggression
The visual style is cute, but don’t be fooled. Every enemy you encounter here is an adorable yet ruthless little motherfucker who wants to burn all your houses to the ground. It looks sweet, but on anything other than easy mode, this is grown-up stuff. As you visit new islands, other commanders join you, and you can assign them skills – swords, pikes, or archers – and special boons. Be careful – you can lose these guys too, so you need to manage your troops and buffs based on the procedurally-generated island terrain well or all your careful planning can disappear on the end of an enemy pike. During play, you move and assign troops, defend as many buildings as you can, rest and retreat strategically, and hopefully save enough to earn some gold and live to fight another day.
To Valhalla!
I loved this game – enough to come here and tell you about it years after release, even. You can pick it up and play a single island in your lunch break or sink into it for a couple of hours. I play with an access controller on PS5, and I found it easy to pick up, easy to learn, and complex enough to keep my pinball-machine brain occupied. I just wanted to keep going back to it, and the satisfaction of completing my first run propelled me straight into a second – and that’s a real recommendation from me! Plenty of fun, plenty of replay, and lots of instant satisfaction mixed with just the right amount of frustration and risk – onward to Valhalla!
