Hammerheart

The game is pretty challenging at first glance, but once you learn how to build formations - it will become pretty easy. It needs development: Successful playthrough will take only 20-25 mins, it is too short. After you beat the boss the game ends. Hope there will be next stages. Most of the loot you can pick up during fights is garbage:) Only swords can be a little helpful, and still, for your "army" to use them they will need special perk or have jevelins. Boodkin arrows is the best perk in the game, most enemies will be killed on sigh if you have 4-6 archers, of course. Now the game is too small to really be fun after several hours. Some kind of map progress\difficulty settings will help, I think. Nice start, tho.

This is abbandonware, avoid it

At its current state, Hammerheart was a weirdly pleasant experience for me who is much more a fan of forgiving slow-paced RPGs where small choices don't really matter and careful preparation is possible (Valheim, Battle Brothers) than their more fast-paced, more punishing brethren on roguelite scene (Bad North, Binding of Isaac, every souls-like one etc.) You start with a little crowd of mildly unpromising warriors who you can command on a battlemap. Don't get too attached to the guy in cute helmet who appears to be your second-in-command. Most likely, he will die sometime soon. So will you. Many times. With most tactics, with most careful placement of troops, you will still have either have your ragtag band decimated by javelin-hurling hordes who break your shieldwall or by nimble archers flanking your defenses - or by your squad succumbing to fractures, wounds, and sepsis. You are also a warrior here, and you will also die. A lot. In very unpredictable sets of events, you will get pierced, stabbed, and randomly picked by enemy arrows before you make the 1st swish of your newly looted fine sword. Hammerheart is repetitive in a way that makes you wonder why you keep coming back at it. The first time I finally made it to the archvillain of the game, Snorri, I felt elated. After a tough duel in the midst of a fray my team was clearly losing, Snorri died by my spearman's random backstab while I kept the bastard occupied. I died seconds later, having caught one arrow too much from the next wave of invaders (who weren't even supposed to come after you killed the antagonist, right?) It's weird. It's unbalanced. It's prohibitively random and chaotic (some runs are reported to be cumulatively easier in terms of tactics; some just keep throwing waves of mail-clad axe bearers against your five remaining archers). But - as for an early access game with a lot of potential - I'm giving it full marks for keeping me interested. I liked: - the visuals (reminds me of Stygian & the like minimalism); - the WASD isometrics well done - active Chicago 1930-ish pause to give commands to groups / individuals that, however, is realistically ended once you get hit; - the attempt at using terrain as a factor to position your troops (although this requires more work); - intuitive fight controls (which, sadly, can't be remapped); - active post-engagement phase where you have a breather, treat your wounded, and give out the looted armor and weapons - replayability value I disliked: - lack of guidance about vast majority of game's aspects; - no chance to adjust difficulty; - unstable wounds & injuries progression (sometimes, a big untreated wound took three-four rounds without going septic, and you totally can pack a punch while bleeding, in pain, and with a fracture); - unclear team dynamics (i.e. whether shieldwall actually helps to synergise defenses); - no morale system at all; - too fast a pace of a battle with no chance of adjustment (and of course AI is faster than you at those clicks); - can't turn the music off (although the music is okay) - NO HAMMER IN SIGHT (although I might just not have made it far enough in a game). Definitely give it a go if you are a fan of ye olde Britannia times when helmets looked like tin foil hats and vikings didn't actually wear horns. Don't give it a go if you expect meaningful story progression, deep tactics, and possibility to plan ahead. Definitely do not give it a go if you hate losing to chance (but do, if you plan on learning to - which is not the worst skill in life!)

No more development, its a shame since the concept was fresh

dead game

Abandoned sadly, was a fun game and had cool plans for the future but nothing came of it. dont buy :(

Edit: The Game is abandoned unfortunately so it is not worth a buy, my old review was posted when I thought the game was still in active development, you can still read below if you want to. Old Review: A short game but very solid mechanically. You play the events of a Saxon Thegn(noble to grossly oversimplify) leading a retinue of village militia against a Viking raid on a village. Gameplay wise you control the Thegn and your retiune. Combat is a balance bewteen short weapons (swords,axes and seax's), spears, and bows, each having their own usage for example you can use your spear to poke at enemies without taking damage but if they close enough your spear can't do anything so you use a sword, but say the enemies have bows well then you can fire back with your own arrows. The Thegn whilst he is quite competent in combat is not a super soldier and enemies can and will kill you quickly ending a run. Thus you will mostly be positioning your troops to defend against relentless attacks deploying a spear-wall with archers in between to deal with enemy archers using javelins and flanking troops to take out enemy spears and so on. The command system feels good and you have to think on the fly to make sure you aren't overwhelmed. Most importantly however the path finding and AI is actually good they hold their shields up and actually block missiles they can reliably hit targets and face the right direction and in my time playing when I was killed it wasn't because my troops got stuck on a house or something.(edit)The core loop is Vikingrien(Danes) spawn in waves you beat back all the waves you get reward choose what your reward will be after next battle(Medical Supplies, More Companions or better equipment) get reward or die and restart.(end of edit) To add on some complexity there is a inventory system whilst isn't a large selection of items the health system is interesting in this case. Sometimes when you or your allies get hit they(or you)sustain a injury which is the following Blood loss, Major Blood loss, Fracture, and Pain these cause certain effects blood loss can kill you, gives you septic(infection), and makes you slower (i think) fracture makes you slower, Pain messes with your vision and finally the last status effect which you mostly likely won't notice is adreniline which makes the next hit lethal . Furthermore all injuries can get worse and mess you up more if don't treat them. If ally suffers a injury you can't change their equipment and of course it will get worse as well. You can treat Injuries using healing items. However their is a catch common healing items will cause typically other injuries (septic and pain) so you have to use more than one healing item to fully heal most injuries. This means that whilst you can take some injuries (sometimes if you get hit you won't receive a injury) in the long run it mess you up. The inventory system also allows you to change the weapons of retinue this isn't too far developed as I have only seen 4 melee weapons, 2 bows, a Javelin, a helmet, and a shield but the differences are notable.(edit) after playing a few more hours I did I have seen all the weapons to offer and can count five more melee weapon another bow another javelin one more helmet one more shield and mail armor as items for use for a total of 9 melee weapons, 3 bows, 2 Javelins, 2 helmets, 2 shields and one armor. These weapons and and armor are very important as they will allow you to kill enemies much faster break their guard etc.(end of edit) Finally their is on occasion events provided by the bard which gives you some new ability like less chance for your retinue getting injuries or more health to your troops etc. the major drawback however is that it is short i beat the game in 2 runs for a total of about 50 minutes however I would stick with this game as It is really fun and i'am going to go play another run right now actually. I also checked and they seem to be actively developing it and are planning some major update so I would say for that reason as well you should buy this and come back to it to check.

Abandoned.

By far one of the best games ive played that has limited content for now. I enjoy the time run aspect of this and it has surprising replay value. I hope in the future there will be other bosses besides snokki as this game is fun but I am waiting on more content to come.

I really liked what was here when it came out into Early Access, but the game was abandoned almost as soon as it was put on Steam in favour of a rework, which changed into a sequel, which never even materialized. The dev is a habitual quitter that does a whole lot more talking than creating and you should not pay for this abandoned demo sized prototype. I don't think the dev set out to scam people, but scammed is what we were.