Dead in Vinland

A good game with an interesting plot, difficult in places and I didn't have enough patience to complete it.

On sale? Definitely get it. Otherwise, no. I can see what other reviewers meant by the dialogue; that and the art often feel amateur at worst and just rough draft version at best. I enjoyed Dead in Bermuda less than this, I'll give it that, and I enjoyed Banner Saga more; this is essentially a blend of the two. It really needs another pass from an experienced dialogue editor and character artist.

Did not expect this much fun to be honest. Liked Bermuda, but this is a lot better. Too bad there is no community voiceover pack, or innate voiceovers :/
CONTROLLER SUPPORT WOULD BE A MUST!
Other than that, you will sink days into this and then tableflip...

There's no game quite like this one. Turn based survival, extremely fleshed out base building mechanics with a great level up system and good exploration/events.
It does have a lot of luck, and is also quite challenging (you will NOT win your first run, I guarantee it). That will turn off some people, but I loved the challenge and adaptation needed to adjust to luck results.

Great comfy game on custom difficulty, not so much on the official difficulties lol. Can't imagine being masochistic enough to play on anything harder than the easiest official setting, but I'm also not great at pushing through and recovering from set backs. I'm the kinda player that wants a x2 surplus of all resources and bench characters if they have above 1/4 depression or exhaustion and that's just straight up not how you're supposed to play, but the game lets you change the settings enough that you can at the expense of achievements. Not for anyone that's hated by RNG, that's for sure! But the actual mechanics and gameplay are fun, and the characters are great. It's the sorta point and click game you can play easily while curled up listening to something else but also has enough depth and management to keep you thinking. Good for bad brain and sick days, imo. (Also, if you have a cat that likes to play with you but doesn't like it when you move your arms too much.)
There are some puzzles I don't have the patience for on repeat playthroughs, but there's nothing I couldn't figure out through trial and error on my first playthrough. The characters are really good, there's only one character I didn't enjoy overall, and that's mostly because I liked another character so much and they butt heads. The combat ui is a bit annoying, but the combat itself is good and rewards you for being clever about placement and comp. And, it's turn-based, which is a big bonus in my books.
My one major complaint overall is that the relationship gains are brutal, it takes so long and compromising efficiency to raise people's relationships if they aren't naturally bffs, and several weeks of work can be wiped out by a single scripted event where you don't even get a say. Doing so is also rarely rewarded with special scenes, and don't effect the endings you will get at all. In most cases, except a few RNG questions, you really can't effect the character's trajectories. That story line will play out no matter what you do if they're both present, and a single bad RNG roll on the few imputes you do get will permanently cut off certain endings you were going for. I don't mind the RNG for survival gameplay, but the relationship sims side of things should be more controllable, because it just doesn't feel good and there's no way to recover.
Overall, a lot of minor flaws and it would make certain types of players ragequit pretty quick, but if you like unfairly difficult games OR you are fine abusing the hell out of the difficulty customisation it's a fun, replayable game.

Dead in Vinland is one of my favorite games of all time:
- It has great characters and a great story line
- It has an awesome Colony Sim aspect
- And it has Interesting fights based on a risk-reward system
The characters and story line are probably the first thing you notice. You like some characters, you hate some, but I think they all have personality. And you will start to hate the main Antagonist and his Hunchmen sooo much.
The colony Sim part is probably the best aspect of the game. I think Dead in Vinland does it better, than any other game out here. Especially the Tribute system (which is packaged nicely in the story) always keeps you on your toes and ensure you are never really "settled". You always have to look out to increase your productivity. There is always several important upgrades to build and several characters you could need healing. And you have to chose what is most pressing.
And while the fight system itself is not praised, I think it does a great job. There is a lot of depth to it and more importantly there is a great Risk-Reward system in several dimensions. If you fight, you get XP and some loot, but also can get injured. And if you level up, you can level up your fighting skills or some productivity aspect of your character. So the fighting ensures, that you have interesting choices to make at each step.
This game has some drawbacks and maybe some "balancing issues":
- Some mood related negative modifiers or illnesses you can get in the early game, are probably to devastating.
- Finding Loki in the late game is too gamechanging, because it makes certain economy aspects trivial.
- Blodeuwedd`s fighting skills are probably too uniquely strong (but maybe that is intentional, as she is a Viking Shieldmaiden Mother who protects her kids).
- Some buildings have questionable usefulness, such as Drying rack or Garden.
But overall these negative aspects are minor. Every Management and every Sim Game I ever encountered has some of these issues and in this game they at least seem minor.
So if you like Sim and Management games, where you have to "earn" your win, and if you like a story that keeps you connected to the characters: Then you might love this game as much as I do.

The game is good and I recommend it, the story the events and characters are entertaining and initially the survival aspect, but

- it's grindy and repetitive
- the rng can be pretty brutal, think xcom 90% multiple consecutive misses (id probably recommend turning on the merciful dice to fix this)
- its quite long, and overstays its welcome
- since it's always the same positions/seed there's not much in way of replayability, furthermore if you advance 1/6 of the game and decide to restart, you have to grind all the stuff and story you already did.

I tried playing and finishing this 3 times over the years until I finally did it on my third now, mainly due to the hassle of restarting.