This is something like the 8th or 9th game in the Viking Brothers series of Time Management games, so at this point you know what you're getting. There's no innovation here, so that's a plus or a minus depending on if you're already a fan of the series or not. If you enjoyed Viking Brothers 3 or Viking Sisters 45 or Viking Cousins 853 or Viking Red-Headed Stepchildren 14 or Viking Mother-in-Laws 27 you'll enjoy this; if you didn't, you won't.

For those somehow new to this series: you play a quartet of heroes each of whom has their own unique specialty that is interchangeable between them depending on the needs of the plot and the level. They're also all siblings except when they're not such as the level where one of them has an aunt that the others never heard of. Anyway, most levels only use two of the four, so there's usually a strong one and one that's either a druid or witch. (The blonde girl who looks like a Valkyrie and the red-haired male dwarf are the strong ones.) And you usually only use them once or twice per level; otherwise it's your standard time management game of sending minions all over the map to collect debris, gather food, chop wood, dig up stone, prospect for gold and mine for gems. Levels can be played on either easy mode or casual mode, with the difference being you are either timed or aren't timed, but you can earn 3 gold stars per level either way. I think. I played it without a timer as I wanted to simply chill and enjoy the good writing and fascinating plot and characterizations, though kids who like racing the clock can play it on that setting if they want.


All achievements are possible with minimal grinding, having only to do levels 49 and 37 twice, so a thumbs up if you're a 100% completer.

For $2.00 or so, the current price during the Steam Autumn Sale, you get a dozen or two dozen hours of fun, with 50 standard and 15 free bonus levels. I haven't tried the 15 bonus levels yet, but that's probably around 3 more hours of content. So, no complaints; I haven't tried it under Windows 11 but it runs fine on either Windows 7 or Windows 10. I give it a Viking Grandfathers thumbs up to those who are already fans of the series.