Hello
Notherner was created as part of a game jam in a German forum. The jam was about creating a game with a reference to "cold". This is a game about choices, if you want to try it be warned that it will take just five minutes of your time. This game is about a drunk wanderer that find himself in a village during a snowy day.
The game is just a short "choose your adventure" scenario in which you have to make your choices that will lead to the ending. All takes place on a single map (the village) and uses rtp.

This isn't a bad game, what I find quite limiting is how slow is the pacing and the linearity of the whole game. I'd have preferred the freedom to wander an empty map with maybe a couple of interactions, instead this game is just a long cutscene (and you cannot obviously save during it). Moreover, there are some quotes that will clearly explain what you are supposed to do in order to get the good ending (and avoid a tragic fate!).

Graphically I cannot complain: the rtp are used well, the mapping is good and while nothing really stands out I liked the "blurred visual effects" of the drunken protagonist. It's good! Sounds and music are also adequate and fit the theme, the whole atmosphere of the game is perfectly realized and
I also liked how all the secondary characters speak, while the unnamed northerner protagonist has no dialogue line at all: he just express himself with bubbles. It's a nice touch!

For what concerns instead the gameplay, I found it a bit too restrictive and linear. As I explained before this is just a loooong cutscene (that also is very sloooow) with some choices, and most of them do not seem to matter at all. The final choice is in fact the most important. The problem is that if you want to find another ending you have to replay the whole cutscene from the beginning, but yeah it's not too long.



Final Verdict
Northerner is not a bad game at all, the problem is that this isn't almost a game at all. It was as a choose your own adventure game, rather short and with not may choices, but I guess this is due to the fact this was made for a game jam so there was surely some time restrain. Anyway it's an ok experience, I just wished for more choices and maybe even more originality... I did not spoil the story since it is quite short but I'm pretty sure that every player can predict the outcome of his/her run when a certain choice will be made.

Ok, so this game is well worth one run or two, but not much else. It's a nice story, but really brief and also the endings are quite short and abrupt. The game is not without some nice touches, but yeah I wanted more. I mean who is the protagonist (we know that he's a northerner just from the title)? What is he doing there? I'd have wished for some more background (at least about the setting) since the atmosphere is good but there is a lack of "character", in my opinion, that makes the story a bit too generic.

In any case, not bad, and this is my opinion: the Northerner is an ok game 3/5. Try it and tell me your opinions, I am rather curious!