Vikingbyen 2

Story

The chieftain dies while on a voyage. As a result, you are appointed to be the new chieftain. Lead your village wisely in the years to come.

Gameplay

You start out by selecting your character portrait and name. There are three available viking villages for you to choose from. They are located in Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Each gives you somewhat unique challenges regarding what you can do in certain seasons.

The game has four turns for each year. One turn for every season. Each season has its challenges that needs to be accomplished. Doing the right things and managing the village correctly will earn you points and maintain happiness. If you fail to maintain happiness the villagers will kick you out and the game ends.

At the start of every season you have to listen to your village council.

Listen wisely; they will provide advice that is crucial, although you cannot do them all. When the council meeting is done, more options open up for you. Decide how the work should be managed among your villagers. The work is divided into four categories: Hunting, Farming, Livestock and Housekeeping.

You are also presented with a list of 5-6 options about what you should do in the season you are in, although only 3 of them are correct. This is to test your knowledge about the vikings. If you answer too many of them wrong, the villagers will be unhappy. In each season you also have to decide what kind of animals to slaughter. The villagers will not do that by themselves. So it is very important that you slaughter enough animals to feed your villagers during the season. If you find yourself overstocked with a certain resource and in low supply with others, you can go to the market. At the market you can barter and exchange goods. There are three markets to choose from: Birka, Hedeby and Kaupang.

Since this game was meant to be played in a schoolroom setting, the main market is between you and your other classmates. By going to the "Kaupang" market, you went online using the school's intranet and could find the viking chieftains of your classmates.

At the end of each season you will be notified of any events that may have taken place and a list over how many animals and villagers that survived/died during the season.

Educational Material

The game is frames of still images. By clicking on certain spots in the frame you are presented with historical and educational texts about the viking life and culture. All the texts can be saved as plain text-files to your computer and can be printed out.