14 DAY TRIAL // 
Northmark: Hour of the Wolf is a small, role-playing game with card-based battles, set in a fantasy world that is under the threat of a mysterious force.
The game comes from independent video game maker Rake in Grass, and blends the traditional exploration and quest running of role-playing games with a card-based combat system where you buff and curse units in order to change the tide of battles.
Story
The game starts off with a failed assassination attempt against your lord, and you embark on a mission to find out who would want him dead. Along the way, you stumble upon several foreboding scenes, and some encounters with various other characters lead you to believe that there might be something more than meets the eye to the trouble that has been stirring in the kingdom lately.
As you roam the countryside, you stumble upon scenes of devastation, with caravans and even entire villages ransacked by what seems to be an unlikely combination of elven and dwarven forces.
As you make your way through the campaign, you start suspecting that some foul play is afoot, especially when both the elves and dwarves, when you eventually find them, deny being involved in any such acts, and even complain that they too are plagued by such attacks from the neighboring human settlements.
Apart from the serious overarching storyline, there are also a number of side-quests you can embark on, most of which being laden with a classic sense of humor that often borders on silly, such as a brotherhood of paladins afraid to allow a woman to join their ranks, or the woes of a dwarf who had lost his beard in unknown circumstances.
Gameplay
The brunt of the game is going from location to location, clicking on the hotspots on each image, getting new quests from the main characters, side missions from the tavern, new cards from the shop, and some money (and fame, of course) from the arena.
The arena will provide you with the necessary gold to acquire fancy cards, with progressively difficult encounters in each new area, and secondary missions usually also offer you mainly gold, with a couple of exceptions, where you get cards or even new characters to fill the ranks of your party.
The experience is mainly linear and not overly difficult, especially once you get the hang of how things work, and it sometimes borders on tedious, especially if you don't get the right attack buff cards and have to slowly chip away at an adversary's health, or wait for its defensive buff to wear off.
The cards themselves are split into several categories, direct bonuses to your attacks, buffs that give you enhanced defensive ability or offensive potential for a couple of turns, and cards that have the contrary effect on your opponents.
Their power varies mostly in brute stats rather than in interesting effects, and the pool of cards is quite limited. Granted, having only 3 spots for units and 12 for battle cards makes this seem like not such a big deal, and the game is overall short enough that you don't get do play with the same deck for very long stretches.
During battle, every character gets one move that can consist of using one of their own abilities or something from your battle deck. There are no casting costs, just one card / character, which means that there is rarely any reason to use low-power cards, and you'll have all your strongest cards in your deck at all times.
You goal is to get characters' attack value high enough above an enemy's defense to score as many damage points as possible, and the AI is not extremely potent, rarely focusing down your units, resulting in opponents that are pretty easy to take down, with a bit of luck.
Apart from the campaign, there is also a Quick Battle mode where you can play as any of the in-game character classes and use all the cards without having to purchase them first, which is a very nice idea, but unfortunately the lack of multiplayer is something that makes the title a little bit less appealing.
Sound and visuals
The graphics in Northmark: Hour of the Wolf are decent enough, nothing very good but not overly bad either, the drawings are generally pretty bland and will not impress in any way. That being said, they're not terrible either, and do a fine job of carrying the game, being in line with its simple nature.
The music is also decent enough to work, nothing terribly engaging or epic, but not completely drab either, and just like the graphics, it's functional enough to carry the game.
Conclusion
Although the game starts off like a fairly fun experience, it quickly becomes apparent that Northmark: Hour of the Wolf has a few sloppy areas. The card game itself is very simplistic, and the entire game is overall very short, and its story is pretty generic, not to mention the fact that it doesn't go into a meaningful direction, in part due to its small scope.
There are not many cards, not many characters, and only a modest amount of interaction, very limited deckbuilding options, for the most part you just go through the motions once you get the hang of the game, and there aren't many things that surprise you.
The story is good enough but not stellar, and, once you go through it, there is little replay value. The lack of multiplayer also cuts from the life expectancy of Northmark: Hour of the Wolf. It could have done with a stronger design focus, but it's enjoyable enough as it is, if you're looking for a casual card game with a story to tell.
