Meadgard: hunt trolls with a frying pan by day, serve demanding gods by night

A clock reading 2:43 at the top of the screen, a goblin lifting coins off a table, one customer demanding a tankard and another demanding meat, and somebody in the bottom left playing a lyre to keep everyone calm.

That is an evening service in Meadgard, and it looks a lot like what we were hoping for.

Two games in the same day

In the morning you go out. Hunting, foraging, raiding camps, mythological creatures to fight for their parts. The screenshots show a spiky red beast that looks like a boar that visited an armourer, and a perfectly mundane quest objective: "Full Bellies, gather 12 of 15 scraps".

In the evening the doors open. You cook, serve, entertain, and stop the clientele from wrecking the room. Vikings are loud, and Norse gods expect five stars every single time.

That alternation is the game's bet, and it is what sets it apart from the kitchen-under-pressure games where you never leave the counter: here the evening's supplies depend on what you managed to kill that morning. A bad hunt is paid for at service.

Four people, plenty of damage

Meadgard plays one to four, in online co-op. Games like this live and die on that number: at four the chaos is the content, solo it becomes a chore list.

There are good signs around the tavern itself. Recipes to unlock, strange potions to brew, crops to grow, weapons to forge, decoration, and townsfolk to recruit. The characters you meet have faces: Sven, travelling merchant, a tall grey fellow with a pointed nose who travels with a laden anteater and sells you a "Sill Raw" for 20 coins.

One thing to check tonight: how deep the hunt goes. If the morning trips amount to gathering three resources off the same boar, the loop wears out fast, however charming the service is.

The detail worth noting

Oddiko is not a studio anybody had heard of. It is, however, backed by the founders of Arrowhead, the Helldivers studio, who invested in the Swedish company.

Careful not to over-read that: investing is not developing, and Arrowhead's founders are not making this game. But these are people whose job is to recognise good chaotic co-op when they see it, and they put money on this one. That is worth an evening's attention.

Meadgard launches today, 5 November, on PC. A demo has been sitting on the Steam page for a while for anyone who wants to try the frying pan before buying.

We are two people short of running the bar properly: if you are looking for a crew, the channel on the InsertCoins Discord is the place.