Tidebreak

Tidebreak is a real-time 3D tactics game about defending a Norse village from Viking raids.

Before every raid you see exactly where each longship will beach, how many raiders it carries and when it arrives. Use that warning: raise mounds where they must not land, dig flooded ditches to slow them, and place your squads. A shield wall holds the beach, spearmen take on brutes and battering rams, archers shoot from high ground, berserkers charge, and healers keep them standing. Then the ships come in, and every landing is a small battle you can turn with a braced wall, a well-timed volley or a charge.

A run crosses a sea chart of seven islands: quiet shores and heavy raids, a trading post, an abandoned fort, a storm, a village already burning, an ambush. Win an island, take a card (veterans, new squads, rules that change how you fight) and muster fresh men with the gold your houses earn. Torch-bearers, ram crews and bowmen change the plan as the tide rises, and at the end waits the jarl's fleet or the sea-king on two lashed longships.

• Read the raid, then shape the shore so the ships land where you want them
• Five squad types with abilities, named veterans who rank up
• Roguelite runs of 15-25 minutes; one island takes 3-5
• A daily island and a weekly challenge, the same for everyone, with leaderboards
• Commanders and five ascension levels for harder runs

Best played on a computer with a mouse. It also runs on phones (turn the phone sideways), but the controls are fiddly on a small screen.