It’s Grim Up North: A point-and-click so British I couldn’t help but feel at home

I think it’s no secret by this point that I love a good point-and-click game, especially ones that are stuffed full with humour and heart. If you’re a fan of the genre and happen to be British, then there is no better point-and-click game than It’s Grim Up North. 

It’s Grim Up North is an absolutely hilarious adventure game filled with quintessentially British humour and references, plus some aliens. Some of these references may fly over the heads of non-British players, but for me, I felt so at home while playing that I couldn’t help falling in love with everything It’s Grim Up North has to offer. 

For the greater good?

The general premise of It’s Grim Up North is bizarre yet simple. You play as Terry, an ex-city detective who now works alongside the police in a small Yorkshire town. I can’t describe him any better than saying he is the Sergeant Angel of this tale (if you haven’t seen Hot Fuzz, what’s wrong with you?), missing the excitement of the city and bemoaning the fact that he now deals with the petty squabbles of village life. 

Except his latest case is not the norm. Aliens are invading the town, and Terry finds himself at the heart of both the action and the investigation. Solving it will require outside-the-box thinking (like attaching a fork to a broken charger and shoving it into a sparking plug socket), more than a little fighting, and far too many tedious discussions with residents of the town who care more about the local vegetable competition than the alien threat. 

Mixed in with the main investigation are situational puzzles to solve. At the very beginning of the game, you’ll need to figure out how to distract some chavs outside the corner shop so that the shopkeeper will give you a spare key to the pub. Turns out that, with a boombox in hand, you turn into the Pied Piper of wayward wannabe youths, leading them into an open manhole cover. 

Surprising mechanics

If you’re going into It’s Grim Up North expecting a run-of-the-mill point-and-click game, you may be surprised to learn that some turn-based combat mechanics come into play during fights with the aliens. You have a set of attacks that can be used, and each of them does a certain amount of damage depending on how you execute the attack. 

This execution comes in the form of some unexpected active time events. As soon as you select an attack, you’ll need to pay attention to which button you’re being asked to press and then press it at the right time to maximise the damage you can do with the attack. 

While these mechanics were unexpected when I started my playthrough, and I found myself panic-slapping my keyboard the first time I encountered them, they quickly became a fun change of pace, providing a break from the relentless clicking and confusion that inevitably comes with any point-and-click.

I can see my house from here (sort of)

While playing through It’s Grim Up North, I couldn’t help but feel like it was almost made for me. I felt at home while playing, with everything from the language used to the backdrop being so incredibly familiar to me that it almost made me homesick for my hometown.

Arriving in town and seeing a row of terraced houses that look so similar to the one I’m currently sitting in warmed my heart, and I know that it will be the same story for any British players out there. 

For those outside of the UK, these houses will seem unusual, and trust me, they are as small on the inside as they appear from the outside. Two rooms downstairs, two rooms upstairs by their original design, although we do have indoor bathrooms that weren’t part of the original floorplans. That’s it. But it’s home, and seeing that represented in a videogame feels unusual yet touching. 

If you’ve played Thank Goodness You’re Here (something you should play, if you haven’t), then you’ll understand what I mean. It’s so completely British that it will seem like utter nonsense to anyone who isn’t either from here or isn’t intimately familiar with someone who is from here. There’s no voice acting, but you can hear that Yorkshire accent in every word. 

It’s Grim Up North was developed by Bad Reaction Games and released fully in April 2024, so you can go and experience the sheer British-ness of it right now in its entirety. If you want to figure out exactly what I mean by that, then you can also download and play the demo.