This War of Mine

This is a game I was looking forward to as soon as I saw the trailer for it. I just instantly found the concept interesting and well the music choice for the trailer I saw was pretty awesome.

The game was developed and published by 11 Bit Studios and is available to play on Andriod and iOS mobile devices as well as the PC. I played it on my PC through Steam as I do with most of my games. In terms of genre this games falls in to the survival strategy type of games with some crafting elements.

As soon as I understood the concept of the game I was sold on trying it out. While being a game based on war, something most games are based on, this game flipped the concept on its head by making you control the civilians in the conflict and not the soldiers. This move in terms of narrative structure was fantastic as it allowed them to frame multiple stories within this larger on going conflict and forced your attention on to these smaller, sadder and pathetic stories that demonstrated the true horror and cost of war. The narrative isn't an over arching story though, the story is essentially made up by you and your actions with the survivors in the group not having much personality beyond a few description cards that get added and/if you survive for longer periods of time. This was enough for me, I was able to build an emotional attachment to the characters, I was able to empathize with the situation and I was able to get into this very real very sad world. I do understand that for some people this might not be enough, some people need a stronger more defined narrative that is a bit more linear, but I think if everyone just eased up a little and allowed themselves to sink into the world of the game they will enjoy it the same way I did. Aside from your characters the world is brought to life through multiple location across the city and special events that unlock with the progression of time that happen during the day and night through either direct visits to your shelter from outside parties or overall changes in the city that collectively serve to bring this gritty world to life. I also enjoyed the fact that the game doesn't have a set end date and that it is randomly set every time you start a new game so you won't know how long you need to survive and that adds a nice sense of helplessness to the experience.

Is it windy? Or are these giant holes in the wall just my imagination?

The mechanics in the game are pretty simple, you have you crafting mechanic which allows you build a better and stronger shelter through building new devices and facilities at home and fortifying your position by consuming the resources you have at your shelter. This is pretty straight forward and isn't the complicated in terms of what you need to do to build a specific thing. Its when you tie it with the second mechanic that is exploration that the game it becomes a bit more strategic since you won't find everything you need to build some utilities in one location and your scavenger can only carry so many items you will be making decisions about what needs to be build now and what can be built later. This is aside from having to also maintain your group of survivors at home by making sure that you have enough food, weapons, medicine and some luxuries like coffee or cigarettes to keep everyone happy. The scavenging also isn't a simple run in and out affair, sometimes you will happen across locations with other survivors already there and you might be forced into a fight, the combat mechanics are fairly simple but they are clunky and I did end up with a dead scavenger or two before I got the hang of it. There are a few more ways you can get more resources to complement the scavenging, like trading your goods with other groups of survivors (obviously the value of goods isn't uniform across groups) or stealing or even by creating them in your shelter with animal traps and rain water collection. Well, I guess the last aspect of the game mechanics that I didn't mention is that you have to rotate your group during the night duties with some going to scavenge, some sleeping and some guarding. This obviously gets harder the smaller your group is so depending on how things go for you in terms of the mortality rate of your group this could be a normal chore of a daily source of stress.

I'm pretty surprised that I left the graphics and sound design to the end, its usually the first thing I mention in any review. But the mechanics are really what carried the game here so they do deserve their position right at the start of the review. The graphics and sound design mostly served a complementary role here adding the sense of a sad and bleak world. The developers chose to go with a two dimensional world with a color pallet mostly confined to the realms of white, black, beige and brown with the only source of color being fire and that really made for a dark and overbearing world. I don't remember much regarding the sound design, but that isn't a bad thing since it meant it didn't distract me from the game and served to allow me to immerse myself in the experience.

Today was not a good day.

The game a is a really well woven piece of work, everything in it from top to bottom works to build a very solid and grim experience. The graphics, the music and sound design, the scavenging and events that happen as you manage to survive longer and longer really brings the world to life. More importantly the game also shines a light on a side of war that really isn't covered by games, in fact it even goes in the complete opposite direction of most games and actively shows the negative side of war on a large scale as opposed to acting like military recruitment porn like the Call of Duty franchise, Battlefield, and many many others. I would recommend the game on the altruistic message its trying to convey here alone, but its actually a really solid survival game that should give you an engaging and immersive experience albeit with a ton of stress. Well, good luck, I hope no one sneaks into your shelter at night and rapes one of your group members.