Developer: 11 Bit Studios
Publisher: 11 Bit Studios
Rrp: £14.99 (All platforms)
Released: 14th November 2014
Available on Steam, Gog.com and Humblebundle
Played Using: Mouse and Keyboard
“In modern war… you will die like a dog for no good reason.” When a game opens with a quote like that you know you’re in for a rough ride.
This War of Mine is in part a point and click at least when it comes to the controls, but the gameplay resembles more of a survivor simulation.
It features a few roguelite elements, such as randomised events and certain things in the locations you can scavenge from change. The length of the war and the impending winter is also randomised, with some players reporting the war being over in fifty days and others in thirty or so.
The first time start the game you are given control of three survivors in their shelter. Each of these survivors has a bio giving some information to their life before the war as well as a diary that will update as you continue to survive and make choices. These survivors can get sick or injured both mentally and physically (some may even start with a condition) which will affect how well they preform certain actions… or even if they do at all.
During the day your survivors will stay within the confines of the shelter. it’s in this period that you craft new items to make your shelter more liveable, clear away rubble and generally try to make your shelter better. Of course, anything you make will use up precious resources that could very well have been used on plenty of other things. Do you patch up that hole in the wall to make the shelter more secure or do you create a bed so people can sleep better? Both are completely reasonable things to do but usually you won’t have enough materials to do everything.
Occasionally a merchant will arrive to trade with you for certain items. Forgive me for the minor philosophising but I actually think that this is one of the clever ways that the developers have tried to show you what things are really worth. Medicine and food is worth more than jewels, if that’s not telling of the state of affairs I’m not sure what is.
When I started playing I assumed that time would tick by as I performed actions. Nope, I was totally wrong, just like in real life time passes so you have to try make the best choices you can in that time. This constant passage of time adds a real sense of urgency to the whole situation for the player.
Eventually those day light hours become the night you’ll get the option to perform night time missions. Will your survivors go to sleep, stay on guard, or go scavenge? And if they go scavenging, where will they go? Its up to you to make all these decisions. Whoever you send to go scavenging you’ll get to choose what, if anything, they take with them, bearing in mind they only have a limited amount of space and anything taken now means that they will bring back less.
You aren’t the only one out scavenging though, if you don’t leave someone on watch you may just return home to find that you’ve lost a lot of your hard earned materials. Actually even leaving someone on guard is no guarantee of keeping your gear.
When you are out scavenging sometimes you’ll encounter other people, perhaps they’re just investigating the place just like you or maybe its their house. Either way this brings up a question, what if it comes down to a choice between you and them? What will you do? Will you fight them for it? You could just avoid confrontation at sneak around their house like a common criminal, but then, its you or them… isn’t it?
Certain actions your survivor will perform such as clearing rubble, prying open doors and running will create noise that can attract others to you. This is represented by ripples emanating from where the survivor is. Obviously it depends on the action being undertook how much noise is created, some will create very little noise and so will have a small ripple.
The combat… well lets just say combat isn’t this games strong suit. You CAN fight, yep that’s a choice you can make, but it will likely end badly for you even if you win. You’ll need to use your precious bandages to heal up, the other survivors in your shelter will likely think less of you and become depressed and the survivor who did the deed will almost certainly suffer psychological effects from it. All of that is actually without talking about the combat itself, as I said its not its strong suit. You choose your weapon click the enemy and then watch the scene play out, then do it again because its really unlikely you’ll kill them in the first hit, then again because two hits rarely kills them too. Of course in that time your opponent may have struck you a few times, and I’m damned if I can understand who goes first etc, just click and pray.
In my opinion stealth and diplomacy are your best options, thing is if you do decide to try and be sneaky any people wandering around will remember little things like doors being left open and might react to that, sometimes just by running away but not always.
Events will occur that will ask you to make yet more tough choices, perhaps while out scavenging you meet people in need of help, but aiding them would mean giving up some supplies that valuable to you. These events will sometimes come to your doorstep as well, people seeking help or raiders.
The art style of the game is mostly in a washed out black, white and grey colour palette with only a few smatterings of bright colour from things like fires appearing. A pencil sketch effect is used throughout the game, adding yet another level of gritty texture to the gameplay.
Once you’ve begun playing a option to create a customised game appears. In this mode you can change pretty much everything from how intense the fighting is, which survivors you have, how long the winter lasts and even what locations become available to scavenge from. You can even create your own survivor, although they all have limitations.
This isn’t a game you enjoy so much as experience. It’s hard to say you enjoyed something in which you had to make morally ambiguous choices, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a worthwhile experience. Personally, I loved playing this game even if it did make me feel horrid at times.
If this appeals to you perhaps try;
Spec Ops: The Line
Zafehouse Diaries
Gods Will Be Watching
