This War of Mine

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It can be said that most of the titles of the war theme put the player into the position of a soldier, with magnificent scenery, fierce but heroic. Personally I am also a fan of shooters like Call of Duty or Battlefield.

But one thing that can hardly be denied is that the above games have made gamers or young people get a partial view of what is happening in the war. The heroic action, the cutscenes of the blockbuster movies has made us forget about the basics of war: They are fierce, violent and full of loss.

Another look of war has been described in Valiant Hearts, a horizontal role-playing game that debuted in June. Still on the shoulders of soldiers, but the war they are engaged in is full of what many other war games have forgotten: The pain, the sacrifice, or the things the human self has to give up when stepped on fight.

Meanwhile, the title will be featured in our detailed review today, This War of Mine, although it offers a somewhat similar experience, but opens up a completely different perspective. The number of video games taking the topic of war: The common people, the survivors of the battlefield, the inexperienced people are forced to survive the danger of stalking them from everywhere.

This War of Mine has no long-winded gates, does not create spectacular cut scenes. 11 Bit Studio puts the player on the most pressing task survivors must do: Try to survive the dreaded dangers inside the besieged city.

The game allows you to play as many anonymous characters in the game. Before the war, they have their own life, can be happy, can not. But they all overturned completely when the war began. Nowadays, they are forced to hide in homes that are attacked by military weapons to break apart, guarding themselves from the threat of the game, from the snipers. scattered around the city, until hunger, cold or illness, and even the survivors, accepted to do everything to survive, including stripping the lives of other strangers.

Meanwhile, the night will be the time when the gameplay of This War of Mine becomes completely different. This change has made the depth and realism of the game is much stronger. One of the teammates you control will have to go out to find the most important resources in the game.

However, this is not an easy task at all. Initially, the houses you explore are uninhabited or have very few people. But the higher you are, the more homes you have to look for to get your supplies. There are guards willing to kill strangers to protect them.

If daytime is the time for you to make your own meals, essential products for life, from the bed to keep the character from getting cold in the middle of winter, Deciding on the game’s contents as a lock or crowbar, the night is when This War of Mine becomes a survival game, when you must be careful in every step to survive and can bring essential things for your “family”.

Each character in the game has its own skills, such as running fast, cooking skills or the ability to collect good supplies.

There is almost no “surplus” concept in This War of Mine. Unlike Do not Starve, a classic survival game. You will have to use the essential tools in the game to create the necessary furniture. Similarly, the ability to “carry” of the characters in the game is not high. They can not even carry a chest to collect their supplies. Therefore, from raw materials, food, medicine, water, all need reasonable allocation if the player does not want to end the game too soon.

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Game Mechanics

Survival and Resource Management

“This War of Mine,” in fact, is a survival game that needs a proper management of civilians trapped in a ruined shelter by the player. The fundamental goal is to achieve these persons’ survival by reaching for resources, crafting what is necessary, and making hard decisions.

Pros:

Resource Management Is Very Difficult: Players manage a variety of resources, such as food, medicine, building materials, etc. With an acute scarcity of such resources, the game presents a tougher and more realistic challenge wherein the players have to make tough decisions related to resource allocations.

Crafting System: Crafting is simple to understand and crucial for survival. Players can craft tools, weapons, and shelter improvements, adding even more variety to the gameplay and another layer for strategic planning.

Dynamic Weather and Day-Night Cycle: The game features weather patterns and a day-to-night cycle. During the daytime, players strengthen their shelters and care for survivors, while at night, they go scavenging. This adds more of a sense of tension and realism to the entire experience.

Cons:

Hard Learning Curve: The game can be very unforgiving, especially for those players who are new. Some may feel discouraged due to the game having a rather hard learning curve, seeing that a lot of things can go wrong, with few consequences for the survival of the group.
Scavenging Gets Repetitive: While scavenging is an important aspect of the game, it can get boring. The locations, while somewhat different, may start to feel fairly similar after an additional playthrough or two.

Moral Dilemmas and Choices

Moral dilemmas and the consequences of human choice are key themes of “This War of Mine.” When confronted with morally indefensible decisions, the player calculates gravely impacting decisions that each have drastic consequences for the chosen group’s survival.

Pros:

Deep Morality Choices: Players face a multitude of moral choices during the lives of their group, such as whether to steal from other survivors, how to treat strangers, and when to weigh group needs against individual wants. These decisions are seldom black and white and often deliver heavy-handed consequences, thereby adding emotional weight and depth to the gameplay.

Character Backstories: Each of the survivors has a distinctive backstory and set of skills that influence their reactions to various situations. This character creation lends a personal touch to the game, making players more invested in their demise.
Heavy Consequences: None of the consequences of your choices is either weak or unnoticed, since all can lead to different scenarios involving the survivors. In this regard, you achieve a sense of agency in making decisions and start to consider them with care.

Replays when playthroughs become limited in replayability: In spite of having significant moral dilemmas, the limited number of scenarios and choices for players tends to reduce replayability in that players have gone through most of the central story beats, and later playthroughs just do not feel that surprising or emotionally engaging anymore.

Exploration.

Scavenging from outside and the combat involved while scavenging in “This War of Mine” does not end in the daytime. They include cutting through environments full of dangers, evading attacks from enemies, and gathering essential supplies.

Pros:

Atmospheric Exploration: Richly detailed in itself and somehow atmospheric, it captures the bleakness and oppression of a town torn apart by a war. Exploring the game becomes tense and immersive when players have to scour the game for supplies while keeping out of danger.

Stealth and Strategy: Combat in “This War of Mine” is primarily focused on stealth and strategy. The player can choose if he will get in a fight or not. It is this focus on stealth that builds tension and requires careful planning.
Diverse Locations: The game keeps you going with a variety of places- each with its challenges and opportunities. This encourages players to change their strategies as they play through the game.

Cons:

Simple Combat Mechanisms: The mechanics for combat are relatively simple since at times they may feel clunky. The fact that stealth was overwhelmingly focused much more than avoidance than direct combat, may not appeal to every player.
Predictable Encounters: With time and playthroughs, certain encounters become predictable, leaving a certain dullness in the exploration experience.

Narrative and Themes

The Art and Storytelling:

This War of Mine excels in both storytelling and atmosphere. It accounts in a very haunting and emotional way for the civilian experience in wartime. The story itself has been much more about the world and characters through actions and environment than through player choices.

Pros:

Environmental Storytelling: The environments tell a lot of details regarding the war and what it has done to the city and its people. The environmental storytelling, which is subtle and effective, immerses the player into the world without normal narrative techniques.

Emotional: The word represents itself in the way it has successfully enhanced the motivating force for civilians within war. The private stories of the characters will be enhanced by the mortal remarks in the grim world of survival, bringing experience endowing and even moving to a great extent.

Realistic Representation: Based on real conflicts, such as “This War of Mine,” provide the actual depiction of what civilians goes through in wars. Such realistic representation can be eye-opening and thought-provoking.

With Lack of Traditional Plot: The game is not about hitting certain milestones of glory or success; it focuses rather on the survival of its characters as they go about their daily lives from dusk to dawn. This kind of setting may definitely drive home the game’s message, other players may have preferred a more conventional story.

Limited Character Interaction: Though the characters have interesting backstories, their interaction may feel rather limited and repetitive. Character interaction could be more dynamic and varied and make the narrative stronger.

Themes and Messages

“This War of Mine” deals with numerous weighty themes and carries profound messages, thereby becoming a game that warrants thoughtful consideration.

Pro:

War Horrors: The game deeply highlights the horrors of war and the consequent devastation to civilians. This truly brings into perspective the human cost of war and makes players consider the ethical dilemmas ordinary people face while trying to survive.
Moral Ambiguity: The moral dilemmas present in the game drive home the ambivalence and complexity of ethical choices in extreme situations. This encourages players to reconsider their own values and what they consider to be moral.
Empathy and Compassion: “This War of Mine” brings empathy and compassion by putting players in the role of civilians caught in a warzone. It offers an uncommon viewpoint that has been squandered on most war games.

Cons:

Heavy Themes: The heavy themes and emotional pressure may not agree with every player. Some might simply think the whole experience was pure bleakness or misery, and hence the game might lack its wider appeal.
No Resolutions: The narrative gives no resolutions or happy endings since the characters are still striving to survive. It is a theme reflective of the wretchedness of war, but it could leave an unsatisfied feeling among some players.

Graphics and Audio

Visual Design

“This War of Mine” has excellent and potent visual designs enhanced by a novel art style of its own that articulates the despondency of the game’s setting.

Pros:

Distinct Art Style: The hand-drawn, sketch-like art style of this game is quite unusual and boosts the atmosphere of being desolate and hopeless. Muted colors and detailed environmental assets serve to create immersion.
Attention to Small Detail: The environments are detailed with rich textures, and small hints all around speak of past and present suffering of the city’s inhabitants. This adds more to the immersion of the game’s world and against the backdrop of the narrative.
Character Design: An excellent design creates a recognizably different-looking character. The animation of characters denotes their various physical and emotional states, thus enhancing their storytelling through visuals.

Cons:

Repetitive Environments: Although the environment comes off as richly detailed, there are areas of duplication in the way different locations are designed. This could make feel some of them somewhat less unique and decrease that feeling of discovery.
Technical Limitations: The game’s visual styling may appeal to an audience that prefers a more realistic graphical style. Furthermore, due to any technical limitations on the game, there exist incidents of graphical hiccups or brief performance drops from time to time.

Audio Design

The audio design of “This War of Mine” is therefore vital to the atmosphere, with sound enhancing an emotional and immersive experience.

Pros:

Atmospheric Soundtrack: The soundtrack is haunting and evocative, highlighting the soul of the setting. It enhances the emotional impact of the gameplay and therefore adds to the immersion.
Ambient Sounds: Ambient sounds, such as far-away gunfire and shelter creaking, instill a sense of presence and tension. They convey an atmosphere of constant danger and uncertainty in the characters’ lives.
Voice Acting: Though limited, voice acting is effective and helps in making the characters’ interactions feel real. The restrained delivery is all the more in sync with the game’s tone.

Cons:

Repetition of Audio Cues: Certain audio cues, such as character responses and ambient sounds, can become rather repetitive over time. Such repetition can adversely affect immersion, making some parts of the game feel less dynamic.
Limitations of Dialogue: The limited amount of dialogue and voice acting may leave some craving for more character interaction and narrative depth. A wider range of dynamic dialogue choices would have strengthened both immersion and storytelling.

Impact and Reception

“This War of Mine” has received universal acclaim from critics and players for its unique perspective on the war genre, emotional depth, and impactful storytelling. The game left a large dent on the industry, which prompted discussion about the representation of war in video games.

Critical Acclaim

Pros:

Innovative Approach: Critics laud “This War of Mine” for its innovative techniques in the war genre that focus on civilians, instead of soldiers. This perspective provides a refreshing and significant addition to the gaming world.
Emotional Depth: The ability of the game to provoke reflections and stirring emotions has been widely acknowledged.

Reviewers noted that the game challenges players with moral quandaries while reflecting on the human cost of war.
Atmospheric Design: The visual-audio design is also faultless in terms of creating an atmosphere that is engaging and terrifyingly immersive. The unique art style, coupled with even more detail to the environments and the haunting sound design, tries to deliver an experience that will be remembered for a long time.

Cons:

Repetitive Gameplay: Some critics noted that gameplay may become repetitive at times, especially in the scavenging missions. Though the emotional and narrative aspects of the game stay riveting, the iterative nature of these mechanics can lessen the experience.

Very Hard: The steep game difficulty and unforgiving game mechanics can be seen as another downside to this title. Some players might find it off-putting, given the steep difficulty in learning and harsh penalty for the smallest error.

Player Reception

Pros:

Community Engagement: Players praise the game’s fair community involvement where 11 bit studios listened actively to feedback and implemented changes, and this has created a loyal and supportive player base.

Replayable by Modding: The player-built modding community promotes replayability by allowing players to create new scenarios, characters, and challenges. This continued the life of the game and introduced variety into the experience.

An Educative Tool: “This War of Mine” has been used as an educative tool to teach the impact of war on civilians. Being realistic and emotionally-loaded, it serves as a good example for discussions and debates on war and the moral issue at stake.

Cons:

Emotional Weight: Some players have found the emotional weight of the game to be overwhelming. The downbeat and harrowing thematics may not work for all audiences, and some players may have found the heavy subject matter tougher to contend with.
Limited Content Updates: From time to time, players may have desired content beyond the updates and expansions given to the game. Enhancing the scope of the game and offering more scenarios could increase its appeal in the long run.