This War of Mine is a point and click survival simulation game developed and published by 11 bit studios. In This War of Mine, you play as a group of civilians in a city during a war.
The group of civilians has to face daily struggles such as lack of food, illness, snipers, bandits, and finding the necessary supplies to survive. The game has a day/night cycle that allows the characters to find supplies and sets the pace of the game. During the day, you maintain and upgrade the shelter. During the night time, you send a member of the group to scavenge through different locations for items that will help the civilians survive and maintain the hideout.
One of the details in this game that I found interesting was how certain decisions had an impact on each character’s emotional state and behavior. Certain events such as enjoying a cup of coffee or the death of another survivor can make a character content, sad, depressed, or broken. From my experience, a character in a broken mood state would not move from their spot, would not eat, sleep or bandage and required assistance from another character to take care of them.
Crafting is the way to improve the hideout by making beds, chairs, radio, heater, stove, etc. You can also craft filters, fuel, animal traps, guns, bandages, moonshine and other items needed to help the group survive or to trade with.
Trading is another way to obtain items. During some trading scenarios, it seemed all of the materials offered to trade a NPC still weren’t enough for an essential item I needed at the time. Katia has bargaining skills that seemed to make trades a little more balanced towards the survivor’s favor.
Combat overall seemed a little buggy. I did come across an issue while playing as Cveta where the shovel the character had equipped for combat could not be used. Even as the character was in close combat with the shovel out, she still used her fists and was almost killed. This was the only combat issue I encountered with the exception of having all clickable “bubbles” disappear during combat and did not return until restarting the game. I found combat in this game difficult unless performing a stealth attack.
The characters in This War of Mine have short bios and characteristics that assist with survival. Some of the survivors also have dependencies that have effects on their moods such as being a smoker or coffee drinker. The characters also carry varied amounts of supplies dependent upon the backpack size. The characters you start with randomize at the start of each game. The characters are:
Anton – Abstinent and Good Mathematician. 8 backpack slots.
Arica – Sneaks quietly and Smoker. 10 backpack slots.
Boris – Strong but slow and Smoker. 17 backpack slots.
Bruno – Good cook and Smoker. 10 backpack slots.
Cveta– Loves children. 8 backpack slots.
Emilia– Talented lawyer and Coffee Drinker. 10 backpack slots.
Katia – Bargaining skills and Coffee Drinker. 12 backpack slots.
Marin – Handyman and Coffee Drinker. 10 backpack slots.
Marko – Skilled Scavenger. 15 backpack slots.
Pavle – Fast runner. 12 backpack slots.
Roman – Trained in combat and Smoker. 10 backpack slots.
Zlata – Bolster spirits. 12 backpack slots.
The character’s stories are brief and the overall story-line is not detailed. You will encounter different instances where you can accept a new survivor into the group, help a neighbor, or assist with more shady missions such as a hospital heist. Interactions have varied effects on the survivor’s moods.
Sometimes, when returning from a scavenge mission, further insight on a survivor’s mood was given such as this:
One other game feature worth noting is the soundtrack. I thought it was very fitting for the game and helped set the right mood.
Overall I would recommend this game to everyone. The gameplay is well done. This War of Mine is a unique game and provides a different prospective on war and survival. This is something many newer games do not achieve. It’s a sad game with a lot of moral grey and questionable choices. You don’t want to turn away the kids asking for medical supplies or rob an elderly couple for food but the group of survivors is hungry or sick and you have to do what you have to do to survive. Decisions like these weigh differently on every character and make you think. It made me feel fortunate.
