Week 2 [28.03-03.04.2016] This War of Mine

Those who have already recognized the title know what my presentation will be about. Others in the next few paragraphs will find out what I’m doing in my spare time (or to be more precise: how I spend every single second of my free time). Enjoy!

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I am very glad to tell you today about the most amazing game I’ve played recently. This War of Mine is a strategy game which is set in the reality of contemporary war but unlike similar games, in this one you won’t be playing as a well-equipped, athletic soldier. Your task is to lead a group of ordinary civilians, who are completely shocked, terrified and unprepared for this war.

A Polish game developer, 11 bit studios, prepared their product for almost every platform: a console, PC, even for Android and iOS mobile operating system. The versions of the game can slightly differ from each other so to keep my presentation consistent I will focus on the version for the Android system. The second reason is that I’m actually playing it on my smartphone so with this version I’m the most familiar.

CHARACTERS

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When you start the game for the first time, you will get few people to control. You will also have a chance to read about their stories. That makes you stop thinking about them as some characters and start remembering them as Marko, a firefighter, Pavle, a football player who is missing his wife and a son, and Bruno, a chef who has his own TV show. There are 12 characters altogether and after your first game, you can choose with which team you would like to play next. Each character has its special ability, which you can use during the game. For instance, Bruno can cook meals using less resources than others and Marin, who used to be an owner of a workshop, can craft items with less material Besides special abilities, each of them has different statistics (like speed of running, capacity of inventory), tolerances (how fast he gets sad or sick) and addictions ( coffee, cigarettes). You have to keep in mind all of them to make the best choices for particular tasks.

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CHARACTERS STATES

There are 6 categories of character states which reflect their health. These are mood, hunger, wounds, illness, tiredness and sleep. As a player, you need to manage and properly care about them to keep your people alive. Each of the states has a few levels (e. g for mood it will be content, normal, sad, depressed, broken) and reaching the last of it (it means the worst) it usually doesn’t end up well for the character. Each of the states can be affected by different actions or choices that your character (or any other character from the team) makes. What is more, some of them can even affect others. Let’s say your character is wounded. The most effective way to heal him is to use bandages, but of course this is war and the bandages are priceless and hard to find. So instead of it, you can feed you character well (so fulfill the hunger state) or make him sleep in a bed (which also affects tiredness). As I said before, each character can be more or less durable but it’s almost impossible to keep all states in the best conditions. During the game you usually try to balance between the middle levels, avoiding reaching the last of it.

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DAY AFTER DAY

The whole game is divided into, let’s say, rounds. Each round consists of a daytime and a night. During the daytime you can interact with all of your characters. You can feed them, cheer up, patch up if wounded but mostly you will give them tasks to make some improvements to the shelter. At the beginning you can build some basic equipment like beds or chairs but you will quickly notice that it’s not enough to survive. After an upgrade, you will gain far more possibilities like building a water collector, a trap for small animals or even a metal workshop in which you can craft some weapons and tools. But don’t forget that building these things costs. A lot. So, how to get all needed materials? There are a few ways to do that. One of them is trading. It’s the easiest and the safest way to gain what you need but you have to give something else in return. And from my experience trading costs way too much and it’s better to use it as a last resort. Another way to gain some resources is to scavenge and for this activity nights are indented. Every night you can choose one of your characters to go to another location and look for supplies. But it isn’t that easy as it sounds. Before you go, you have to think carefully what you need the most at this moment. Some locations may not have the exact things you need. Another thing is making choices. Do I need this wood or should I bring some water instead? Your character’s inventory is limited and you can’t take everything at once. But it’s not the end. There are much harder and unpleasant decisions to make like robbing other people, stealing from hospitals or even killing. You can do all of it just to stay alive in these tough times.

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IS IT WORTH PLAYING?

In my opinion This War of Mine’s definitely worth playing but keep in mind that this isn’t just another time-killing game. When I play it, I sit with a pen and note the exact amount of material I need to bring every night to survive another round. You have to be focused so if you are looking for a game which you can play while waiting for a bus, this one isn’t for you.

After my explanation it may sounds like a very complicated game but trust me, it’s not. The mechanic of the game is quite natural so all choices have their reasonable effects, which could happen in the real world. The atmosphere of this game can be a little bit overwhelming or even depressing. That’s not only thanks to brilliant graphics or realistic scenarios but also music. I strongly recommend playing This War of Mine with headphones.

I know that probably my words can’t describe all aspects and small details of this game but if you feel just a little bit curious you can watch some videos below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BALBUyoTxQM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=88&v=FYOFI6d0IK0

In the moment of writing this presentation there is a huge discount for the PC and mobile versions of This War of Mine so if you would like to try it by yourself I think now it’s the best time.

Here is the link to Google Play:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.elevenbitstudios.twommobile&hl=pl
the App Store:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/this-war-of-mine/id982175678?mt=8

and for PC:

https://cdp.pl/this-war-of-mine.html

Thanks for reading. Leave your comments and thoughts about This War of Mine or any other game that made such a huge impression on you like this game did on me.

1. http://www.gram.pl/news/2014/11/20/this-war-of-mine-napedza-wzrost-cen-akcji-11-bit.shtml 2. http://this-war-of-mine.wikia.com/wiki/Playable_Characters 3. http://i0.wp.com/apgnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/2014-11-11_00014.jpg?resize=820%2C461 4. http://www.usgamer.net/articles/this-war-of-mine-pc-preview-exploring-the-real-horror-of-survival 5. http://www.thejimquisition.com/2014/11/this-war-of-mine-review/