“They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.”
Ernest hamingwey
This war of mine
Without a doubt we have all heard these words hundreds of times. “Anti war”, ”war crimes” ”real face of war” 40(add any number) civilian casualities.
And for those who luckily have not expirienced these words personally, should know that war is bad. None of us (sane ones) like wars,
but we all have played and enjoyed lots of war games. From the “Call of Duty” franchise to other great titles like “Command & Conquer “ or “End of War” that puts you somehow in the area and ambient of war. As a player, no one can deny that it is fun and thrilling shooting moving targets and experiencing the heat of a battlefield or ruling as a commander who has the faith of thousands of troops in his finger tips.
This (fun) has always been one of the goals to be achieved by major game development companies. What if one day an indie group decided to create an other title about war but this time not from point of view of a superman –like soldier. Or an old pro-commander. But from the point of view of an other group of participants,
which are the most important group and the most forgotten one. A young lawyer lady. An ex-fashion model. An overweight sales man. Or a gym instructor. In a nutshell, “civilians”. This war of mine is our answer to this.
It takes us “outside “ the un-realistic atmosphere that has been shown to us, and tries (and succeeds) to make us taste a bit of that brutal reality behind and inside the war. Which lots of us luckily have not experienced… yet. The “thing” that happened before in “Spec Ops” which was a quotation from Joseph Conrad’s book: “The heart of darkness”. And of course I am not trying to compare these titles or even talk about the “Spec Ops” here. I am going talk about the “thing” that happens in “This war of mine” and can change our point of view to the matter that we all are affected by it, directly or indirectly the “reality of war”.
This game is created by the polish studio “11bit” which was founded in 2010 and some of this 13th person group are ex-employees of “CD-project”
The goal has been creating games which are suitable for both casual & pro gamers and they have been quiet succesfull so far.
Most important element in games in my personal opinion is the atmosphere and how well other elements are matched with this atmosphere.
a point&click gameplay with survival-horror theme that makes it quiet difficult for a game to deliver how being a war survivor in a post- post apocalyptic world would be. but this title does it and does it! really well actually regardless of how hard it is to do that.
From very beginning you find your self in a dead –soulless ambient yet with high and acceptable details which evokes nicely the feelings that you might experience in a war infested city.and you will be accompanied with a very depressing and Hefty music which walks with you hand to hand in this atmosphere even thou main characcters have no voice or dialogue and you can read their words and feelings about current situation in their character box by simply clicking on them which takes you also on a trip on 70’s dark comic books.
This game does not follow any particular story line.and you only need to survive as long as you can with randomly generated characters that each time you get when u start a new game.
“this war of mine” gets divided in two main parts. Night time and day time
. In night time you need to choose a character to go scavenging outside in order to bring home use full items or food and medicine , as much as he can.
which the main part of games gameplay happens to be in this part. Based on your character’s abilities and your prior needs(food-medicine-weapon parts, etc) you choose a location for your night-time scavenging and here you will have to sneak carefully through the hallways of different buildings and fight or hide from other citizens that are trying to survive in this hell as much as you do. You can search for food and useful parts in devestated super markets. Or simply sneak into an old ladies house and steal from his fridge. This is your choice . you will not face any major turn of events based on choices that you make. And this is one of the most unique and brilliantly executed things in this game that leaves the judgment for players conscious.
. while the rest of the team stay in home, and can follow the task of safe guarding the shelter from possible gang attacks or simply sleep in order to get energy or heal the wounds or sickness that may have occured to them.
In day time you can craft usefull items in order to make life easier .
Or fortificate your shelter in order to prevent night time attacks. have some food to get over the hunger or deal items with occasionaly dealer whom passes time to time to your door. And in a nutshell survive the day.
Small objections such as not having the ability to change control settings or lack of voice-dialouges between game’s charachters will not harm the strong body of this game.
Its enough to survive 10 days in this game to feel clearly how it would be like to live in a war.
unfortunately these days we don't have lots of titles that will drag us out of our comfort zone and makes us think abit about problems that we may not face directly but there are others who are facing them and living them but this game does his prophecy very well and as i told before delivers what needs to be delivered about the subject of War.
What is art but a medium to make us improve and see behind the horizons of our daily-life.
amirhossein barouh/i do not hold any credits for the first photo used in this article