- Joined
- Apr 19, 2012
- Messages
- 12,062 (2.75/day)
- Location
- Gypsyland, UK
| System Name | HP Omen 17 |
|---|---|
| Processor | i7 7700HQ |
| Memory | 16GB 2400Mhz DDR4 |
| Video Card(s) | GTX 1060 |
| Storage | Samsung SM961 256GB + HGST 1TB |
| Display(s) | 1080p IPS G-SYNC 75Hz |
| Audio Device(s) | Bang & Olufsen |
| Power Supply | 230W |
| Mouse | Roccat Kone XTD+ |
| Software | Win 10 Pro |
Introduction
This War of Mine is a side scrolling survival strategy game, developed and published by 11 Bit Studios. It is based on the Siege of Sarajevo. It has been developed on an undisclosed multiplatform engine. The aim of the game is for players to perceive the events of a harsh war from a civilian’s perspective, and survive through the winter. The game length varies, so the player never truly knows when the game will actually end, and every event and play through is also randomised.
Storyline
You take control of a number of residents in a rundown building in the middle of a war. You must survive until the end of the war, using whatever means necessary, sometimes with questionable morals and intentions. Each character has their own biography and backstory, and their own skill.
Gameplay
To begin with, you are given your first few characters to control, and are put in a large building which will act as your home. I started off with a chair, a fridge, a workbench and a medical cabinet. At first you’ll spend some time to search all containers, and clear any rubble around the home. You’ll also probably come across a couple of locked doors and lockers, and perhaps some iron bars, all of which can’t be opened until you craft items on a metalwork station. Looting everything should give you enough to build a small number of useful things, a bed, a radio, a heater perhaps. There are an awful lot of things to build that provide their own resources, but require tier 1 materials to craft. For example to cook a meal on a crafted stove, you need raw meat, vegetables, water (which you need a rain collector, which in turn needs water filters), and fuel - All of which are usually in short supply and can be used for other things. You have to prioritise what things you want available first.
I started off with a single bed, a stove and a heater. I made some fuel for the stove, and then hit the time limit for the daytime and went to the night cycle screen. Here you choose who sleeps, who guards, and who scavenges. Only one person can sleep in each bed, so sometimes it’s necessary to build a few. Guarding is also pretty useful, as I got raided a number of times shortly after obtaining some fresh water and they took it all. Once you’ve set who does what, you’ll go straight to your scavenging area, based on whichever area you chose to investigate.
Each scavenging area has details, showing you what is available, what’s in abundance, and what the danger level is like. A lot of the scavenging maps have a few iron bars or locked doors and lockers, as well as rubble. You’re on a time limit too, so sometimes it’s best to have materials in mind you want to collect, and aim straight for accessible areas. Later on in the game you’ll be able to craft crowbars, shovel and lockpicks, as well as saws to get through iron bars. Some maps even have NPC’s, both friendly and hostile. Some have requests for medicine or food, some will try to kill you. Some won’t do anything at all, other than act hostile if you break into their home. It’s up to you whether you steal from them, kill them, or leave them alone. You won’t get anything, not even happiness, if you leave them alone. If you rob or kill them however, you’re character will become sad despite having collected everything you need to survive. It’s an odd balance, but you either make some dodgy decisions or die.
Combat is relatively non-existent, you click on the enemy character and pray you have a better weapon than them, or even better resistance to their damage. Dying is very easy. After obtaining my first pistol, and 21 ammo, I snuck up behind an enemy looter and tried to stealth kill him. All he did was turn around and initiate some turn based click event. He had a rifle; I had a pistol, no prizes for guessing who won. All in all it felt pretty lacklustre and pointless, and I had lost a precious character who could scavenge or guard on the rotations I had set up.
Once you’ve run to the exit, you’ll head home and store all the loot in a shared inventory area. It will cycle back to daytime and you can start making home improvements, or solving character’s needs. You can upgrade various crafting stations to unlock extra items to craft, beginning with the most basic items, all the way up to repairing full blown military weapons. You’ll also occasionally get a trader knock on your door to trade things, as well as NPC’s requesting help in some shape or form. Sometimes it’s supplies, however sometimes they require one of your characters to go help overnight, with the chance of failure and death. I seemed to have sugar bleeding out my home, so I just bought everything from the trader with stacks of sugar. I traded for food mostly, so that I could spend my scavenging nights obtaining materials for crafting instead. Only when I fed my characters some extremely resource intensive food, they would still complain of hunger. At that point I wanted to reach through the monitor and slap them round the face. From then on it was raw meat for them, I wasn’t going to waste precious resources if they weren’t going to be grateful for it.
I managed to keep the house at positive temperatures through most of my play through, but received no gratitude for it besides the occasional “at least we have warmth in here” from a character. I managed to keep everyone on a decent sleep rota. I tried my best to keep them fed, and build new things and set up production of whatever I could. Regardless of how much I did, they were miserable and unhappy about everything anyway. Some nights scavenging would bring very little due to enemies with big guns. Sometimes I’d get raided, defending successfully or having to deal with a wounded character. I even took in a number of extra characters throughout the game and tried to keep on top of everyone’s needs.
When the randomised end of the game came, nothing interesting came of it. It felt like I had kept people alive when they didn’t want to be. Even after succeeding I didn’t feel like I had achieved anything at all.
Controls
There are no real keyboard controls. The game is largely a point and click affair, with the only differential being a double click to cause characters to run (and as such, make more noise).
Video Settings
Minimal. I’d like to see a VSync option at the very least, as it gave me no real bearing on what differential resolutions had on performance.
System Performance
CPU: i5 4670 (Stock)
GPU: MSI GTX 970 (Stock)
RAM: 16GB 2133mhz
Storage: WD 1TB 7200RPM
Display: 2560 x 1440
Because of the VSync option missing, the game ran at maximum capped 60FPS only the only settings it allowed me to change, which were resolution. I have no idea just how much difference the resolution made to frame rates, but you can see a relatively clear difference in GPU power consumption. The engine is undisclosed, but appears to run on even the most minimal of systems.
1440p
1080p
Conclusion
I’ve spoken to a person who was in Sarajevo during the siege. First let me tell you truthfully, this game does not accurately portray those events. From his explanation, things were very very different. People did not scavenge at night, nobody lost their humanity, and he even said the police were at their very best during the conflict. While it’s nice to know in true historical events that the people under siege looked after each other, I feel like this game is trying to portray something that never really happened as depressing as it makes out. They were very hard times, but people stuck together, and the local authorities were not bashful or corrupt. The police were on the citizen’s side, and looked out for them, and the civilians shared everything. The game touches on some extremely interesting aspects of gameplay, mainly focused around the hopeless struggle to maintain at least one aspect of happiness in the player’s lives.
The gameplay is certainly well thought out, and really forces you to prioritise the fine little aspects. The only drawback of course, is that you never really solve anything at all, and are always struggling against literally every single mechanic in the game permanently. The combat is bland; he who has the larger stick wins. There’s no bonus for being sneaky and shooting someone in the back, you just click a lot. Limited characters do however have the ability to back stab other NPC's. If the enemy has a big gun and you have a pistol, you’re going to lose. All you can do is run and hide and avoid combat when possible. Scavenging is reasonably fun, usually involving a small dilemma each time you come across another NPC, but for the first half of the game all I could do was ignore them. The cooking system needs sorting, so even if you have a meal available to eat, you can still create more without eating the current stock.
The game hits some fascinating aspects of humanity, and gives you choices on what you’re going to attempt to solve first for your habitants. The only issue is there is no reward, they require the same thing the next day, and they complain about more things anyway which are out of your control. There is no solution to the game; there is no real winning ending. It shows the qualities of an addictive survival strategy game, but it is so depressing and unrewarding I didn’t find any real entertainment in playing it. You might say it shows the real face of these conflicts, but historically, it doesn’t. It would make more sense if it were post-apocalyptic and not based on a factual event, but it is, and it’s represented it slightly unclearly.
All in all, I will not be playing it again. While it’s a true cornerstone in game development, it is simply not enjoyable. I tend not to want to play a game for 10 hours, only to be depressed afterwards, with no real sense of achievement at all.
This War of Mine is available on Steam for £14.99/$17.99
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