This War of Mine

The game looks promising. When it was announced on GOG I went ahead and watched beta 12-day game-play on YouTube. I got excited. I bought it immediately once it became available. Paid full price. But the game quickly made me feel stupid for doing so. I think this is the last time I buy into the hype of any kind. Example: You need to scavenge for supplies to survive and you have locations on the map. You also get descriptions thereof. It is logical that seeing and hearing explosions and machine gun bursts coming from a certain direction makes you decide – there's fighting going on there and therefore I should not go there tonight to scavenge for supplies. On the other hand, there's a location that is apparently untouched so far by the fighting, but its description says something like 'we should only go there if we are desperate and prepared to steal from those people'. Does this make any sense to you? Hell, if I had means to help others and I were lucky to still be able to try and 'live a normal life' like the people in the above described untouched by war location, naturally, while I would not be willing to give away absolutely everything my family got to help the more unfortunate, I would still try to help in some way or explain why I can't help. Why is it impossible to even ASK someone for help in this game? In this game you basically have to either sneak around and steal or fight and rob or run away. There is simply no way to talk to anyone. It is like this game implies that in a war zone it is every civilian for himself. This is just NOT true. I know. Don't ask how I know. In short – my family has been there. The only moral decision in this game seems to be the heart-tearing clicking of the NO button to say to someone you have no bandages to spare for wounded children… because you actually don't have any bandages. Another would be turning away a refugee who asks you for shelter… because you have no room… Anyhow, this was a good idea and this game COULD become a great simulation and a morality evolution tool if the developer continued to, well, develop it and make it more humanly realistic (instead of what it is now – a rough and completely unrealistic rogue-like wannabe where humans are good and kind among the group of survivors you control as the player but outside of that house they turn into unprincipled pricks encountering no one but other unprincipled pricks who would never talk to you other than to tell you to go away (that is if they don't shoot you on sight). AND did I mention that in the three hours that I've played the game so far it CRASHED on me FOUR times? Stay away. Wait for a patch or two and for a price drop to give it a try.

I bought the game on release, and seeing as it's come up on sale wanted to add a review from my perspective. Overall I was very happy with the game, the aesthetic was one of the major selling points along with the rogue-like aspects which meant I dived into the purchase. I enjoyed the gameplay elements of scavenging and that you were basically weak and meant to avoid trouble at nights, wander in to a place with armed and dangerous people then you will get gunned down. Only one character I found was able to hold their own due to their background so depending which survivors you find or start with will determine your chances. With the randomized elements of the war you never have a clear set goal, you could have a long harsh winter or an early ceasefire, you just survive for as long as you can and hope you make it through to the end. It's important to note that if random isn't your thing then thanks to good post-launch support you can now make your own survivors, create your own scenario or even just choose who to start with which adds some good replay value. It's not without it's flaws though. Shortly after launch there was a bug that messed up trading prices which ruined my first run as before I realised it I had way too much food/meds thanks to the trade glitch and made the first run easy, and a win. I'd have liked to have lost a few times first but these days the bugs have been fixed. I also found there were a few events out into scavenging areas but very few, avoiding spoilers I'd have liked to have seen more occur and more consequences to these set pieces. TL;DR Overall a very solid game, good mechanics and art style. Post-launch support adding replay value and definitely worth your money, especially on sale.

The gameplay doesn't matter much when the game has critical bugs. In the case of this game, it has a bug where the game doesn't save anymore. When that happens, you have lost the game, there is no way to fix it. You need to start the new game, but that one will not save either. Now, bugs do happen, right, and companies fix them and all is good. Some of the games I liked a lot were released as a mess and were patched later. However this particular company is not interested in fixing bugs. They are more interested in releasing new versions of the games on tablet, phones and pocket watches. This particular bug is obviously game breaking and there were 4 of us reporting identical problem on their OFFICIAL forums. They never replied to any of us. Literally bug was reported, it was reported 4 months later again, it was reported 3 months after that by another person etc. Not even a post of acknowledgement, let alone willingness shown to work on fixing the bug. This developer should not be supported, it's the worst this industry has. If a game ever deserves a one star rating, it should be for cases like this.

Like many others I watched some of the beta footage on Youtube and became incredibly excited. My initial plan was to watch a few Let's Plays and then pick it up when it came down in price, but my excitement got the better of me and I grabbed it on release. This War of Mine is quite as gripping, fun and well-designed as those videos suggested, but in its current state it is extremely short and after a test playthrough is, somewhat at odds with its concept, incredibly easy. I played my first game and got my characters into a real mess through some poor decisions on my part. On my second playthrough I completed it without using any saving and reloading, and without ever really looking like getting into trouble. It took me a couple of hours. A great deal has been made of the randomly generated situations of the game, but in my experience this is very limited. Both my playthrough, and all three of the Let's Plays I watched began with the same characters. The scavenging areas had only a handful of differences across the entire map in each, and the random visitors were so sporadic and similar that they did not encourage further playthroughs. While the resources available of course change, the general availability does not - arguably it cannot without breaking the core mechanic. I enjoyed This War of Mine, but at $20 (£15 with a £2.50 GOG voucher, which I don't consider to be quite the "Fair Price" that GOG likes to claim) for a game that is over by my second day of ownership does not equate to value for money. As it is, if This War of Mine enjoys a price reduction and several content adding patches, then it will slide up to four stars, but at present it sits as a rather expensive purchase for what it is.

The first time or two you play thru each scenario is great, you really feel like you're flying by the seat of your pants. Will i get robbed today? Will I die scavenging today? Will I find food today? Will I get sick today? But after this initial playthrough, there isn't much replay value. You will learn what to do at each location when scavenging, and how to prep your house pretty quickly. This game is unique, and I did enjoy it, just don't expect to play it a million hours.