This War of Mine

A grim survival game that highlights the tragedy of war.

Overview

Due to slow gameplay, I only spent 8 hours on this game.

Edit: I went back and gave it another 16 hours. It didn't change my mind very much.

Theme

Solid, if you enjoy a depressing tale of survival in a war torn city.

Innovation

 Medium. The survival genre is overdone. This is still a game of building defense during the day and scavenging at night. 

What sets This War of Mine apart is how it humanizes the NPCs. Do you steal from your elderly neighbors to feed yourself for another day? The dialog, reinforced by negative consequences, do a good job at bringing out your emotion.

Gameplay

Meh. The day phase is almost interesting, but I spent most days with little to do, and the survivors were often too tired or wounded to do anything anyway. The night phase is fairly fun exploration. I didn't experience much combat. My scavengers were rarely armed, and even the easiest combat left them lethally wounded.

Permadeath

Or rogue-lite. The permadeath aspect is pretty good. Like any good survival game, there are many problems happening at once. As long as the player can keep them all in check, everything is fine. Once one thing gets out of hand, it is likely another will soon follow until the catastrophes snowball and everyone is dead. This War of Mine handles this well. 

My big complaint is that many systems have to be discovered through trial and error. If I could reload a save game, that wouldn't be a big deal. But with permadeath, it's a hassle to have to start over just because I didn't understand one simple mechanic. More on this later.

Polish

Bad. Well, the visual and story polish are well done, but many things could be done to improve the fun factor. Some examples:

• During the day, don't blur out the screen during pause. It's already awkward to give out orders, at least let me do it when the game is paused.
• Once you research the axe, all of your furniture is granted a new "destroy" icon. It is easy to accidentally click, and for most built furniture you rarely want to do it. I would vastly prefer to spend 10 seconds clicking through obscure menus to destroy an object once per game than to constantly fear demolishing my beds.
• Unforgiving for stupid crap. It's easy to accidentally build the wrong object and you can't cancel it. If I put a chair in the wrong location, let me move it.

Transparency

This War of Mine hits on a pet peeve. I dislike when a game has a simple mechanic that is obscure. For example, bandages will heal one level of damage (like from "severely wounded" to "wounded"). This healing happens at the end of the night phase. However, this isn't described anywhere. Also, wounds more severe than "lightly wounded" cannot be healed through bed rest, even though when it bed it says you are "recovering". I believe "recovering" means "the wound won't get worse".

I understand when a game hides the underlying mechanics so that the player can figure them out. However, simple mechanics should be clearly disclosed. 

Recommendation

I don't recommend This War of Mine. Perhaps if there was a fast-forward button and a better manual I would enjoy it more.