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Jan 26th, 2015 at 22:20:06 - This war of mine (PC) |
My First play through of "This War of Mine" was filled with a sense of foreboding that made it a depressing experience. The somber music fit the mood of the game perfectly. It reminded me of all the fearful and uneasy sounds that are associated with the kind of experience I felt like I was about to have. The pencil shaded scene did well to re-enforce the worrisome feeling of the rest of the game's aesthetic. I knew this was not going to be a fun experience.
I started Day 1 getting familiar with the backstories of the three characters - Katia, Bruno and Pavle. I tinkered around with Bruno, learning the meaning of the symbols over buttons, examining every detail in the scene before me. After I had explored enough I turned my attention to the other characters. I saw that Pavle was sick and hence my first priority was to build a bed so that he can be well rested and could heal. I think struggling to sleep on air bed for the first few months that I came to America, I valued a good night’s sleep a lot. I hence put my own priorities into the game and used Bruno to build a bed for Pavle. There was one piece of food in the refrigerator that I let Bruno have after his effort because I felt guilty for using him for a lot of the digging and scavenging in the hideout. I felt a need to properly recompense a fictional character for a perceived exploit. Soon the day was up and I chose to let all characters stay the night.
Day 2 started and I saw that the stats on the characters had changed. Now they said that except Bruno who had had some food yesterday, the others were very hungry. I did not realize that letting people stay at home without scavenging will lead them to have no food at all. The dialogue pop ups in the middle of the game that conveyed the character’s emotions of hunger and tiredness packed a lot of punch. They made me think about my choices for the characters. I felt guilty for the current state of Katia and Pavle now. I decided that this day I’ll scavenge for food and get something stocked up. That night I paid a lot of attention to the city map that opens up. It made the city feel like a scary intimidating place that was mysterious and uninviting but a necessary task. For the first time it gave the game a feel of scale. I packed my bag chockfull of supplies that I already had and went scavenging. Soon I realized how idiotic this was since now I didn’t have enough inventory space to carry all that I could find. I also had a tough time deciding what to grab from the resources I found given my limited inventory space. I felt foolish and depressed at this point knowing that I had subjected my characters to another day of hunger.
Day 3 started and I got the message that I had been raided the last night while Bruno was out scavenging. I had built two beds hoping Katia and Pavle both get a good night’s sleep but now they were wounded. This moment really drove home the gravity of the situation in the game. I got an idea of the many variables I have to manage in the game. It became overwhelming. I decided to stop “playing” for the day.
I’m usually not a strategist and tend to do poorly in strategy games preferring the twitch genre or adventure games or open world exploration games. All the while I was playing the game, I felt like my foolishness was going to let people die. But at this point I also wondered about the point of the game. Does it want me to find the optimal solution for the game? Is saving everyone the challenge of the game? Or is the game designed such that the resources are very limited and the game is forcing me to make hard choices in the future? I’ll find out soon.
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Jan 28th, 2015 at 01:16:30.
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