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Jan 22nd, 2016 at 22:12:41 - This war of mine (PC) |
There's a lot to talk about with this game, but for some reason I find myself focusing on how much the game seems dedicated to breaking through to become something more than a game. Right from the initial main menu, where the only button is "Survive" rather than "Play." There's also a complete lack of tutorial, which trades comfort of play for more complete immersion--a risky but totally appropriate choice for this particular game's goals.
At the same time, though, unlike so many other "ethical test" type games, there's absolutely no mistaking this for a game--goals, obstacles, rules, resource management--it's all there. It's amazing how they achieve both at the same time.
Having no tutorial, though, I definitely screwed some stuff right out of the gate. For some reason, I assumed it was turn based and each person had some certain amount of "action points" per day, so I kept having one guy do everything waiting for him to run out of actions and the game to automatically switch to the next guy, and then all of a sudden the day was over and I'd done basically nothing.
As soon as I realized it wasn't turn-based, I suddenly got really stressed out in the same way I do in an RTS game--everyone must be doing something all the time. I felt like this was quite effective at immersing me in the struggle of my three characters--like every other resource, time is scarce, and the best defense against the crippling fear of imminent death is working so furiously to avoid it that you don't even have time to think about what would happen if you stopped.
Before I started this game I actually wondered if I would just give up and let everyone die--just beat the game by not playing. Now that I'm not playing I'm thinking I should just do that again--that death would almost be better for these characters than the life they're given. But the second I'm playing again, I know I'll be gripped instantly with the survival instinct and be right back to working furiously. In this first play session I avoided attacking anyone and even willingly passed up a cache labeled as "private property" because I felt I could make it out just fine with my morals intact. But I can already feel the pressure, and I know my ethics will be tested very soon--I'm a little scared what I'll find out.
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