|
simba1337's This war of mine (PC)
|
| [January 28, 2016 02:47:23 PM]
|
Having managed to survive for only 15 days on my 1st attempt I was more determined to succeed on my second attempt. This time I started off with 4 people in my shelter, 2 men and 2 women, one of whom was sick. Having learnt that food was a daily requirement, I started to plan/prioritize the items I would scavenge for during the night. During the day, I ensured I made sufficient beds and gathered all the resources available in the shelter. I also, built my metal workshop sooner and built a crowbar as it seemed like an essential commodity.
The game does not give you time to settle down. One mistake at any stage of the game could have dire consequences on individuals and effectively on the group. Once again, I ensured I spent several nights looting the safest locations, until I had squeezed them of all the resources. Somewhere during the 4th day, I had this feeling that managing 4 people with such limited resources was becoming really hard. As a group trying to survive, should you get rid of the weakest link? This question also opened up another interesting thought. The individuals should not in any way get overly attached/ dependent on another as you may never know when something could go wrong.
During the 8th night though, I had no choice but to steal from the supermarket in search of food, but I ran into other scavengers who were armed with guns. I ended up losing Pavle and all the resources I had managed to collect. Having lost a member, the remaining survivors were in low spirits but luckily, one of the individuals was able to bolster spirits and I had books and cigarettes to rid them of their worries soon enough.
I installed a radio the next day, which helped me make several decisions regarding locations for scavenging. Boris was the new addition to the group on day 11 and it was funny how in my mind, I had already set him apart from the core group and was willing to risk his life for dangerous missions rather than one from the core group. Luckily though he was strong and had a large baggage space.
All in all, I must say I'm impressed with the game. I wasn't sure what to expect at the start but once I was able to get a hang of things, I was able to find a lot of interesting features in the game, which seemed like a mix of a simulation but also with a very captivating narrative, which sets it apart from most games I've played. The game also gives importance to little details like the animation changes with the changes in the state of the characters, making the experience realistic.
add a comment 
|
| [January 28, 2016 04:12:15 AM]
|
Continuing from where I left off previously (day 3) in the survival mode of the game, I managed to survive for an additional 12 days. What went wrong? Well, my first encounter with the survival mode introduced concepts of how the individuals could get affected physically in terms of hunger, sickness or exhaustion. But what seemed to take a toll was the mental dilemma that each person was fighting against due to the circumstances/ situations they were being put in.
Up to the first week, I believe I was able to plan and manage the resources and the state of the individuals well. It all started to go wrong when I decided to scavenge an already inhabited shelter. My skilled scavenger returned fatally wounded and without much loot. He was basically a liability as he wasn't in a position to work but at the same time needed resources in the form of food, medicine and precious time. The very next day though the game seems to throw you a replacement, in a sense a choice: do I sacrifice an individual for the sustenance of the group or do I continue to take care of him. Morally so, I decided not to let him die and tried my very best to prolong his survival. I traded out several goods in order to get medicine and also used up baggage space in order to scavenge for them. This started to take a toll on the group though. Food as a resource is hard to come by and one night during a raid, I lost all my of the food related resources. I now had 4 mouths to feed and my supply wasn't in any way meeting the demand. I had to let 2 of the 4 individuals starve and had to resort to stealing items.
I managed to stretch another 2 days by any means, which led me to a do or die situation, as I had to make sure the next scavenge mission was successful. Up to this point I had avoided all confrontation but had to resort to murdering someone during the next night in order to continue the scavenge mission. This now started to take a psychological and mental effect on the individual. They started to move into states of sadness and depression which ultimately broke them. This brings up several points about the ethical conduct of people. In a perfect society/ world, murder is definitely unethical, but does a war or in other words what does constitute so desperate a situation which would bring a man to resort to murder? Does survival during a war fall under that category? Once you realize that morals are but human constructs in place to ensure the smooth functioning of a society, it can be far easier to accept the fact that you broke one of your ethical principles for the greater good. I would consider them to be the exceptions that the moral frameworks are made to deal with in their own way.
I lost another two days trying to get scavenger ready for his nocturnal rounds but lost precious time during which I lost the guy who was fatally injured. I must admit though that I was a little disappointed as I had tried to keep him alive. The murders and the death of the individual now started to take a toll on the 3 remaining survivors. The individual who had joined us a few days back and who I had made the murderer abandoned the shelter one night. I was now down to two. Things only got worse, in terms of resources (food especially), the physical and mental state of the two. I did try to have them talk to each other to bolster spirits but it had a very short term effect. Within a span of three to four days I lost the remaining survivors to suicides.
It is human instinct to want to survive and it truly is survival of the fittest.
read comments (1)  -
add a comment
|
| [January 27, 2016 01:30:26 AM]
|
This War of Mine is an action adventure game set in a war-torn city. It presents the players with the challenge of being able to survive through the war. The game begins in a “shelter”, with the player given control of three inhabitants, each of whom has a specialized skill. Upon closer examination of the bio, I was made aware of the fact that each of them were civilians who had been affected terribly, whose lives were ruined by the war.
The shelter is a dark and grim looking structure weakened by bombings, which make up the background audio theme. Upon further exploration of the surroundings, I also noticed a TANK in the background. I started off a little lost about what exactly the interactions meant. The shelter had markings all over the place which were basically pre-programmed interactions. I was able to switch between the three individuals and assign them various tasks in the form of these interactions, which included clearing rubble, gathering resources and opening doors. The resources could in turn be used to either build stuff in the workshop (one of the other interactions in the shelter), make medicine or cook food.
At the end of the first day, I was presented with a map of what seemed like shelters in the surrounding area and a list of choices (scavenge, rest or guard) for each individual. One of the individuals was sick and required rest, while the others were put on scavenging and guard duty respectively, unaware of the dangers that they could pose. The scavenging seemed like a stealth mission in an abandoned shelter, where I came across resources like food and weaponry for the first time. I had to drop some of the items in order to carry a diverse set of items back to the shelter.
Rightfully so, the next day began with each of the individuals assigned a “hungry” status and the scavenger from the previous night, an additional “tired” status. The next two days and nights seemed more or less the same but included an encounter with a trader who seemed to charge far too much for an exchange.
So far, I believe the game seems to present a very realistic view of the problems one could face during war. It also reminded me of “The Pianist”, a survival movie of a Polish Jew during the World War II. I would like to note that times like provide a perfect insight into change in human behaviour wherein rules and morals are bent, when on a quest to survive.
This entry has been edited 2 times. It was last edited on Jan 27th, 2016 at 01:54:35.
add a comment
|
|
|
 |
simba1337's This war of mine (PC)
|
|
Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Monday 25 January, 2016
|
|
