This War of Mine

Honestly, if one were to ask me, what is the one single game which ascends the usual constraints of the medium of video games and manages to become a piece of art without falling into the trap of becoming a 'slightly interactive film' I would have a hard time finding a better example than This War of Mine.

This War of Mine is a heavy and heartbreaking war game which opposes common conventions regarding war games and has a wonderfully unique take on survival mechanics and the role of mechanics in video games as well.

Its merits are not in its story, as in fact, it doesn't have one in the traditional sense. The only narratives are those which the player assembles in their head while gathering resources and walking around in the war-torn world of the game to survive.

As I previously mentioned, it defies the common conventions of war games, really it is nothing like one: as the focus here is neither on the soldiers as in a shooter type war game, nor on the generals as in a strategy war game, or a tactical one, we do not even have a glance at the place where the battles take place as the game's sole focus and our perspective is on the civilians of war. What we experience here is what is much more rarely touched upon not just by video games but by any forms of art much more underrepresented: we get to experience how the net of society dissolves and how society becomes dysfunctional amidst a war: how it becomes hard to feed your family, how scavengers roam around the streets because of that, and how you in order to survive have to give up some part of your ethical code, how it is impossible to survive without making compromises in times like that.

And what makes the game stand out among much of the other games with unquestionable artistic merits is that it achieves its aesthetic goal through game mechanics, game mechanics here are not just an accompanying element, but in fact the subject of the art itself. We tie with characters because of the sometimes hard and difficult gameplay, and because we are constantly presented with the consequences of our choices by the game: one great example if when we get to go into the apartment of an elderly couple and there we are not attacked, they are not even trying to defeat us as they no they have no chance, the only thing we encounter is them begging for us to not to steal their medication and food, and if we still decide to do so, when a few years later we go their again, we find them dead. This way the game manages to bridge the gap between the player and the characters, and we no longer feel that we can do anything we feel much more morally connected to the characters, which creates dilemmas around whether to not steal from somebody actually hard, as we feel the moral consequences of that, but as a result of the hard gameplay we also feel what can happen if our own characters can't get food and medication, etc.

This not only happens in the player's mind, but in the gameplay itself: after committing too many crimes our characters can become depressed and just lay around in the bed unable to do anything because of the crippling remorse. Our characters are not psychopathic robots who have no feelings but people we can feel empathy towards.

This way overall the game uses survival game mechanics to have a statement about survival and war itself, which is clearly present in the title as well: This War of Mine. This is not the war of the generals or the soldiers, this is the war of the common people, does who have nothing to do with the reasons of the war, and yet those who suffer the most and who only experience the consequences of the choices of politicians and generals. This is a game about what these people can do in order to try to stay human. And it conveys its message in a way that no other medium could, and this way it becomes a really good example of how video games, with the clever use of interactivity can become serious pieces of art.

Gripping and realistic.
Actually makes you feel bad for wrong decisions.
Surviving is pretty difficult at times.
The rock radio station is cool.
Get this game with dlc.

Probably one of the heaviest games out there. When people call a game mature this is what they should have in mind. Its depressive, teaches a lot about the misery during wartime and also how easy it is for morals to break when times are bad. Its a roguelike in which you try to survive through the hardtimes with your group, and you must scavenge nearby building to search for food and supplies. There is also a deep base building part of it, and its well designed in the sense that the materials are almost never enough to live off well.

I have an issue in the fact that it is a roguelike that can last for some hours before you finally die. Roguelikes that have short play times like Binding of Isaac are fine for me, but this one is a bit too much in that regard. I had the same issue with Dont Starve. Besides its so bleak and depressing that i actually dont want to play it again, even if i acknowledge its a great game. In that sense it absolutly accomplishes its objective, it almost feels like an anti-game in some ways.

Brilliant stuff