No matter what anyone says, war is a terrible thing. And few people think about it, and in popular culture the theme of the underside of the war is even less often raised. The theme is that war is a nightmare for ordinary people who will be forced to survive while the powers that be will share what they want to share there. The video game “This War of Mine” was well told about this, and now its desktop counterpart of the same name, published in Russian under the name “This is My War”, will tell you about it.
You and a few other people huddle in a ruined house. Destruction is everywhere, snipers are shooting in the street, it is cold, fearful, hungry. And that’s all – forward to survive. Clear the rubble, close the gaps in your shelter, create essential items from improvised things and try not to disappear.
Each hero has his own character and set of abilities, passions and level of empathy. Someone needs to smoke all the time, someone constantly drinks coffee, the third always wants to read or listen to the radio. Someone is good at looking for supplies, someone is sneaking quietly.
someone will break any lock at once or bring more things on his hump, and someone can’t do anything at all. But everyone wants to eat and drink equally. Moreover, they can get sick, or fall into such a depression that the result of it can be a gallows or an escape from a shelter. And how to provide everyone with food, water, medicines, the same cigarettes or coffee?
We still have to get out of the shelter for sorties into the city under the cover of night. But there will not be peace either. Not only do snipers stay awake, but meeting other human beings may not bode well. A radiantly smiling person may turn out to be a bandit, whose friends are already sneaking up on you from behind with a knife and an ax at the ready, and peaceful people will bring even more worries, because everyone needs help. As if it’s easy for you.
And so, day after day, fighting night raids of bandits, cold, hunger, disease, depression, eternal lack of resources and a dozen more troubles, you learn to survive and keep your people in a more or less tolerable state. And believe me, it will never be easy for you.
On the table, it all looks like this: the field is your home, littered with rubble, holes in the walls, closed doors, piles of garbage, furniture and other things. The game has several phases, divided by time of day. During the day, each character in perfect condition (full, calm, healthy, rested) can perform three actions that you as a team plan to achieve the best effect. If you do not satisfy certain needs, the heroes will begin to mope and will not be able to complete all the tasks. During the day, there may also be random encounters with people who will benefit or harm, or even a new hero.
In the evening, you plan who will rest (will they?), who will remain to guard the shelter, and who will go to the city for supplies. Choose a location, collect your inventory and go to work. The study of the location is carried out using a set of research cards – draw cards, fulfill conditions.
get meetings with people, sudden encounters (the so-called Blows of Fate) or supplies. Each location has its own set of supplies, somewhere there is a lot of food, somewhere weapons, somewhere medicines, etc. Depending on the capacity of the hero’s hump, the luck of the hand (the outcome of collisions and the number of supplies depend on the rolled die), you return (or not, you can easily die) to the shelter.
If it seems to you that this is not enough, then the game also has global goals, the fulfillment of which depends on whether your heroes get to the end of the game alive or at least healthy. It is necessary to collect, for example, vegetables for the Red Cross, otherwise everyone will become depressed. There are also cards of Destiny that can radically change what is happening, there are saving cards of Decisive Action, the effects of which at a difficult moment can save even the most hopeless situation. And this is not to mention the well-thought-out and complex systems of combat and barter with civilians.
In the box you will find a thick storybook containing almost 2000 (!!!) story scenes. All these scenes break into the context of the game, add additional atmosphere to it, allow you to fully experience the world and what is happening, to understand the characters. Almost all the encounters are tied to this book.
some of which provide players with a moral choice. Can you help the old lady fix the doors? Looking for medicine for your child? Adopt a dog? Each choice sends you to a fork in the road that can bring you both good and bad. All plot elements in the game are divided into color segments, at some point the plot of your game, depending on a particular drawn card, changes color. And almost all the actions, all the cards below have a postscript with the color and number of the plot scene that you read from the book.
