In order to survive, players have to skilfully manage their limited resources, such as food, tools, and the character's dwindling strength. In This War of Mine, gameplay is divided into a day and night cycle. In the daytime, hideouts are prepared, and new tools and other items are made from available materials – beds, mattresses, and mousetraps will prove to be useful. Players can also feed or heal people, as well as trade with visitors.
At night, players instead have to prove their skills – the part of the group which is not posted on guard or in bed can explore the surrounding buildings. Along with precious loot, players will encounter many dangers. The game’s theme is reflected in its audio and visuals – a dark palette of colours and gloomy music accompanies the player at all time.
The project can be attributed to the trend for ‘serious' games, which assumes that moral dilemmas and a realistic representation of reality are more important than the pleasure of the game itself. The direct inspiration for This War of Mine’s authors was the One Year in Hell article, in which Bosnian civilians describe how to survive in a ruined city without access to running water, electricity, petrol, or medical care.
Warsaw's 11 Bit Studios is known for their perverse approach to strategy games, which can be seen in its Anomaly series – there, from the static and outdated subgenre of ‘tower defence’, the programmers created a new experience by changing the player’s perspective. Conventional tower defence games are strategy games in which the player tries to stop or slow down enemies by placing watchtowers, traps and other structures on the map. The Anomaly series was the first within the genre which allows us to play the role of the invaders – hence it gaining the label of “tower offence”. 11 Bit's upcoming production, This War of Mine, once again reformulates a cliché and proposes non-standard solutions.
The PC version of the game is to première in Polish and English in November 2014.
Source: Onet.pl, ed. JM, trans. szm, October 2014