Another indie game, albeit an unusual one, just released on the 14th of November. This War of Mine is war themed game, but unlike the rest, it does not focus on killing, rather on surviving. You control a group of civilians living on the battlefield in a city, struggling to get by day after day and resources grow thin. Your goal is to ensure that everyone in your group remains alive through the time of the war.
You have to scavenge for food, items, tools in order to build more stuff that will help you survive longer and live in better conditions. During the day, you basically take care of everyone’s needs and stay indoors, while the war rages on outside. When the night falls, your characters can take their chance and go out to try to find more food or more items, as it is slightly less dangerous to venture out.
When out, you move to other buildings and happen to meet with other civilians who are trying to survive as well. How you interact with them is up to you. Either you trade with them, or try to steal from them, or ignore them altogether. Encounters are not always peaceful, as you may step on someone who is more likely to do you harm than anything else. Or worse, meeting up with a heavily armed soldier.
The whole game has some random elements so every time you start a new game you may be in a different building and live with different people. A number of events are also randomly generated so that will probably increase the replayability of the title.
Bluedrank on the Steam Community had the following to say:
Fans of base building, survival strategy, or even stealth combat games should really pay attention to This War of Mine. With its focus on storytelling through experiences, This War of Mine has lived up to the hype that’s surrounded it in 2014. Even a single play through of this intense game will leave you rethinking your feelings on a lot of things, and probably questioning yourself as a person.
Most of the reviews on Steam are very positive, so there’s not so much chance you can go wrong with that one. And since Linux is supported as a first-class citizen (out on the same day at the other platforms), it’s time to show support as well. Note that if you don’t use Steam, it’s available (at the same price, and DRM-free) on GOG.
If you have played the game please do not hesitate to leave your impressions on the Linux version.
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I’m interested by this game, but the previous games by 11bit are unfortunately quite boring and several are also broken. The first Anomaly on Steam quite simply does not work since more than a year and they are selling it anyway, they just don’t care. So I don’t really want to give them any money.