This War of Mine review and tips

My review is down at the bottom of this blog... enjoy! :)

I've been reading through the reviews and I found this haunting... in a world where war is so dehumanized and can seem so far away from our daily comforts, this game let us, somewhat, feel the pain and horror of war. You are not an elite soldier fighting enemies in a foreign land... you are one of the locals, scavenging and hiding from the soldiers - fearing for the lives of the people you care for, day and night. 

Excellent review by Grimno.

Entered a building with other people.

The building's description had said "Danger" which ment hostiles. Bandits.

I grabbed my knife and was ready for those bandits.

I saw one bandit and after breaking in through a window, she ran calling for backup.

One guy showed up with a shotgun and chased me off but I waited.

He searched, and couldn't find me and then I got the drop on him.

We fought, he couldn't shoot, and three stabs later he fell.

I grabbed the shotgun and went inside.

My friends needed food, and these bandits were killers. They deserved what they got.

I grabbed food, supplies, and another bandit showed up!

I fired at them with the shotgun, and they dropped with a gurgling scream.

One bandit ran after me! Surely they had a knife!

No... she ran past me to the man's corpse.

She was crying. She called me a murderer.

I fired again and she dropped.

There was silence then, and I had to hurry up and grab the rest of the supplies before more bandits showed up.

I opened a closet, and snagged the food.

But, the inventory of the closet said "Private"

Someone owned this wardrobe?

I looked outside toward the other building, and between the two.. a garden someone built?

One guy had mentioned they were running low on meds.

This.... no.. it couldn't be. It just couldn't be!

This wasn't... this wasn't an abandoned building being picked clean.

This was another group's safehouse.

These people are.... were.... survivors!

...and "I" was the bandit.

I'll expand this review after I've actually played the game. In the meantime, you can enjoy looking over its YouTube videos or buy it yourself! :) It's an indie game that deserves so much more attention!

Steam link: http://store.steampowered.com/app/282070/ 

Update!!

I've finally played the game and boy... it's rather nerve-wrecking to see the characters in the game go into depression one-by-one... especially when I was sneakily stealing supplies from an elderly couple and I panicked when I was discovered... leading into a violent butchering (in my first playthrough when I had thought the old grandpa was going to kill my character). 

But on my second playthrough, I just steal the stuff and left them alone - they pleaded with me to spare their lives and I did, but on my return trip there a couple of days later, I saw there are corpses on the bed of the house.... Nerve-wrecking right?)

It's an emotionally-taxing game that's for sure... especially when you're so attached to your characters after learning about their regrets (during the war) and their background stories that are unraveled as the game goes on and as they STAY ALIVE... It's heart-breaking to get your favourite character killed by thugs while you're desperate to get food for your team of survivors. 

The game is very tough when you approach the higher levels. I'll explain more later.

Since I kept restart the game whenever I'm left with 2 survivors (with others dead and rotting), I've noticed that the major game events are consistent - so you might want to start your first playthrough as some sort of tutorial. For example, you can predict when winter will come (around Day 30++) and you can get as much fuel (and water, coz during winter, you'll need to waste fuel AND filter to get water from snow) stocked up BEFORE winter.

Tips and hints (The list will get messy down there, sorry! :P):

1. [Workshop tips] One of the first things that you must build is a metal workshop - for tools (lockpicks, crowbar and shovel). This is vital!

2. Next, build 1 less beds for your team, for example, if you start off with 4 people (This happened on my 3rd playthrough lol), you will need at least 3 beds. Chairs are unnecessary earlier on.

3. [Upgrading tips - VITAL] Then, start gathering materials to upgrade your workbench first.  You will need workbench level 2 to reinforce your home from future attacks (less supplies stolen in raids - let's just say I had an experience where all my food (6 meat) was stolen in just 1 raid) and also to build animal traps for a steady, but unpredictable supply of food. 

4. For food, a way to 'cheat' the system is to only let your peeps eat raw food so that they will remain 'slightly hungry'. If you can get canned tuna, eat those first (vital members of the team will get first dibs ofc) as these are one of the few stuff that will definitely get stolen by people if you get raided at night. Food on the stove will not get stolen - so if you want to store a lot of food, cook a batch of them and leave them on the stove. You can never have too much food... seriously :P

5. Stove and radio is optional - radio is not really useful despite its tooltip. Stove is only needed when you have shtload of water to cook some nicer food (not that it makes much of a difference) for your peeps.

6. [Upgrading tips - VITAL] In anticipation of winter, get your metal workshop upgraded, so you can get that axe crafted. Then, head over to chop all the useless furniture in your house (you can also chop furniture in other places as well, but for now, just stick to your house since chopping causes a LOT of noise). - you can easily get loads of wood and fuel this way

7. [Trading tips] Stock up on meds and use meds as trading materials (if you're careful, you won't need too much meds to cure/heal your peeps) - since the supposedly 'ultimate' trading materials (cigarettes and coffee) are rather worthless.

8. [Trading tips] Diodes cost quite a lot (if you trade for cheap stuff) and you don't need it (except for radio) earlier on, so my advice is to sell the load of them for more vital stuff, like food.... which are very sparse.

9. [Before winter tips] Save up for water before winter coz during winter, you'll need to waste fuel AND filter to get water from snow.

10. Note that some of the members in your team may have orange lettering underneath their 'likes' or 'are best at'. These can be troublesome. For example, Bruno the Cook is a smoker. So, if he doesn't get his smoke and he is depressed or sad, he will pick fights with other team members and may cause severe injury. Some members of your team may crave coffee as a way to cool down their nerves as well. Although these are not exactly necessary, it's still an easy (but 'expensive' and rather slow) way to get their EQ back to normal.

10. [Defending your home] Also note that your team can use crowbars and axes as weapons in response to any raids to your house, so make sure all your guards have a weapon. You don't need to craft knives if you already have crowbars and axes.  Unfortunately though, SHOVELS are somehow NOT considered as WEAPONS.

11. Don't forget to keep food stocked up as well.

Screenshots!

Post by Aveyn's FB.