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In war not everyone's a soldier

This War of Mine, a highly addictive survival game that challenges you to manage a group of civilians doing their best to live another day in the middle of a war-ruined city, is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux on GOG.com, for $19.99*.

They say that war never changes, I'm not so sure about that. One thing's certain, though - looking at the depiction of war in modern gaming it's safe to say that war games hardly change. Most of them presenting conflicts in a binary world, where it's easy to immediately tell the bad guys from the good guys, the oppressors from the freedom fighters, heroes from villains. Some titles try to present moral ambivalence, some do a pretty good job of it. But all the war games you'll come across have one thing in common. They're all stories of military struggle - be it on large scale or personal level. Stories of soldiers. Well, in war not everyone's a soldier.

This War of Mine lets the player experience the horror of war from a very different perspective. One that of a civilians, struggling day by day and night by night to find food, find shelter, keep themselves warm, keep themselves safe, keep themselves… sane. Survive. In any other game this last word would be soon followed by the cliché "at all cost". This game, however, is different. It dares to raise the question: what cost is too great to pay for your own survival? How much of your morality and humanity are you willing to gamble with in this game of russian roulette with just an off chance of a bullet missing from the gun's chamber. While the gameplay alone is nothing but addictive and fun, putting you in charge of a group of survivors trying to get by in a city ruined in a fictional - yet disturbingly realistic conflict, the tone of the game and the emotional mechanics affecting the characters leave no place for doubt: the experience of war leaves everyone involved scarred. The game, on the other hand, leaves you with a desire to play just one more round, get through another day, and another. And another.

Combining a captivating gameplay full of scavenging, exploration, micromanagement, and tough choices to make at every step, serious tone, and suggestive art style, This War of Mine is a thrilling work of modern gaming that manages deliver great fun back to back with a meaningful experience. Grab it now, for $19.99* on GOG.com.

Want to see the game in action? Here's a recorded stream: [url=http://www.twitch.tv/gogcom/c/5654387]This War of Mine with Quill18, and another one This War of Mine with Unit Lost!


*$19.99 is the price for this title in the US. Other prices will apply in different countries. If you end up paying more than than the US price, we will reimburse the difference from our own pocket, giving it back to you in store credit (this is what we call the "Fair Price Package").
Post edited December 10, 2014 by G-Doc
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TarzanEng: Actually I know about the game today after my friends told me about it. I played about 5 minutes and I got hooked.

I rushed back home and then went straight to GOG.com. I type into the seacrh engine and it shows me the game is not found. Therefore I went back to Steam to buy it.

I do not care if GOG.com charge a little bit extra because I love games that are DRM free (I am not saying they are but I am telling you if they did, I would be happy to fork over extra couple of bucks) It was several hours later I saw a person in Extra Credits post a link to buy this game at GOG.com and hence my comment before

I think GOG.com needs to fix thier search engine.
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Grargar: That's strange. The game's page was available ever since Monday. It was also featured on the center banner of their main page, albeit with no price shown before its release.
It is strange. Maybe you made a typing error when you searched for the page, TarzanEng, because it was definitely on the site. I wishlisted it myself a couple of days before it was released. Unreleased games on the "coming soon" list should show up with "SOON" next to them if you search, the same way Crawl does at the moment.
high rated
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Antimateria: Is there zombies? I saw one good review they said "It feels like war" Sounds horrible game. =D
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Petrell: You controll small group of civilians trying to survive in wartorn city. There are plenty on monsters roaming about and they are known as humans. You'll have to take decisions like wether or not murder an elderly couple for their food to survive or wether or not to help person whose brother was shot by sniper and risking being shot yourself. Person knocking the door may be a someone trying to trade with you or someone who stabs you if you open the door. Sound fun right? ;-p
I totally understand people finding the subject matter too confronting, or thinking playing a wartime civilian would be the opposite of fun. Different people are affected by different things. I myself find it uncomfortable to shoot down the dogs in Wolfenstein (I don't think they made a willful choice to commit to Nazi ideology ^_^), and while I love Street Fighter, the fatality moves in Mortal Kombat have always creeped me out.

But it does make me think... for all our squeamishness about "disturbing" subjects, we totally take for granted that it's great fun to commit mass murder in the guise of a soldier, assassin, gangster or random-civilian-who-unexpectedly-gained-superpowers. Why? Is it because killing hundreds of people is so commonplace in gaming that we just see it as a genre convention? Or is it because killing everyone you see plays into a power fantasy, while viewing killing as something with a moral cost attached doesn't make it feel powerful at all?
Nah, I call my friend and type excatly the same words. At any case, I will be picking up Gog version next month for other friends. In future, I think I will wait a day or two before buying the new game simply I prefer Gog version more than Steam. It is only when I absolutely have no choice then I will pick up Steam edition

Oh, it could be because I live in Malaysia and the time difference makes all the difference. That being said, why Gog still does not convert to Malaysian ringgit, Steam does it already
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TarzanEng: That being said, why Gog still does not convert to Malaysian ringgit, Steam does it already
That's because GOG implemented regional currencies less than 3 months ago.
Post edited November 16, 2014 by Grargar
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zlep: the fatality moves in Mortal Kombat have always creeped me out.
What? That's what makes the game awesome, the over-the-top finishing moves.

Anyway, earlier impressions:

There's no tutorial (at least i haven't seen one) and it's more of trial and error trying to figure out what to do first and how to approach each situation.

Spoilers

I've started the game and by day 3 i went to a place with 2 old people, well, i've only looted the outside and i really needed stuff (food and materials for crafting) so i decided to go inside and they were well stocked, i tried the half nice approach and only looted half of their stuff (especially food) but they ran from me (i didn't follow). When i got back home the mood was terrible because everyone felt guilty for what was done so i restarted the game.

This time i went to day 7, everything was going well, had some food, medicine, beds, materials... So i decided to check the this place where it was sure to get some stuff... i've heard someone talking, it was a soldier and a woman, he decided to take advantage of her and i decided to be the hero (unarmed)... Yeah, i died.

End of Spoilers

Gonna restart again since i'm starting to get the idea of what to do. I thought that the game was randomized with the earlier characters but i'm getting the same 3 everytime...
Post edited November 16, 2014 by Cyraxpt
Seems to be the current bestseller on GOG now.. despite the sales :)
Pretty awesome experience. Got saddled with 3 smokers to start my 2nd game and I took quite a few smoke breaks. Anyone else feel like a total schmuck eating pizza while playing this thing?
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TarzanEng: Nah, I call my friend and type excatly the same words. At any case, I will be picking up Gog version next month for other friends. In future, I think I will wait a day or two before buying the new game simply I prefer Gog version more than Steam. It is only when I absolutely have no choice then I will pick up Steam edition

Oh, it could be because I live in Malaysia and the time difference makes all the difference. That being said, why Gog still does not convert to Malaysian ringgit, Steam does it already
Regional pricing already established for one here in USD, and Steam has considerable amount of Malaysian users, a safe bet would majority are DOTA 2 players and considerable business in its respective store hence the justification to have Ringgit for Malaysian users.
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G-Doc: I've just added the info to the OP: this Sunday, 7:00PM GMT (11:00AM PST / 2:00PM EST) at the usual place: <span class="bold">Twitch.tv/GOGcom</span>, Quill18 will be playing This War of Mine. We're also planning to do another stream, with the game's devs next week - I'll keep you posted :-)
Cool ;)
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zlep: the fatality moves in Mortal Kombat have always creeped me out.
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Cyraxpt: What? That's what makes the game awesome, the over-the-top finishing moves.

Anyway, earlier impressions:

There's no tutorial (at least i haven't seen one) and it's more of trial and error trying to figure out what to do first and how to approach each situation.

Spoilers

I've started the game and by day 3 i went to a place with 2 old people, well, i've only looted the outside and i really needed stuff (food and materials for crafting) so i decided to go inside and they were well stocked, i tried the half nice approach and only looted half of their stuff (especially food) but they ran from me (i didn't follow). When i got back home the mood was terrible because everyone felt guilty for what was done so i restarted the game.

This time i went to day 7, everything was going well, had some food, medicine, beds, materials... So i decided to check the this place where it was sure to get some stuff... i've heard someone talking, it was a soldier and a woman, he decided to take advantage of her and i decided to be the hero (unarmed)... Yeah, i died.

End of Spoilers

Gonna restart again since i'm starting to get the idea of what to do. I thought that the game was randomized with the earlier characters but i'm getting the same 3 everytime...
Those details are some of what's holding me back from pulling the trigger on a purchase. I've watched a few LPs, they've been basically saying the same thing. I thought the character selection would be a bit more random. Zafehouse even lets you create your own, but TWOM seems to have a very small stock of characters that rotate in every time.

The other big thing is the morale system. I watched one guy play an LP and after losing one character, the other two just sat in the basement and complained about how horrible everything was until they died. That seems a little drastic, even for a war torn population. Plus, it seems that the devs wanted the player to feel the sting of having to make tough decisions. But if the game characters are going to react in such heavy handed ways, that takes the responsibility of action/reaction out of the player's hands. That seems to go against the purpose of creating ethical dilemmas in games. What's the point of having a gamer 'feel' the consequences of his/her actions if the in-game characters are going to react on their own without the player's input? With that level of detachment, you just end up with an observational awareness rather than personal impact.
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Emob78: after losing one character, the other two just sat in the basement and complained about how horrible everything was until they died.
I made it 28 days in my first game. I had 2 players break towards the end, but it took them going through a lot before getting there. In my 2nd game I lost a guy in the first week in a gun battle and everyone was sad for a day or two, but they're just plugging along. It's not quite as bad as your example.
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Niggles: Seems to be the current bestseller on GOG now.. despite the sales :)
Give it time.

From what I've seen so far, there appears to be a very finite amount of events scripted, and if you don't do them the "right" way, your group will commit suicide... So, yeah...

Hopefully LPs of the full release will show the game a bit more dynamic than the "press" version.

If not, maybe the Devs will stop deleting negative reviews and then other people won't jump to purchase so quickly?

Or, as another said:
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Emob78: Those details are some of what's holding me back from pulling the trigger on a purchase. I've watched a few LPs, they've been basically saying the same thing. I thought the character selection would be a bit more random. Zafehouse even lets you create your own, but TWOM seems to have a very small stock of characters that rotate in every time.

The other big thing is the morale system. I watched one guy play an LP and after losing one character, the other two just sat in the basement and complained about how horrible everything was until they died. That seems a little drastic, even for a war torn population. Plus, it seems that the devs wanted the player to feel the sting of having to make tough decisions. But if the game characters are going to react in such heavy handed ways, that takes the responsibility of action/reaction out of the player's hands. That seems to go against the purpose of creating ethical dilemmas in games. What's the point of having a gamer 'feel' the consequences of his/her actions if the in-game characters are going to react on their own without the player's input? With that level of detachment, you just end up with an observational awareness rather than personal impact.
Reminds me of an Extra Credits episode about choice vs the illusion of choice. And this illusion is not overly impressive...
http://www.twitch.tv/GOGcom

Quill18 is playing this game right now.
Nice stream, and exciting 2nd hour. Go watch it when it's available on the recorded.
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zlep: I totally understand people finding the subject matter too confronting, or thinking playing a wartime civilian would be the opposite of fun. Different people are affected by different things. I myself find it uncomfortable to shoot down the dogs in Wolfenstein (I don't think they made a willful choice to commit to Nazi ideology ^_^), and while I love Street Fighter, the fatality moves in Mortal Kombat have always creeped me out.

But it does make me think... for all our squeamishness about "disturbing" subjects, we totally take for granted that it's great fun to commit mass murder in the guise of a soldier, assassin, gangster or random-civilian-who-unexpectedly-gained-superpowers. Why? Is it because killing hundreds of people is so commonplace in gaming that we just see it as a genre convention? Or is it because killing everyone you see plays into a power fantasy, while viewing killing as something with a moral cost attached doesn't make it feel powerful at all?
I have to admit, i really do not get why people find the subject matter too confronting, for the very reasons you discuss in your second paragraph. I find it very strange that this game makes people squeamish when so many other games put you in the role of people doing terrible things.

I am glad this kind of game is being made, I like the idea of gaming taking on more challenging topics, and not just plopping us down as a hero, or anti-hero, role. I find enjoyment in exploring difficult ideas and situations. Maybe that is weird.