The game that proved that the industry could be more: This War Of Mine

I have not played too much this week, not because I did not have time but because of lack of excitement and desire to play, the Euro Cup and Copa America were being played and I was hooked on both competitions so today I would like to talk about a game that I played many years ago and I loved it, both for the new perspective it gave me of war conflicts (in that year the conflicts in the Middle East with ISIS and its war cells were very much in evidence) as well as what a video game could transmit, This War Of Mine was a game that changed a lot of the parameters of what could mean a product in this industry and did it in a unique way, not focusing on the "glorious" armies that participated in each of these conflicts but giving a focus to those who really suffered, the civilians trapped in the fire zones, without food, supplies or medicine, living day by day and resisting the siege of the armies, something that at the time did not hook me, after a while I found the true value of this experience, as well as a place in my favorite games.

In a period in which the wars in the middle east countries were increasingly seen in the news was born a trend of video games to portray some of the paintings that were seen in each of these conflicts, it had already done Papers Please (2013) offering a unique version of the tortuous borders of countries with totalitarian regimes, another one that was quite deep in the public opinion was Republia Times (2012) which also dealt with the theme of bureaucracy in situations of dictatorship, different approaches that now This War Of Mine (2014) complements with the journey of refugees in which there is only one goal: Survive until the ceasefire without dying from illness, shot or disease.

For beginner minds, this is a crude game, perhaps one of the crudest that came out at the time and did not hold back at any time to show how fragile is the situation of citizens trapped in war camps, from the beginning the experience looks pretty simple, we are trapped in a structure in the middle of one of these wars and in which we will have some survivors that we will have to manage to do certain tasks in order to survive and improve our situation step by step, it sounds easy but what the game does not tell you is all the things that can happen in the middle of all these tasks that are assigned to you every time the sun rises.

This War Of Mine takes mechanics from different genres to give a varied gameplay, unpredictable and to be always alert to our every move, combines stealth, strategy and survival in a very good way, starting us with a number of survivors in a structure in which we will have to solve immediate problems such as food or give medicine to a sick person but also problems that can also end with us as having unprotected windows or our doors without locks because the assaults of the troops are both threatening and unpredictable, and all these events that happen, the search for food and find several soldiers killing civilians or find a mass grave are psychologically and emotionally marking our characters, who also have their moods that can make them sick or paranoid.

Our goal is to survive all the events that can happen to our survivors, the trick that the game implements is that each of the situations in which we are involved both in our shelter and when we go out to look for medicine and food are random, vary from game to game so it does not stop surprising even if we take several games trying to survive and believe me you will need different games because the difficulty level does not lag behind, From the beginning there is a learning curve but once we learn the basics we are left to solve it ourselves, and the game has no mercy in sending us to the worst scenarios in an attempt to convey what a war zone really is, unexpected situations and despair in every corner that together with the precariousness of our survivors makes it difficult to even improve our position.

The best, is that each game is unique from the moment we start, there are no save points and every step we take is definitive so the sense of danger is always present when we try to make our characters survive, the game also gives you a succession of difficult decisions that affect the characters in any way, so the change is also always present also in the scenarios that every time we try in a new game are slightly changed both in what we can find as in situations, having different survivors or situations.

This War Of Mine is one of those video games that have marked a before and after in the industry in my opinion by the approach that makes and how it executes, is a very good experience that combines different genres fluidly to give us a sense of precariousness at all times, the art design is not the most realistic but if it is ingenious playing with shadows and designs as well as with the aesthetics of European war, either way is an experience to frame and any player should give it a try, even today.