Today I'm going to share with you one of the first games I ever played on steam, This War Of Mine. The story of this game really affected me deeply. Usually in a war game you play as a soldier or commander. But in this game you are ordinary people. A reporter, a sportsman, a cook, etc. You are trying to survive in a shelter. And the game is very detailed. The seasons change, the crime rate of the population increases, the value of the items in the game changes (for example, there is a shortage of coffee and if you have coffee you can use it to buy something valuable in trade).
I played this game for 80 hours in total, but it's been a long time since I last played it. I saw a streamer playing it and I wanted to play it again, man, this game really got me into it. I want to share this game in a series and in this episode I will share the first 5 days with you.
DAY 1
This is how your shelter looks when you start the game. You have to dig what looks like a sand dune with a shovel or your hand. The ones with open door signs can be opened. As you can see at the bottom left, you need a lockpick or crowbar to open the closed cabinets and doors. In the center of the shelter we have a refrigerator that represents the food we have and next to it is a workshop for building things.
I started the game with 3 characters, Bruno, Pavle and Katia. I immediately started exploring the house and collecting items. The hand sign means collectible resources. Here is a sample of the resources I collected.
On the left is what we have and on the right is what we found in that resource. Imagine you are in a war. What would be the most important things? Food, weapons and medical equipment. The bandage I found here helps one of my characters heal if he is injured and the medicine is for diseases. Next to it is a piece of meat. But consuming it like that doesn't fully feed our characters, we need to cook it. Underneath it is a lockpick, which I've mentioned before, and underneath it are books, which keep the characters' spirits up.
At the end of the first day I managed to collect resources from the whole house, which is not usually easy, and I built a bed for them to sleep in. These are the resources I collected in the whole house. You can usually tell what they are from the images, but if you don't understand, feel free to ask in the comments.
By the way, the work in the shelter ends every day at 8pm and then you get a screen with what you want to do at night. As you can see there are 3 different places I can go. I recommend not to go to dangerous places in the first days (this information is written when you click on the place you want to go). I chose to go to the ruined apartment block (the one selected in the photo). You may also notice something else. There are bag signs and numbers next to the characters' names. This indicates the carrying capacity of your characters. So more carrying capacity means more items. That's why I will usually go looting with the others and not Bruno.
In this photo you will see two signs you have never seen before. The eye and the sign on the 2nd floor. If you are not in your own house you cannot see through the doors and it can be risky to open the doors to see. If you click on the eye sign you can peep through the peephole. The other sign is the saw sign. This means you need a saw to get in there. I'll tell you a trick, if you click on a place 2 times the character will run there and make a sound. There is no harm in doing this in your own house, but if you do it where you go to loot, the people there will hear you and may come to kill you. That's why I recommend you to click once where you want to go in looting, unless you are sure that there is no one there.
DAY 2
At the beginning of each day you will receive information about the items from the looting and if there is anything in the shelter at night.
Today I built a stove to make food, a rainwater collector to get water and a metal workshop to make weapons etc.
To find out what is happening in the city we need a radio and I was curious about it so I built it right away. On the radio you can listen to music, find out the weather and get the latest news.
Tonight I wanted to go to a different place and that was the Ruin (the one selected in the photo).
This was the first time I did surveillance here and you can see what it looks like.
And we met an NPC for the first time in the game. The poor guy said he was very hungry and if he didn't eat he would die in a few days. I didn't know he was there so I didn't have any food with me. I scanned the house but unfortunately there was no food there either. Next time I will try to bring food with me.
DAY 3
Here is the bad news. We've been robbed! When you see this, you know something bad has happened. At best, one of your characters has been injured. We didn't get anything stolen, but Bruno got hurt. A bandage is exactly what you need at times like this. Luckily I had one and I used it. Bruno will be fine in a few days.
I upgraded my metal workshop so I can build a saw, an axe and some weapons, but I used up all the materials when I upgraded so I don't have any left to make a saw 😓.
DAY 4
On the night of the 3rd day I went to the garage on the map. It said I could barter there, so I took some things I didn't need. I took 2 pieces of jewelry and some of the herbs you see in the photo at the end of the first day. I used them in the barter to buy the saws and gun parts we needed most. Luckily the night was calm and we weren't robbed.
Each character in the game has a unique characteristic and as you progress through the game you learn more about their life and feelings. For example, Kati is a hard bargainer. If you make trades with this character, you can get more stuff. She is also a coffee drinker. This means that if there is no coffee in the shelter, the character can be unhappy. I won't talk about the characteristics of all the characters, you can discover them yourself while playing.
In the game, people come to the shelter at random intervals. There is also a swap guy and he comes every 4 days on average. Of course I chose Katia to bargain with him because that's her specialty.
I gave him some unnecessary herbs and sugar that I don't need for now, and in return we got the most needed materials, food and weapon parts.
With the materials I got in the trade, I upgraded my workshop and started sealing the holes in the shelter. This makes you less likely to be attacked at night.
DAY 5
On the night of the 4th day I went back to the same place I went the first night but this time I took 2 saws with me and it was really worth it. By the way, saws and lockpicks are one-use items. That is, they disappear after you use them.
Also today someone came to us for help but I forgot to take a screenshot because it happened so fast. Exactly what happened was that a man said his brother was injured and asked for help to carry him home, so I sent Katia to help him.
I've told you about the first 5 days of the game. For me it was a lot of fun to play, it's been a long time since I played a single player game. I'm very curious about your thoughts on the game. Are you as impressed by the story as I was? Also feel free to ask me anything you're curious about. I enjoy reading and answering them. Stay in the game!
Resource that I use on my thumbnail: r1
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