Fortunately, most of your activities are straightforward.
You’re just dropped into the game without any information about what you’re supposed to be doing.
This war of mine game manual#
This War of Mine doesn’t include any sort of manual or tutorial. No, simply scavenging for supplies and keeping your civilians functional is all you need to do - but that’s difficult enough that winning the game is no sure thing. This isn’t a game where you eventually build up your civilians into an elite fighting force so they can go all Red Dawn against the opposition.
With the city in enemy control, most of the people have fled, stores have shut down, and the utilities have been turned off, making survival a dicey proposition. Good deeds can pay off in the future, but it usually feels like too little and is often too late.This War of Mine is a real-time strategy game where you control a group of civilians in a besieged city. You'll want to cry out that you just need a little bit of food, but either the NPC will offer a deal first or you're an invader. When approaching inhabited areas you can't initiate a trade yourself. It's common to return from scavenging to find a character has hung him or herself. When desperate children plead for food, turning them away always negatively impact the mental state of characters, making them sad, depressed and even suicidal. When the trader comes knocking, he doesn't care that you're on the verge of death, your acrid tobacco is worthless to him. The morality and bartering systems do not bend to accommodate your worsening conditions. The feeling of desperation is ever-present, you'll never quite have enough food to satiate everyone or the building materials to thrive. Whether you're pillaging an abandoned house or risking life and limb in a heavily fortified hotel there's a feeling that it could all go wrong in the blink of an eye. Your characters are fragile and ranged weapons difficult to come by, so you never quite feel safe. The slow, deliberate pacing accentuates the languishing, oppressive atmosphere. NPCs that hear the sounds or spot you in their line of sight will investigate, The defenseless cower, some propose a barter, others respond with deadly force. Enemies emit these same tells, as do rats scurrying around. Walking is silent but slow, while running comes at the risk of making noise, denoted by emanating circles of sound. Everything outside line of sight is enveloped in a fog, giving the exploration real tension. In the scavenging phase inspiration has been taken from Mark of the Ninja. Areas with more valuable resources are either inhabited or defended, while the safer places yield less.
Locations include abandoned squallers, schools, hospitals, churches and more. All of this is reliant on having the appropriate resources, which are gathered at night when a character can be sent to scavenge while the others sleep or stand guard. Like a grim version of The Sims, players click around to move characters and on icons to assign tasks such as making food, building, clearing rubble, rifling through resource points or administering aid-either medicinal or moral.