To Honor the Casualties of War: This War of Mine

(Photo credit to Ares Games)

Written by Ed Carter, Staff Writer)

This War of Mine

Ares Games

1-4 players

Real life survival simulator, adult themes, somber and sobering

Praising the Fallen: The purpose behind This War of Mine

Some games are designed just for fun, to escape and play pretend and some are designed for more serious purposes.  Like Memoir 44 was made to honor those from World War 2, This War of Mine is made to honor those civilian casualties of war.  To even grasp their suffering is hard to do, and the designers did just that. They took the video game and converted it into a board game.  Recently, the game had a new Kickstarter version that is currently in production. The current retail version is from the second edition after Awaken Realms released the original almost a decade earlier.

The scene is in a city ravaged by war; players have been trapped here for over a year now, and are just eking out a barely sustainable existence.  Facing food shortages, snipers, gangs, and other desperate survivors, players are in this abandoned house by day only able to sneak out at night to scavenge what they can to keep going.  Players face hunger, diseases, misery, wounds and death.  The themes are graphic and not for younger gamers

A day in the life: Game set up 

This War of Mine started the concept of “learn as you go”.  When you open the box, first thing to do is to open the journal. It shows the board set up and token placement in the tray.  The game uses a lot of cards and tokens, so organizing your game with the suggested set up is very beneficial.  Once you have all the tokens and the board set up, go to the next page (the morning phase) and follow the instructions.  The game is played in days with each day having a morning, day, dusk, evening and night.  Each phase has specific objectives and conditions to meet.  In summary, during the day, players take actions to improve their house. During dusk they need to eat and drink. The evening is when they prepare for scavenging,  who will sleep and who will stand guard. The night is when they can scavenge outside the house, usually  picking one of three locations to explore. This is also when those remaining at the house will face raids of the supplies and may even be attacked. Finally, in the morning, wounds are tended to, the scavengers return, and a new day begins.

Each character has various states (hunger, fatigue, illness, wounds, and misery)  The levels of these states determine what and how many actions they can take.  The states range from 1 to 4. Whenever a character reaches a 4 on any state, they usually die from succumbing to the overwhelming situation.

What’s the point? Why play This War of Mine

While the themes are graphic and adult, this game has been said to be one of the best board game simulator narrative games ever.  The game draws you in and you empathize with the plight your characters are in, as you try to give them the best existence possible in a situation that is beyond awful.  The game uses a lot of dice checks to determine outcomes so that element of luck is strong.

This game is NOT for everyone, so be aware of what you are getting into before playing.  The components are top quality.  The tokens are easy to read, the graphics really embrace the theme in the cards, board, etc. The game uses a “book of scripts” to weave the narrative of the story being made during the game.  These are extremely well written and just draw you in.

I find the experience and story the driving force to play. It is an excellent well designed game and deserves the accolades it has received. Until next time, keep moving those meeples and happy gaming!

 

 

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