Board game review: This War of Mine
The solo and co-op play board game “This War of Mine” is a brutal reminder of what happens to a society that lets ethnic, religious and ideological passions divide people to the point of violence and collapse. The authors at Galakta Games and 11Bit Studios derived the board game from the award-winning computer game of the same name, based on their experiences surviving the civil wars that raged across the Balkans in the 1990s as the nation of Yugoslavia shattered into warring ethnic factions.
The game design incorporates aspects of both Resource Allocation and Action. In the game the Players assume the role of civilians trying to survive the war until a cease fire ends the fighting. Each Player controls one or more characters that are defined by traits – Empathy (morale tests), Prowess (physical tests), Inventory (how many items they can carry), Traits (Sneaky, etc. which can help or hurt during an Encounter or Test) and Spirit which includes both good and bad Habits that can effect survival. There is only one Victory condition – survival. And nobody can survive alone for long, so the Players must work together to manage their Characters and their group in order to win.
These Characters are based out of the shattered ruins of their apartment building in a major city and must forage for food, water, medicine, parts and equipment in order to survive the civil war. The game forces the Players to balance multiple “States” that track the well-being of each Character, or they will be penalized by different conditions. These States include:
- Fatigue
- Wounds
- Misery
- Hunger
- Illness
Each Character can accrue up to 4 levels on each State, but each level has a game impact on a Character’s ability to pass different tests. These States can only be removed or remedied by allocating game Resources each turn or by taking Actions. For example, a “Ill” character with needs Medicine to recover, a character with multiple levels of “Hunger” needs food or will collapse, a Character accruing Misery needs to be soothed with a Habit (smoking) or Entertainment or they will have a mental/emotional breakdown, etc.
So each turn the Players must decide how to allocate resources, what actions to take to help a Character recover, and where and how many Characters to send out to forage, trade, or fight for resources keeping in mind the various States afflicting each Character. And sending Characters out to forage is hazardous in two ways. The Characters assigned to Forage are placed into different Zones on the City Map. Each Zone has its own danger and resource level, and some Zones are more likely than others to yield medicine or food. The Characters foraging must pass different challenge tests to survive encounters and find useful resources.
At the same time, the Characters left behind at the Apartment may face Intruders who will try to force their way into the Apartment and steal resources, and in the process injure or kill the Characters in the Apartment. So the Players have to also balance where they allocate their Characters.
Other events may also occur during any given turn, providing the opportunity to trade with neighbors or strangers, or present the Players with moral dilemmas, like having to decide to assume care for orphaned children or an ill stranger — which could impact the group’s survival. And all these events are given life by a comprehensive story book which provides a narration for each event or encounter, supported by a free game management app for your smartphone or tablet.
The game is uncompromising and you will lose Characters as you struggle towards the day of the Cease Fire (which is determined by a progressive card pull during the turn) — and you may lose entirely as your Characters get sick or injured, die, or lose heart and abandon the group. In no other game will you be confronted with a Character’s death like these:
“The soldiers are entering houses and dragging out anyone they happen to grab. Those who are taken are made to kneel with their hands in the air…the soldiers rack the bolts on their weapons…now is the time of vengeance for real or imagined offenses…assign a number from 1 to 10 for al Characters present. Then roll a die for each Character present and if their assigned number is rolled they are shot and removed from the game.”
This is a well crafted game that brings home the reality that no matter how it starts, who started it or how noble their intentions — once civil war collapses a society each person is left to survive in their own personal This War of Mine.
This War of Mine: The Board Game
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