This War of Mine: The Board Game

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This War of Mine: The Board Game
Years active2017–present
GenresCooperative, war
Players1–6
Playing timeAdvertised: 45–120 minutes
Actual: Some games may run past 5 hours

This War of Mine: The Board Game is a 2017 Polish cooperative board game published by Awaken Realms, designed by Michal Oracz and Jakub Wiśniewski as an adaptation or port of the video game This War of Mine. It has been noted for its bleak, unforgiving gameplay, often forcing players into ethical dilemmas. A war game from the perspective of civilians trying to survive a conflict that is primarily based on the siege of Sarajevo, it was announced in November 2015 by 11 Bit Studios, the video game's developer; after a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2016, it was released through several distributors the following year. While agreed upon by reviewers to not be a "fun" game, it has received mostly favorable reviews for its role as an artistic statement or educational tool.

Background[edit]

In November 2014, the Polish game development company 11 Bit Studios published This War of Mine, a war survival video game following the perspective of civilians,[VG 1] based on the siege of Sarajevo among other conflicts.[VG 2] The game proved popular, and has been adapted to a number of platforms beyond the original Microsoft Windows, MacOS, and Linux.[VG 3] Android and iOS ports debuted in July 2015.[VG 4] The video game has been well-received, with "universal acclaim" on iOS[VG 5] and "generally favorable" reviews on Windows and consoles,[VG 6] according to the aggregator Metacritic as of October 2023.

A year after the video game's launch, 11 Bit Studios announced that they would be partnering with Michal Oracz (known for Neuroshima Hex!) and Jakub Wiśniewski to create a board game adaptation.[1] 11 Bit launched a Kickstarter campaign in May 2016,[2] raising £621,811 against a goal of £40,000 with 9,627 backers.[NI 1] Kickstarter copies began shipping in May 2017 through Awaken Realms and Gamefound,[NI 2] with English- and Polish-language retail sales[a] beginning in October through Galakta Games.[NI 4]

Gameplay[edit]

This War of Mine: The Board Game is designed as a faithful reproduction or port of the video game.[3][4]: 10:35  It is meant to be "instant-play"—playable straight out of the box without needing to read the rules first.[1] Similar to a video game's tutorial,[4]: 13:15  a small booklet, the Journal, teaches the basic rules.[3] The rest are scattered throughout the much longer Book of Scripts, although players will not encounter every rule.[4]: 14:10  Most of the 2,000 entries in the Book of Scripts, however, are custom scenarios that can arise in the course of the game, triggered by various game elements.[3] The game can be played solitaire or as a cooperative game of two to six people. In cooperative mode the gameplay rules are the same as in solitaire, with decisions made by a rotating Leader in consultation with the others. Players do not control individual characters, but rather jointly control a slate of characters, all civilians in fictional Pogoren.[3]

Four sets of status tokens, each arranged vertically. The first and third both read "fatigue 1" with 1 black dot, "misery 1" with 0 black dots, and "hunger 1" with 0. The second reads "misery 1" with 1 black dot, "wounds 2" with 2, and "hunger 2" with 1. The fourth reads "hunger 1" with 1 black dot and "misery 2" with 1.
Status tokens track characters' wellbeing and determine how many actions they can take. Here, all characters have lost their third action due to having it blacked out on at least one token, and the second-from-left character has lost their second action as well.

The gameplay is broken into days. In daytime, characters can use a limited number of actions to engage in tasks such as building appliances or digging out parts of the building where they have sought shelter.[5][6] Appliances provide small but crucial advantages in subsequent gameplay;[7] by design, it is not possible to build everything one might need.[5] At night, some characters scavenge for supplies and try to avoid violence or making too much noise,[8] while others brace for a raid on the shelter. Tokens track each character's fatigue, hunger, illness, misery, and wounds.[5][6] They also indicate the number of actions available (zero to three), with white dots becoming blacked out as levels increase.[4]: 3:04  Allowing any token to reach level four will in most cases cause the character to either die or flee.[6] Some increases in level are inevitable. For instance, all players who scavenge or defend the shelter at night gain one fatigue.[5]

"I'm sure you can 'win'—I haven't yet—but at what cost? I mean, you can do really bad things in this game in the name of survival. You will have really bad things done to your characters in the name of survival. And that's a really tough bridge to cross."

Tom Vasel, The Dice Tower[4]: 12:41 

Players turn through a new event each in-game day, until reaching the "Ceasefire" card near the bottom of the events deck.[5][7] The game is divided into three chapters, with the events in each phase worse than those in the last.[7] Each chapter comes with a randomized objective,[NI 5] which brings a reward if completed and a penalty if not.[4]: 2:19  Events and entries from the Book of Scripts, sometimes triggered by cards marked "Reality Impact",[8] lead to considerable randomness, such as rats eating all of the characters' food.[5][6] Many scenarios in the Book of Scripts present ethical dilemmas, such as whether to steal food,[5] eat a cat,[7] or mug an elderly woman.[6]

Games can run for five or more hours[5][3] and normally end unpleasantly[4]: 15:52 —often with the death of all characters.[5] Success in the game is often considered more a matter of surviving than truly winning.[5][4]: 15:52 

Variants and expansions[edit]

The board has an "Advanced" side with a different configuration.[4]: 8:28  The basic game ships with two scenario options that alter gameplay.[NI 6]: ¶ 905  Galakta Games released an expansion in 2018, Tales from the Ruined City, adding five new scenarios, a new character (Emira, a cat), and modules including sewers beneath the city.[NI 7] Some of these features were stretch goals of the Kickstarter campaign; Kickstarter backers had the option of buying the remaining features as an upgrade.[NI 8] Galakta released a second expansion, Days of the Siege, the following year. Its additions included a new campaign titled Forlorn Hope and an "Orphans of War" module.[9]

Reception[edit]

Early prototype reviews in The A.V. Club,[7] Eurogamer,[6] and Polygon[8] were optimistic. Samantha Nelson of The A.V. Club and Johnny Chiodini of Eurogamer emphasized the game's "ruthlessness"[7] and "bleakness"[6] respectively. Charlie Hall of Polygon followed up with a review of the finalized game, describing the events as "staggering" but criticizing the lack of connection between individual player and individual character.[3] Charles Theel in Ars Technica praises the game's immersion as "its primary achievement", in particular the moral decisions that must be made on behalf of one's characters, but more critically writes that "a huge portion of the game is bookkeeping—sliding counters around the board, shuffling decks of cards, and amassing tokens".[5]

Both Hall and The Dice Tower's Tom Vasel criticize the decision to split the rules between the Journal and the Book of Scripts. Hall bemoans the time spent cross-referencing between the two books, causing the game to run much longer than the advertised maximum two hours. He concludes that the game is "a noble effort" but flawed structurally, and recommends the video game instead.[3] Vasel argues that the system creates a lack of structure and that the inclusion of script numbers on cards is confusing.[4]: 13:15 [b] Theel, on the other hand, praises the approach, writing that "it can be maddening for those wanting control, but this is intentional. The lack of authority, in combination with a reliance on very random and admittedly arbitrary outcomes, is a lesson in letting go. This unsettling goal of reducing player autonomy leaves you feeling helpless and confused at times—which is the point. It's one of the game's most effective tricks."[5]

Hall, Theel, and Vasel all describe the game as not fun, but in the case of the latter two this is juxtaposed with overall favorable opinions. Vasel compares the game to a film that one might see and appreciate the artistic merit of, but would not watch a second time, in contrast with a "popcorn flick".[4]: 15:03  Theel views This War of Mine as "not 'fun' in a traditional sense, but ... engaging and tense[,] ... an ordeal that seeks to educate and impart empathy".[5] Vasel closes his review by "depressingly" recommending the game, after a caveat to those unfamiliar with the franchise that they should "know what [they're] getting [themselves] in for" due to the game's bleakness.[4]: 15:52  Theel discusses at length the brutality of This War of Mine's world and the general lack of satisfying outcomes, concluding, "It's a depressing vision of existence—but one that deserves to be experienced".[5]

In 2022, Comic Book Resources ranked This War of Mine: The Board Game as the third-greatest board game based on a video game, after Fallout: The Board Game and The Witcher Adventure Game.[10] The same year, Alfonso Iglesias Amorín, writing in Clío, praised the game's applicability as a teaching aid to convey history's lessons and foster historical empathy, alongside other contemporary games such as Secret Hitler.[11]: 42–43 

Since publication[edit]

Wiśniewski again collaborated with 11 Bit for the board game adaptation of their 2018 video game Frostpunk, which like This War of Mine is designed as a direct translation from device to table.[12]

In 2022, at the outbreak of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, Awaken Realms and 11 Bit sold off all remaining Kickstarter copies of This War of Mine: The Board Game, with all revenue (past that to offset taxes and shipping) going to the Rakiety Oncological Foundation, which was evacuating cancer patients into Poland, and the Ukrainian Red Cross Society.[13] They raised €48,000,[NI 9] on top of an earlier $850,000 raised by 11 Bit for the Red Cross through pledging a week of video game sales.[13]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ According to Galakta, the French and Spanish editions were published by Edge Entertainment, Russian by Crowd Games, German by Asmodee Deutschland, Czech by ALBI Česká republika, and Italian by Pendragon Game Studio.[NI 3]
  2. ^ A note clarifying this is included in a subsequent errata sheet by Galakta.[NI 6]: ¶ "Page 4, MORNING" 

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b Hall, Charlie (26 November 2015). "This War of Mine is getting a board game adaptation". Polygon. Retrieved 18 October 2023.
  2. ^ Grush, Andrew (11 May 2016). "This War of Mine is now a board game, Kickstarter officially launched". Android Authority. Authority Media. Retrieved 18 October 2023.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Hall, Charlie (14 August 2017). "This War of Mine: The Board Game is part social experiment, and entirely too long". Polygon. Retrieved 19 October 2023.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Vasel, Tom. This War of Mine: The Board Game Review. The Dice Tower. Retrieved 19 October 2023 – via YouTube.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Theel, Charles (28 October 2017). "Review: This War of Mine, the board game". Ars Technica. Retrieved 19 October 2023.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Chiodini, Johnny (17 June 2016). "This War of Mine: The Board Game is so bleak we had to mug an old lady". Eurogamer. Retrieved 19 October 2023.
  7. ^ a b c d e f Nelson, Samantha (26 May 2016). "The horrors of This War Of Mine make for a tense and traumatic board game". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 19 October 2023.
  8. ^ a b c Hall, Charlie (17 May 2016). "Hands-on This War of Mine: The Board Game". Polygon. Retrieved 19 October 2023.
  9. ^ Adams, Robert N. (12 September 2019). "Days of the Siege is the Second Expansion for This War of Mine: The Board Game". TechRaptor. Retrieved 30 October 2023.
  10. ^ Eyles, Christopher (7 July 2022). "12 Best Board Games Based On Video Games". CBR. Retrieved 29 October 2023.
  11. ^ Iglesias Amorín, Alfonso (30 December 2022). "La aplicación de los juegos de mesa en la enseñanza de la Historia" [The application of board games to the teaching of history]. Clío (in Spanish) (48). University of Santiago de Compostela: 26–49. doi:10.26754/ojs_clio/clio.2022486981.
  12. ^ Wales, Matt (13 June 2020). "Frostpunk getting a tabletop adaption from This War of Mine: The Board Game's creators". Eurogamer. Retrieved 29 October 2023.
  13. ^ a b Jarvis, Matt (10 March 2022). "This War of Mine: The Board Game creators donate all revenue from remaining Kickstarter copies to support Ukraine". Dicebreaker. Retrieved 29 October 2023.

Pertaining to the video game[edit]

  1. ^
  2. ^ Hall, Charlie (3 September 2014). "A war game that actually feels like being in a war". Polygon. Retrieved 18 October 2023.
  3. ^ Yin-Poole, Wesley (27 November 2014). "It took just two days for This War of Mine to make its money back". Eurogamer. Gamer Network. Retrieved 27 November 2014.
  4. ^ Phillips, Tom (15 July 2015). "This War of Mine available today on iPad, Android". Eurogamer. Retrieved 18 October 2023.
  5. ^ "This War of Mine for iPhone/iPad Reviews". Metacritic. Fandom, Inc. Retrieved 29 April 2018.
  6. ^

Non-independent sources[edit]

  1. ^ "This War Of Mine: The Board Game". Awaken Realms. 13 June 2013. Retrieved 2 November 2023 – via Kickstarter.
  2. ^ "Shipping, pictures, accounting and mobile app!". Awaken Realms. 13 June 2013. Retrieved 2 November 2023 – via Kickstarter.
  3. ^ Galakta Games. "🖤 One game—eight language editions. Which edition are you going to play? 🖤". Retrieved 19 October 2023 – via Facebook.
  4. ^ Galakta Games. "Hello there! 🙂 / 📢 We have a big announcement today!". Retrieved 19 October 2023 – via Facebook.
  5. ^ "Setup". Journal (PDF). This War of Mine: The Board Game. Galakta Games. Retrieved 29 October 2023.
  6. ^ a b Official Errata and Solutions for Frequently Encountered Problems (PDF). This War of Mine: The Board Game. Galakta Games. Retrieved 29 October 2023.
  7. ^ "This War Of Mine: The Board Game—New Face of War". Galakta. Galakta Games. 28 September 2018. Retrieved 30 October 2023.
  8. ^ "Ordering the upgrade packs". Awaken Realms. 13 June 2013. Retrieved 2 November 2023 – via Kickstarter.
  9. ^ Awaken Realms. "This War of Mine—Ukraine cause sale by Awaken Realms—Updates". gamefound.

External links[edit]

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=This_War_of_Mine:_The_Board_Game&oldid=1215904961"