- Hi. I'm Alexander, a senior game programmer of This War of Mine. This is how we turned a modern sim game into a visceral experience about civilians at war. 

At 11bit Studios we started with Anomaly series, which were a games that inverted tower defense idea. Then we moved into some mobile games, that weren't really successful. But everything changed for us when we developed This War of Mine. 

The game was developed by a core team of about 20 people. But at the end of the production we had 35 people on board finishing the game. The vision of the game was quite clear from the beginning: To tell a story about civilians at war. The terrible conditions at war. The war always happens at somebody's doorstep. We wanted to create something more than a game, something that can take serious topics into consideration. Maybe raising some questions with our story. 

The basic concept of the game came from the description of everyday life in the besieged cities like Sarajevo. The people there had to hide themselves in their homes during the day, and look for some supplies during the night. Civilians that were cut off from the rest of the world, that had scarce supplies. We wanted to depict the conditions of war, of all the horrors that involved it. The people faced those things, and how did they cope with them. 

These kinds of stories are still living inside our families as we are in Poland. We've heard a lot of stories from our grandparents. So that was our main inspiration. 

From the beginning this was our goal. To create an emotional experience for the player. We wanted to give the player a feeling, that there is no safe place in the game. The shelter can be raided by some bandits or deserters. And it is exposed to the harsh conditions of weather, winter, cold, wind and so-on. The only thing we needed to adjust was the game mechanics. 

Our main inspiration was Papers, Please. A game that told the story about the difficult situation in our totalitarian country. They used only game play mechanics to involve the player into a system that he wouldn't like to be at. We chose the pencil-like filter, like sketches from the pencil. Which also distorted the image so that there's always a tension in every single second of the game. 

Problems showed up when we were deep into development, and we had all the basic mechanics figured out, and implemented in the game. We created a good game about managing the lives of the civilians. We created systems that supported that. Hunger. Diseases. Terror. Raids. We created a complicated inventory system, that had some slots for every single item type. And at some point we figured out that this is not really what we wanted to achieve. We realized that we made a game about management. A manager of civilians at war. A "war Sims" as we like to call it. We didn't want that. Our goal was to create a story, to tell the people that in war that everyone is a solider. We wanted to show the player the consequences of his actions inside the game world. 

The player didn't have emotional connection with the characters. It felt like a good simulation of civilians at war, but with no emotional impact on the player. So we had to take a step back and think what of these mechanics are really felt necessary for the message that we wanted to deliver. Our first idea to evoke some emotions on the player was to set a trap. To create a place where every decision the player makes, is the wrong one. We created a lot of behavioral patterns for the characters in game. Every character the player faces acts different. They would either greet them or just ignore the player. Some of them want to attack the player, and steal their goods. Some of them just defend the people they love. But depending on what the player does in the location. 

For example when the player steals something, or beats somebody, or is aggressive, behavior of the character starts to be different. They react on the players actions with aggression, with fear, all kinds of emotions and all kinds of reactions. So we created a house with an elderly couple inside, and when the player gets there, looking for supplies, the couple is terrified. They don't do anything about the player being inside the house, aside from begging the player not to steal their medications or their food, because they will just die. And the player who is also in harsh conditions, really really needs food and medications. He is introduced into a choice. Whether he steals the medications and the food from the couple, or leave them behind. But he is exposing himself to the dangers of war. Without these supplies the people he is taking care about are more likely to be dead. So when the player steals the elderly couples supply, and revisits the location later in the game, he finds the couple dead inside their bed. With the elderly couple's house we set an emotional trap, and it worked. Every single choice the player makes is wrong. There is no right answer to that. And that was the first time the player felt a connection between his actions and the in-game world. 

But that was not enough. So we introduced the depression level system. The player already cared about what he saw around him, but he controlled his own characters like drones. After we contacted some psychologists, we created some archetypes for our characters. The depression affected by a lot of actions like, helping others, stealing, giving some resources to our visitors. The altruistic character would like to help others while survivalist wants to save all the resources for themselves. You the player decides to steal something, an altruistic character would be more depressed after that action. But a survivalist would say that, "hey I'm the most important character here, I want to survive". After a certain amount of traumatic events that can occur, it comes to a breaking point. So an altruistic character can become indifferent. A survivalist can fall into paranoia. The character gets sadder and sadder, to a point when it had impact on game-play mechanics, as they were slower when more depressed. The characters could fell into alcoholism. They react with some emotional problems instabilities. They can run away from the shelter to find another home. And they can even commit suicide if the trauma is too big for them to handle. Up to a point we he directly disobeys the player, and the only thing the character can do is just lay on the ground because he lost all his hope for living. This is a sad game. 

So we thought that was it. The player was overwhelmed by the consequences of his actions. It changed the drones that the player controlled into a believable human-beings. But that still wasn't enough. There was something missing. Michat Drozdowski our Creative Director made an observation on that when the player faces something that he does not understand that seems random to him, he feels that he loses control. And the feeling of lost control is an essential part of the game because the player loses control, he starts to pay attention to every single detail that can help him. He's trying to get a hint from basically anywhere. 

That was the moment where everything clicked. When they start to examine each detail a strong bond between them and the game is born. He starts to feel responsibility for them. When the player characters go looking for supplies, they can face a variety of dangers. When the player characters visits for example school, he can meet helpful civilians or deserters, that can harm him. Or can meet nobody at all. The player couldn't predict what would happen at all. For example player characters have different skills. Like good at math. Likes children. The players were looking for the meaning of them, but there is none. The fact that the guy is good as a teacher of math, that's not really help in this conditions. That's useless during a war. The only goal is to survive. 

During the war horrible things happen. And people do different things and they have to live with their choices. We wanted this to be a key concept of the game. That there is no good or bad endings. That the player has to live with his choices, and the fact that he wins or loses is only in his mind and his feelings. 

This War of Mine was widely recognized by the press. Not only by the gaming press but also mass media like The Guardian. Even some schools used the game as an educational material to teach children, about conflicts and harsh conditions of civilians during the war. I think that the biggest lesson for us is that, we are able to prove to ourselves that games like movies or books can also have serious topics. 

Our message in This War of Mine is that war is not something that happens in a far-away land, in some fantasy kingdoms. That it's something real and something that affects the peoples' lives and makes people do things that they wouldn't even think of. It's an experience that leaves some unanswered questions. And makes people think about the consequences of their actions during the war. The success of This War of Mine showed us that the players are looking for something more than just simple fun in games. The game is, as like we like to call it, meaningful entertainment. The emotional impact on the player is something that has become a value for us. 

Frostpunk followed that  idea and proved that we didn't create This War of Mine by accident. Frostpunk is a game about the survival of society in harsh conditions. At its core a city builder, the player is placed as a governor of some community. And the harsh conditions makes him to make decisions that he doesn't really want to make. If he survives he is left with the society he created. And he might not be very happy to see his creation. 

We have an idea at 11bit Studios that we want to make games that we will be proud to show to our children. So regardless of the theme, regardless of the technology being used, regardless of the story that is told, we want to create some value. And we want to pass that value to the people we love most.