Thoughts after one restart and one successful playthrough of the initial early access content...

[US Mack5]

I enjoy this game immensely - I think there is a great foundation here for a survival/management game set in a woefully under-explored conflict in videogames.

What I like:

- The characters - Even the little snippets we get are enough to see their individuality and take a liking to some over others. How negative attitudes and traits factor into gameplay could be a bit more clear, though I also understand the desire to avoid over-explaining mechanics and traits, which if overdone would lead to players just seeing soldiers by their gameplay-affecting traits and turning them into little more than a unit to be exploited and potentially sacrificed based on those traits, as opposed to people you are trying to ensure the survival of.

The soldiers of course could be developed more (which seems likely to happen as the game expands to encompass multiple years of the war). I would think a little interlude with each of your men when the soldiers go on leave (which is where the EA content ends for everyone presumably) that serves to highlight their experiences/interactions with people back home would give the player important glimpses into the lives of their soldiers and would therefore increase the impact of the responsibility you have over them at the front.

Considering this game is heavily influenced by "All Quiet on the Western Front" (which is fairly obvious given the title of the game and the game scale similarities with the book narrative), having that element of seeing the disconnect between the soldiers and the heavily propagandized civilians back home (which was a vital element of the book's narrative and message) would go a long way in increasing the impact of the game's emergent narrative with your ragtag band of soldiers as they become more disillusioned with the war. Seeing your men interact with parents/siblings/children/friends, even in a short dialogue/cutscene, would go a long way to help with this. Even if you could just converse with the soldiers themselves when they get back and then have them to open up about how the war is affecting them and their home lives would serve this purpose in a less resource-intensive way.

- The general mechanics - balancing food/ammo supplies and your reputation with both your men and your superiors, coupled with the general risks associated with most activities is a good foundation for the survival mechanics. Right now, it's not particularly difficult (though this is decently RNG-dependent). It is already a tad bit repetitive and feels a little too dependent on whether you have men in the hospital or not (which is also mostly RNG-dependent). If you have men in the hospital, you will struggle and can easily death spiral as you can't complete essential tasks each turn and can't rest. If you have everyone relatively healthy, you will be able to do most tasks without really making many real choices on the management side (so far). I get that it is really tough to balance these kinds of mechanics when it comes to fun vs. difficulty vs. giving the player meaningful choices and strategies, so I won't criticize too much here. I just think a bit more depth and variety to both how the mechanics are balanced/used as well as the events and tasks where these mechanics are applied would go a long way to make the game more engaging and ultimately replayable.

- The art style - it very much looks like a Telltale game in many ways, which is perfect for this type of game. I do think it should have blood and gore to really get the visceral reality of the war and the losses of soldiers across, but I can understand keeping it more tame for the sake of having a wider audience engage with the game.

Things to be improved:

- Bugs - I encountered a couple of minor bugs where there were missing elements (something relating to the commanding officer as I loaded back into camp after a battle or visit to the trenches) that led to the game asking that I reload a previous save, which fixed the issue each time. I had one attempt to leave a battle as everyone was retreating lock up the game, where no dialogue, movement options, etc. came up and I had to force close the game. Minor issues, both probably fixed with ease once the sources of the issues are identified. I did also get the sense that your first soldier death at the hospital was both heavily scripted and bugged. Both playthroughs so far, I had a wounded soldier after the first or second battle get an infection, then I treated the soldier at camp, and then they died despite on both occasions having the medic lady tell me my soldier's help to treat said infection was successful. Seems like a weird narrative dissonance there. I get that having a character die early is necessary to emphasize the stakes of the war and introduce the mourning mechanics with your soldiers, but I think it could be done a little more cleanly with an instant death from a bullet to the head or artillery instantly killing them instead of them dying in the hospital from an infection you can successfully treat.

- The combat - Don't get me wrong, the basic mechanics are here and aren't fundamentally flawed. The roadmap indicates that the mechanics will be expanded upon to allow for playstyles that are more aggressive or cautious. This is good. That said, there needs to be more lethality to the combat, as having soldiers get directly impacted by grenades or arty fire and still be able to both be treated and continue fighting oftentimes in the same battle is just kind of ridiculous when you think about the war this game takes place in. I get that you don't want players to get frustrated by losing their best soldiers permanently every other battle to RNG, but WW1 was a meat-grinder of a war, with people losing their lives by the thousands in every major battle, with many more losing limbs or experiencing PTSD to the point of being unable to function on a basic level afterwards. The combat needs to be more lethal for both sides and squad tactics for your squad individually as well as how your squad works with other AI controlled squads could use a bit more variety to keep things fresh. I look forward to seeing what gets added in this regard.

I look forward to seeing how this game progresses going forward! I have high hopes for it overall.

[Totally Not Aliens]

Thanks for the kind words, for sharing these detailed and good thoughts about our game, and for the bug report. Really appreciate it :)

[Wish]

Good write-up!
About the soldier dying though: It can't be scripted, it didn't happen to me. And there's people saying they did a whole playthrough without losing anybody.
You may need to help the hospital to improve your soldier's chances for survival on top of just treating the fever.

[Asmodeus Valkyr]

Originally posted by Wish:

Good write-up!
About the soldier dying though: It can't be scripted, it didn't happen to me. And there's people saying they did a whole playthrough without losing anybody.
You may need to help the hospital to improve your soldier's chances for survival on top of just treating the fever.

It appears if you mercy-kill the injured guy in the initial trench stage: you ALWAYS have a squad member die in the first battle after the artillery starts.

[Naaku]

Originally posted by Asmodeus Valkyr:

Originally posted by Wish:

Good write-up!
About the soldier dying though: It can't be scripted, it didn't happen to me. And there's people saying they did a whole playthrough without losing anybody.
You may need to help the hospital to improve your soldier's chances for survival on top of just treating the fever.

It appears if you mercy-kill the injured guy in the initial trench stage: you ALWAYS have a squad member die in the first battle after the artillery starts.

No the scripted part is they are moderately wounded. Ive done several playthroughs, on both normal and hard mode. Dosent matter your cover they will be wounded by artilery as soon as you move out of the trench whether you mercy kill or try to save him. The condition of your hospital and any fever are RNG so sometimes you can save them sometimes not.

If you lose them on hard mode you may as well restart.