With a new website comes a whole new batch of content and videogames! Things will be moving swiftly more into the war side of wargaming, and I’ll be featuring ever more diverse games in here! Hopefully, you’re not one of those all bats that only enjoys traditional wargaming and everything else is pure heresy. Open up your mind, there’s a lot of intriguing games out there you’re missing out, and Conscript just so happens to be one of those.

A Game In Development

A game in development by a single person, Jordan Mochi, and being published by Team 17. It’s a self-described survival horror set in World War 1. You play as a French Soldier during the Battle of Verdun, fighting alongside your brother. So what’s so special about Conscript? Didn’t Amnesia: The Bunker, just came out a couple of months back? And isn’t it also set in World War 1? Well, for starters, it sports a beautifully pixelated artstyle, and the enemy, instead of being a 500 pound massive rat-man is just your fellow men from across the borders. And it works surprisingly well. Trenches are labyrinthian, cramped and crawling with what remains of dead soldiers; enemies feel like faceless zombies, and it doesn’t take more than a couple of shovel smacks to bring you down. You’ll get easily swarmed, and will be forced to run in order to have a fighting chance. It’s all very oppressive.

Conscript pulls no punches in the brutality department: the germans can be killed with a single, well placed shot, but engage in hand-to-hand combat, and things get messy, and expected to bring a shovel down five or six times before your opponent’s skull finally caves. The first moments are visceral and confusing, with very little hand-holding on the game’s part to introduce you to its mechanics and how things are supposed to unfold. Everything is very reminiscent of the early days of the Sega Saturn, and the Resident Evil titles. Guns take a while to aim properly. A while being two or three seconds. So everytime the weapons in unshouldered, there’s a need to bring it up and aiming it all over again. All the while being chased by three germans with mean looking clubs. Double action weapons, like rifles and shotguns have a manual cycle that needs to be done before firing again. For some reason, this just feels so satisfying to do, maybe because it’s as much as an integral part of operation a bolt-action rifle as is shooting the thing. It’s also another action that has to be taken prior to firing the gun again, so it compounds on the already existing stress.

There’s also some old-school inventory management, where it’s extremely limited, but you’re able to store items on stashesa spread out around the map. Another aspect of it that really stands out, even in this semi-early stage is the sound, and it can only be described as loud and crunchy.

The game is still in development, but the demo is so very much worth trying out.

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