Was reading with sadness that the last veteran of WWI trench warfare passed away this morning. That leaves two known WWI veterans, neither of which fought in the trenches.
It got me thinking about WWI video games. Other than the action / simulator flight games have there been many about the war? I recall one involving the naval battle of Jutland, I suppose, but that may have even been an old AH board game.
Maybe the static nature of trench warfare works against it. Gaining five miles of territory over a two month period is hardly as exciting as the faster paced WWII campaigns (by-and-large, of course there were slower paced battles like Stalingrad and the Japanese capture of the Philippines). Maybe the pointlessness of it all works against it. Unlike WWII which could be seen as a just crusade against the Nazis (though this is a bit revisionist as the true horror of what the Nazis – and Japanese – had done wasn’t fully understood until near the conclusion of the war), WWI has two sides that are far grayer in terms of right and wrong. Or maybe the problem is that much of the horror of WWI was psychological – the dark quiet hours living among rats and mud and contending with trench foot and living in fear of poking your head above the trench or of sappers working below and killing you in your sleep.
Before my grandfather, an infantryman NCO with the 45th division* in North Africa, Italy, and southern Germany, died he finally opened up in detail about his war experiences. The horror of losing friends in the night while on watch in North Africa, of the terrible battles (many not as remembered in the wake of D-Day’s fame) of Salerno, Anzio, etc. He knew that I played WWII video games and asked why I’d want to play through that experience. With WWI I imagine that question is doubly relevant – why would anyone want to play in the trenches video game?
So, if you could make an in-the-trenches video game on WWI, would you? What form would it take? What aspects of that type of warfare would you focus on?
Me, I could see a fascinating game in the vein of Close Combat where morale and managing your men is paramount. Or, a pet project I meant to do with Inform 7 and never got around to, a text adventure game. I think a text adventure game centered on a short period of time in the trenches, told in a Deadline time-sensitive way, could be really interesting. The setting, being very constrained and short of interactive objects, lends itself well to IF. Also, given a capable writer (something I’m not – which is probably why I never got around to doing this) the horror of the trenches could be conveyed much better through words than through pictures. Gameplay would revolve around keeping your squad alive through various events – helping one with trench foot, improving morale, surviving a mustard gas attack, going over the top into no-man’s land, etc. – each of which would involve the standard gather and apply items.
How about you all?
- Interestingly enough, the 45th honored Native Americans (it was formed in Oklahoma) and its original divisional symbol was a yellow swastika on a red diamond. In 1939 with the rise of Nazism they changed this to a yellow Thunderbird on a red diamond.
