World War I, the war to end all wars. We all know the horrors of war, what it can do to a person's psyche, and the lives it took.
Just not first-hand.
What really goes on inside someone's head on the battlefield? Well, here's a chance to find out. One soldier is stuck in the trenches, his only goal being to reach the ladder that'll lead him out. It seems simple enough. However, it's not just him down there. Others are down there with him, and they want him dead. And the worst part?
They're not human.
The game was released on the web on March 30th, 2011.
1916 - Der Unbekannte Krieg contains examples of:
- Ambiguous Situation: Are the monsters real, or are they a hallucination in the soldier's mind? That question is never answered.
- Apocalyptic Log: You find a letter next to a fellow soldier's corpse early on.
- Bilingual Bonus: All of the letters in the game are written in German to fully emulate being in the trenches.
- Deadly Gas: The ladder lies on the other side of a cloud of this stuff in the trenches. The soldier needs to find a gas mask before he can go through it.
- Deliberately Monochrome: The game is presented in black and white.
- Driven to Suicide: You find a dead soldier sitting slumped over the table in the bunker. Since nothing around them is damaged, it's likely he committed suicide.
- During the final sequence of a game, you also see a soldier hanging on a tree, though it's possible he got executed.
- Downer Ending: The soldier gets out of the trenches and charges along the battlefield, but is shot dead before long.
- First-Person Ghost: You only see the soldier's hand or lower body during the scripted sequences, and they are absent during the normal gameplay.
- Heartbeat Soundtrack: You hear the soldier's elevated heartbeat when he's heavily stressed-out.
- Monochromatic Eyes: The raptor-like monster eyes are solid white.
- Raptor Attack: The soldier is being stalked in the trenches by monsters that vaguely resembles raptors.
- War Is Hell: The all-pervading theme. You spend nearly all of the game trudging through a muddy trench in the rain, with its floor being a single ankle-deep puddle.
