My Worst Day WW2

Doing the Impossible

Today, first-person shooters take millions of dollars, years, and huge teams to develop, right? It's just impossible for a lone-wolf developer to create an FPS that's compelling.

Well, maybe not--if you concentrate on innovative gameplay instead of polygon count and particle effects. That's what Rune Trollebo has done.

My Worst Day WW2 isn't a level-based gib-fest like Doom, a death-match game like Quake or a team shooter like Counter Strike. Instead, its emphasis is on sneaking, sniping, and surviving in a hostile environment--with the focus on eventually completing a single, difficult mission.

My Worst Day provides a far better feeling of actual combat than anything else out there. If you go in guns blazing, you will shortly be dead. You're a lone Norwegian resistance fighter on an island crawling with Nazis, your mission to blow up two large artillery emplacements, and your tools some weapons and supplies the Allies have airdropped to assist you--including some explosives to blow up those emplacements.

Problem is, the Germans have found the explosives. Your only chance is to find some of the airdropped supplies, take out Germans one by one and quietly, locate and secure the explosives, and eventually fulfill your mission. It's a game for sneaking and sniping, in other words--and much of the time you'll be on the run, trying to find cover and shake enemies who are looking for you.

There are three gameplay modes. Perhaps the most interesting (but most difficult) is the "sniper" mode, where weapons behave realistically, down to the effect of your heart rate on aim, and wind direction on path of bullets. "Standard" is a little easier, and "arcade" is closer to a traditional FPS experience.

There are no levels: The feeling is much like a realistic, if perhaps foolhardy, WWII mission.

If what you want in an FPS is ever-improving graphics, look elswhere; My Worst Day is not bad looking, but it's created by a lone-wolf developer, and could not possibly have the glitz of a big-budget title. But if what you want is a novel and very different twist on the genre, you need look no farther.

The Developer Says

My Worst Day WW2 is a 3D first person shooter. It is February 1944, it is World War II, German troops still occupy most of Europe.

As a saboteur you are sent into Norway, to destroy two large cannons. This game will introduce you to a new way of playing a 3D first person shooter. The story is perhaps not that unique, it is World War II, and you are a saboteur put on the middle of a large island, your main target is to destroy two big German cannons, which are a part of the German coastal defense in occupied Norway. But here the comparison with a standard war game stops.

You are not sent out on 10 or 15 standard linear, scripted missions. No, it is more like a real military mission: You are sent into the enemy territory without knowing too much about where the enemies are, and what they are up to. The intelligence is sparse, close to none. And you will see that you have to find out what is the biggest threat, and start your 'mission' from there. To put it simply, in this tactical game you have to kill many enemies on the island to be sure of success, and to be able to leave the island. If you play for increasing your score, you can try to hunt down most of the soldiers on the island.

Extra Bonus, two playing modes:

Standard mode:
This game can be played as standard game like play, save and get killed, then reload.

The fun Arcade mode:
As a BONUS you can also play the game in the very addictive and fun arcade mode, where you start out with 3 lives, and can gain more life by collecting medicine, in the form of brandy bottles. There is also a Hi-Score table as this is a game you would want to play many times, since you will try to find different ways of solving your main mission.

News: More realistic sniper game mode added (from version 1.95)

Reviews

"It's not a game for just anybody, it's for the kind of people who play wargames (yet have the skills to play an FPS, I guess)."
   - Game Tunnel

"It's just plain fun and it not only answer[s] the question of 'Can one man make a sellable 3D game', it shatters the critics' notions that it just could never be done."
   - angry-gamer.net

Awards

Silver Award July 2006, Game Tunnel