Literal Wargaming notes on War of Heroes

A truck bombing mission

 So, there's a game on the app store that lets you actively support a side in a conflict, literal wargaming.

  Myanmar (still commonly called Burma) is a nation with a very long history of violent conflict, within its borders there are dozens of wars that date back to 1948 if not earlier. Despite that February 2021 is still considered a low point for Myanmar's political stability, this was when the military Junta (Tatmadaw) that has ruled the country for most of its history as an independent nation abandoned its strategy of limited reform and collaboration with civilian politicians and launched a coup to overthrow Aung Saan Su Kyi, since that time opposition spread across the country and due to the open use of military force many opponents started arming themselves, now in 2024 seemingly the entirety of the nation is in the grip of a civil war.

The ethnic minority and regional groups that were already in conflict with the Junta gained new recruits and multiple new factions sprung up, it's a very confusing conflict to keep track of. Just have a look at this map.

 

Every shade of colour represents territory under the control of a different group and that does not include every force participating, some are operating in areas too remote to be independently verified or are working as part of an umbrella alliance of other groups.

Tatmadaw has been a brutal force in Myanmar for decades, enforced conscription, racketeering, rape, murder, ethnic cleansing, bombing of civilians, slavery, human trafficking, alliances with organised crime, drug trafficking, deals with international conglomerates, and that was before it was faced with this massive wave of resistance. Its response has more bombings, more enforced conscriptions, more murder, more airstrikes on villages and townships. 

The opposition has been forced to get creative, in the early days I saw brief videos of small groups using 3D printed guns to drive-by small police check points, and plant homemade bombs on remote trails to ambush patrols. There's also been an explosion in cultural resistance, Anarchist punk music has exploded in popularity in the country, Rebel Riot is a personal favourite.

And there is also now an official mobile game created by a supporter of the People's Defence Forces (PDFs). It's called War of Heroes (WOH) its available now on IOS and Android. The PDF is an umbrella grouping of resistance to the Tatmadaw it varies in strength, capabilities and tactics throughout much of the nation. The mobile game has the player join the PDF and work their way up the ranks, carrying more and more effective attacks on the Tatmadaw's forces through a series of missions.

It was built out of unity store assets, is available in English and a Myanmar language (my limited knowledge of the country is showing here, I have no idea which language, I just know they have many) the game is free and supported by advertising, it's developed by one individual Ko Toot (not his real name) and playing this game in Myanmar will get you in serious trouble with the Tatmadaw.

Ko Toot was motivated to join the resistance and use his IT skills to develop this game after the army detained several people he knew arbitrarily.

"They had never done a single criminal thing in their lives," said Ko Toot of the couple, who were detained for supporting the pro-democracy movement.

He didn't know what had happened to them. The BBC only recently established the woman was released within a day, but the man was held for about a year and a half.

After their arrest, Ko Toot then heard the military had detained the wife and infant daughter of a pro-democracy activist it had been unable to locate.

"Imagine you are a young child and you grow up inside a dirty, stressful and sadistic prison, and you have no idea what's going on. It made my blood boil."

BBC  

In addition to being a propaganda boost for the resistance by letting players get revenge on their oppressors, the game raises funds for them as well. I have a low opinion of mobile games that use advertising to make money, but I was surprised how restrained WOH was, you watch adverts to get ammunition one ad=30 bullets, these are mostly needed for the battle missions which eat up quite a few rounds on later missions as the number of soldiers explodes.

You and eventually some AI support take on the army in the woods

Apart from battle missions there are also drive-bys, mine ambushes, assassination missions and later (around mission 45) there are some stealth and tank destruction missions. The game gets into a loop of battle mission then another mission then another battle mission for a while. It started to wear thin at mission 33, but then something strange happened, there was a cutscene, and then there were Zombies, zombie soldiers to be exact, so now there were two variations on the battle missions added to the mix. There's also an upgrade system, a login gives a coin (one per day) which can be spent on an attribute like health, reload speed etc.

I don't think this game will win awards for design, though development by one person in an active conflict who is targeted by the ruling government deserves some respect. I first downloaded the game several months ago, and it's been updated and improved regularly. When I first played the game, all light sources had opaque cones of purple, now they're using more natural light effects. There was also an auto aim system for the battle missions that didn't work, that has now been removed. 

And yes this a literal propaganda game raising funds for a side in a conflict, knowing that worries me, in this particular case I don't have any sympathy for the Tatmadaw they've had their reckoning coming for a long time, but it's not a good omen for the future. We've been slowly heading in this direction for some years, militaries around the world have been incorporating games into their outreach and training programs for years, America's Army is an obvious example, a game created to raise the profile of the United States Army and encourage enlistment, I'm not optimistic about the future. WOH seems to be a success, it's managed to stay on the App and Google Play Store in some version or other for a while and according to Ko Toot has raised thousands of dollars for the real PDFs. The Tatmadaw is also losing ground by the day, I discovered WOH by reading the BBC article written in August 2023, since then every week there's been another Tatmadaw defeat, often quite a serious one, in October three powerful armies ended their ceasefire, united in the Three Brothers Alliance, and launched an offensive that within weeks defeated the Myanmar and captured half of Shan state including the border crossings with China and most humiliatingly ceased a city controlled by organised crime families closely aligned with the Junta and freed thousands of slaves and repatriated many of them to their home countries.

Currently, observers claim that the Junta has lost control of 60% of the country, and they keep losing important border crossings and townships. WOH's part in this conflict is small, but it is playing a part. I'm sure others will be paying attention to its success.