I pre-ordered War Story from GameNerdz on Oct 17th, 2024. I wanted to play it as soon as possible, so I went ahead and paid full shipping for it (I normally try to get to $75 or so to get free shipping); that’s how excited I was to get this! I paid for shipping to get it sent separately ASAP!

War Story arrived at my house on February 21, 2025 (I noted the date on the tab on the back).  Over about three days I played the entire campaign solo: one chapter a day for three days.  (This is a fully replayable campaign game, but you can also just play single chapters if you like).

What is War Story and why was I was I so excited to get it?  This is a Choose-Your-Own Adventure game set in World War II, but it is unique and different.

Let’s check it out!

Unboxing

This is a smaller box (see Coke Can above for perspective) but it’s actually quite heavy; it’s brimming with books!

There’s thee Mission Books (see above), three big envelopes, one small envelope, a status pad, cards, and tokens. See above: there seems to be quite a bit in here for a Choose-Your-Own Adventure game!

To preserve the longevity and replayability of the game, I went and made a few copies of the status sheets (see above).   See, even though this is a Choose-Your-Own Adventure game, it’s fairly replayable!   You need a status sheet for each game/campaign you play.

There’s a bunch of punchouts and tokens.  The cubes all have different uses that become clear as you play.  Spoiler: the orange cubes are the Nazis! (Although the are called red, they look more orange to me).

As you might guess from the components, there’s more to this game than first meets the eye.  Don’t be fooled by the Choose-Your-Own Adventure monicker: this is a pretty different game.

Rulebook

The rulebook is good.

The rulebook gets an A on the Chair Test: it can sit wide open on the chair next to me, within easy view when I need to see it (which is weird because the Mission Book completely fails the Chair Test: see more discussion below); they really got the Rulebook form factor right.

The Components and Set-Up pages are fine.  It’s a little confusing because the set-ups are intermingled between the mission books and the rulebooks, and there’s a few things that aren’t quite clear (unless you read closely): I had trouble finding where to setting the entry for starting tokens (at the top of the Status sheet).  Just be patient and I think everything reveals itself to you as you read.

And the Rulebook ends with a nice summary of Icons. 

One quick note: I usually don’t like it when rulebooks use “thematic” fonts (this one uses a typewriter monospace font: see pictures above).  This thematic font doesn’t detract too much from reading the rules here, so I’ll give it a pass.

Good rulebook.

Gameplay

There’s a few minor minor spoilers in the pictures below, but they are from the first few minutes of the first mission, so they shouldn’t spoil too much.  Out of context, they aren’t much of a spoiler, but feel free to skip this section if you don’t want any surprise.

War Story nominally plays 1-6 players, but honestly it’s just a solo game where the other players just all help decisions together (kind of like Eila and Something Shiny: see review here).   The player(s) lead a group of 8 resistance fighters in France during World War II.  Your first choice in the game is to choose your crew of 4 for the first missions.

These 4 characters, whose names you must write down, will serve as your Agents during the missions.  You use the tokens to mark where the Agents act (there are 2: one to keep on the card for and one to move into the field; this way you remember which agent is which).

Your Status Sheet gives you a hint of what can happen to your Agents as you play: Survived, Killed, MIA.  See above.  If you think all your Agents are getting out alive, well, good luck to you.

And again, notice we wrote their names down.   I think it brings an emotional connection to the characters a little more than usual.

At this point, you open the first envelope and being reading the Mission Parameters!  See the Top Secret note above (too small to see anything unless you go zooming in, but that’s on you). See above!  This tells you what you need to do to “win” this mission!

Off to the right of the Status sheet are marks for the Primary and Secondary Objective(s); did you succeed? Partially Succeed? Fail?  These will all influence your final score.  

From here on out, it’s all about making choices and reading from the Mission Book. (Mission Book page blurred on purpose).

As you read from the book, things will happen, you make choices turn to entry 17, make a choice, turn to entry 31, and so on.

You have Locations you can visit as you start, and what entry you get in the rulebook depends on the time of day.

As the game unfolds, you will be told to “advance time” and move to the next time space (see As we move fro Early night to Late night).  What this means; what happens when you visit a location depends on the time of day.

It’s a Choose-Your-Own Adventure game!  Player read and choose, read and choose, read and choose … until it’s clear their chapter is up!

Combat

You will get into combat as you play, and combat will also be resolved using a Choose-Your-Own Adventure mechanism.  That’s right, your French Resistance fights the Nazis using a Choose-Your-Own Adventure mechanism!  “Do you shoot the guy coming right at you? Read section 12! Do you shoot the guy hiding in the bushes?  Read section 701!”

And let’s be clear, your Agents can die.

Death

Death is part of this game. You kill Nazi guards with your gun. You blow up Nazis with grenades. And your Agents will die. See above as Christian is the only survivor of Chapter 1. He definitely has some PTSD going.

Granted, you are generally “trying” to sneak around to achieve your objectives, and usually the sneakier you are, the better. But, combat will inevitably come up. And even it though it might seem weird at first to use Choose-Your-Own adventure books as a combat resolution mechanism, it does work. In some sense, you feel more vested in the combat as you are making hard decisions: “Do I shoot the guy coming at me because he is an immediate threat, or do I shoot the guy trying to come up behind me who might be an even worse later threat?” Somehow it feels more immediate.

So, combat will happen. People will die. Your Agents might die. Or you might have to put a bullet in the Nazi’s head. Be aware that death is at the forefront of this game. If that sounds too intense for you, then I suspect this game is not for you and you should just get out now.

Choices Matter

I know some of you (including myself) blanche a little when you hear Choose-Your-Own Adventure.  I still remember (40 years later?) how random my first Choose-Your-Own Adventure book was: The Cave of Time (see above).  What seemed like the right choice lead nowhere and the dumb choice led you to a cool adventure!  It didn’t seem like your choices mattered, you just “did stuff” and see what happened.  Choices didn’t “really” matter; you were just along for the ride.

That is very much NOT the case in War Story.  Of all the Choose-Your-Own Adventure games I have played, it feels like this is the one where the choices matter the most.

First of all, there are other choices in the game besides which entry you read. There will be Skill checks: “If your Sneak is 4+, read entry 12, else read entry 11″. You can choose to raise your Sneak by using Advantage tokens (either from a shared pool or sometimes a separate pool, depending on the Agent): see tokens above. You start with a limited amount of Advantage/Firearms tokens, and you have to choose when it’s best to choose a middling result or when you REALLY need an extraordinary success!!!

Second of all, as the progresses, the choices you made earlier WILL AFFECT your outcomes.  Did you let that Nazi survive?  Maybe that was a good choice, maybe that was a bad choice, but either way … it affects what happens to you later in the game!  See the State Tracker above for game 2 as Events G and M were circled.  Was it good I left that Nazi alive and showed mercy? Or not? Was that Event G?  I hope that doesn’t came back to bite me!!  And it might bite you, or it might help you.

Your choices matter here. They really matter.

Emotional

So, this game is pretty emotional.  You feel … close to the war, you feel close to the resistance, you feel close to death.  My second game of the campaign, all my Agents on the mission died.

I was left with one Agent left (poor Francois) as I headed into Chapter 3.  How well could I do with one agent?  There was so much emotion as my entire squad died … and poor Francois was all that was left.

Over three nights I played through the story.  This game is pretty emotional. Be aware.  

Binding

I need to say something about the binding on the Mission books:  I hate it.  War Story uses the thick glue binding for a large book.   This binding does NOT stay open; it is the worst choice for board games!

We had this same problem with the binding on the Freedom Five books from last year  (see review here), and the binding on the rulebook for the Forests of Admiron (see review here), and the binding on the Batman: Gotham City Chronicles Solo/Cooperative Expansion (see review here).  This type of binding does not lay flat.

You can’t hold these books open unless you completely counterfold the books!  (See above as I try to hold the Mission book open with a little leather thingee).  Even then, the books don’t really stay open!  It’s very frustrating!  If you “slip” and lose your place in the book, you lose the page you were on, as the book closes on you!!!  In my third chapter, I slipped a few times and had to literally replay the introduction three times so I could find where I left off!  It was very annoying and almost put me off the game.

This binding does not work.  Please, I beg you board game companies, don’t use this binding ever again!

I came in to play this game the first day I got it … I was so excited!!!  I saw the binding on the Mission books and I was immediately turned off.  In fact, I was so turned off by the binding, I went inside my house and did my Income Taxes.  The binding was so debilitating that I did my Taxes instead of playing this WONDERFUL game.  

Conclusion

And I don’t feel like I can say too much more, because I don’t want to give anything else away. I liked War Story! This is NOT the Choose-Your-Adventure books of yore, where nothing really matters: this is a Choose-Your-Own Adventure game where choices really matter! And you feel like you have choices!

Be aware that War Story is not for everyone: it’s gritty and people will die.  Nazis will die. Your Agents will die.  You will actively take part in the resistance and shoot Nazis in the head.  But this was the life of the French Resistance in World War II.  I think this game really captures the spirit and vibe of that time.  

I can’t give it a rating except to say you will probably know if you will like it based on the description in this review. I liked it, and I am glad I played it: It felt very emotional and really captured the vibe of World War II (I think; I wasn’t there). But I think you will know if this is for you or not.