In One Military Camp you build barracks and train civilians to become tough soldiers. The construction game relies on a good pinch of humour.
Our country’s flag flutters proudly in the wind while recruits march up and down the dusty ground. My voice resounds from the loudspeakers placed everywhere, reminding the soldiers of their duty. My self-invented motivational slogans hang on every wall. Admittedly, this idea feels rather strange.
But this is what One Military Camp, which lets you build, expand and manage a barracks, is supposed to look like. We found out for you whether One Military Camp, which is still to be released in 2022, could be a good build-up game recruit or should rather be discarded.
One Military Camp wants to shine in many disciplines
The game presents itself as a mixture of construction, management and strategy: As the commander of your barracks, you have a lot to do: You have to place a large selection of buildings favourably, connect them to the power supply and provide them with resources. You also have to take care of the recruitment and welfare of your recruits. Depending on their skills, you assign them certain tasks and train them differently.
Eventually, you will send squads on missions to recapture your country from enemy forces or to spy on the enemy. You build new barracks and defend them against enemy drone attacks. Despite the actually gloomy scenario, One Military Camp deliberately relies on a humorous and comic-like presentation. A bit like what we used to know from games like Theme Hospital or today from Two Point Studios.
The trailer gives you a first glimpse of what this is supposed to look like:
One Military Camp apparently relies on a large selection of different buildings that you can explore, build and expand in three stages. These are divided into different categories:
- Residential buildings: Barracks for your soldiers and houses for other employees
- Utility buildings: To meet the basic needs of your soldiers, you will need canteens, hospitals, manufacturing buildings and a helipad.
- Energy buildings: Provide your barracks with energy, which is probably needed for all buildings.
- Training Buildings: Here your soldiers improve general skills (strength, endurance or similar) or receive special training for different areas (artillery, pilot training, etc.).
- Science Buildings: This is where upgrades and new buildings are researched, or the necessary research points are generated. In the end, you will have such powerful technologies as a cloning machine at your disposal.
- Motivation Buildings: Increase the morale of your soldiers with decorations like flags and statues, or leisure buildings. You can also make your own announcements over the loudspeaker, or hang up your own motivational posters.
- Defensive structures: Watch towers and other buildings that protect you from spies and drone attacks. These can disable buildings or weaken the morale of your soldiers.
You can see what the buildings look like in the game in the first screenshots:
It should not be enough, however, to distribute the buildings randomly in your barracks. Because they all need electricity to function and often also need to be supplied with various resources, such as food, medicine or ammunition. You get the goods you need from various supply companies and have them delivered by helicopter. Within the barracks, it is advantageous to have the shortest and most efficient supply routes possible.
It is also important that you assign recruits and employees to the tasks they are best suited for. This increases the efficiency of various buildings. To keep your barracks busy, you can then also set work shifts so that your factories are manned around the clock. After all, all NPCs need sleep and rest as well.
Missions to liberate territories are of utmost importance for your success in One Military Camp. As you increase your sphere of influence, new supply companies become available in the liberated territories. In addition, your income grows with the number of territories you control.
In order to complete missions successfully, however, you must assign soldiers to them who have the appropriate skills. The better your soldiers are suited to the mission, the higher your chances of success. However, even experienced soldiers can get injured in battle or not return at all.
What else is there to know?
Later in the game you will build and manage more barracks in different areas. However, time will only ever pass in the barracks you are currently looking at. This is to avoid being overwhelmed with too many tasks. In addition to a 20-hour campaign, One Military Camp will also offer a sandbox mode.
Editor’s Verdict
I have to admit that the scenario of One Military Camp put me off at first. But on second glance, there seems to be a well thought out set up and management game hidden here. Making sure the camp is set up efficiently, optimising supply routes, looking after the training of my recruits and keeping an eye on finances certainly makes for a reasonable challenge.The style and tone of One Military Camp may seem silly to some players. But the humorous approach makes for fun ideas like self-voiced announcements and custom motivational posters. And at least the buildings look extremely detailed and lively despite the comic look of the artwork.
The portfolio of the developers, on the other hand, is more sceptical. They have only developed one prison management game in this genre so far, which was rather moderately received with 66 percent positive reviews on Steam. Interested players should therefore wait and see – or secure access to the beta in (Discord) and try out the game for themselves.
