War of Heroes - The PDF Game, a Myanmar mobile game, with its rough graphics and simple gameplay, has become widespread popular around the world, and even was the top ten games on APP Store in the US, Australia and Singapore. In our society today, the visual effect is an important factor to influence the success or failure of a game, especially shooting games, and how did this rough graphics game defeat those well-made games and reach to the top ten? It connected with the politics behind the game.
Simple and Singular Gameplay

        It is a simple game in which the player takes the role of a PDF (People’s Defense Force) player and learns the basics from the training ground. The game is available in English and Burmese. As far as know, there is only one way to play the game from level 1 to level 50, which is to kill as many Burmese soldiers as possible within a limited time.
Easy Game Operation

 
         At first, a coach will introduce the player to the game operation: pressing the left circle is moving and pressing the right one is aiming, with a shot button on both sides, so that players having different habits can operate. The developers have specially designed an auto aim mode for beginners. The button is located in the upper right in Burmese, but it can only be used to attack enemy levels. Maybe the function is new, so there is no English translation. After the training, the player will go the the battle and kill the enemy, as many Burmese soldiers as possible in 2 minutes. The green on the top left is the blood meter, and then the bullet count. The players need to search enemies in the jungle and they could get some first aid kit to replenish blood as long as they continue to kill the enemy.
        Another feature of this game is the visible bullet tracks, which is a friendly setup for a novice who doesn‘t play much shooting games, but an unnecessary setup for shooting game lover.
Rough Graphics and Monotonous Sound Effect  

       During the game, the most game graphics is simple and rough, most game battle scenes are set in a large open spaces with few high trees. And the sound effect of shooting is so gentle that player couldn’t get a tense or exciting shooting feeling, and there are few background music in this game, which couldn’t bring players an immersive game experience.

The Limited Upgrade Options
       In the newest version, the upgrade options I could find in this game is the upgrade in speed, HP, critical, reload, armor five aspects. And every player has a limited bullets, and they could get bullet reward by watching advertisements, so the options whether to watch Ads or not is decided by players, and in fact, I like this humanized setting.
Advantages:
 Easy game operation and detailed beginner tutorial.
 Simple and elegant interface with steady and safe in motion.
 Rich characters and exquisite illustrations with ability analysis chart, but that exquisite characters was not reflected in the game progress.
 Auto aim mode setup for beginners.
 Multiple game modes. The gameplay is monotonous but there are still some game modes are available, such as Assassination missions, drive-by shootings, and landmine ambushes and so on.

 Ranking list setup will encourage players to get higher scores.

The Severe Politics Behind the Simple Game
        The political factor behind this rough game is the main cause that it was even the top ten games on APP Store in the US, Australia and Singapore. Although this game doesn‘t have amazing graphics, the game‘s creators will donate a fifth of the game‘s proceeds to refugees and the rest to support the People‘s Defence Force (namely the PDF in the title) to fight the Burmese government.
      According to The New York Times, this game was developed by three Burmese nationals who had left the country before the February 1, 2021, coup. They were motivated to create the game after seeing dire conditions in the country and knowing Burmese friends who had been arrested for participating in anti-coup protests. As long as the player downloads the free version of the game, every time they watch an advertisement to get a bullet in the game, and all proceeds from the ads will go to Revolution in Burma.

      In the calculation screen background picture after each pass, the shadow of 6 soldiers in the war is slightly heavy, as if to remind the player after each pass, the real Myanmar People‘s Army is trying to protect their own Freedom and Democracy.