This is the first of a number of reviews I'll be doing a few months after finishing the game in question. Tell you the truth, work caught up with me for a bit. I spend my days carefully focusing on precise wording, and when that's at its fullest, spending time trying to put my thoughts on games into words sounds exhausting. The games got played, though – that wasn't challenging – and so I've got a few I want to write about now.

11-11 is plainly a game put together with a tremendous degree of care. Visually, it's incredibly stylised, inheriting both the use of colour and the visible brush strokes from impressionism. The fact that this is retained through the animation process is seriously impressive – and it made sense to discover upon researching for this review world-renowned Bristolian animators Aardman were responsible. The music matches this style perfectly while also evoking the first World War period in which the game is set.

And yet, while I enjoyed 11-11 enough that I don't regret playing it, it didn't grab me as I'd hoped. The aim is clearly to paint (pun intended) a story of the incredible human cost of war; the substantial commonality between the people who, by order of their leaders, would kill each other; and the cowardice of those sending children to die. By all means, it communicates all those things very well – and in particular, the narrative device of dual protagonists on either side of the battle is perfect.

However, it doesn't do enough to make me care about its particular story. Both World Wars have been done to death in essentially every form of media at this point. If you're British, you've also probably had the 'trenches suck' message hammered in repeatedly through formal education too. It takes something really substantial to stand out, and unfortunately, 11-11 doesn't manage that.

Largely this is due to its bland characters. Kurt is a German family man who signed up to find his son after his unit goes missing. Okay – not groundbreaking, but it's good to have an instantly comprehensible motive and one which emotionally resonates with the player. Moreover, this is narratively committed to – every action you take as Kurt is rationally connected to the goal of finding your son.

Harry is a Canadian photographer who ends up on the front line, with Brits fighting as part of the Entente. What's his deal? Well, you see, he clearly shouldn't really be there, he has a sweetheart at home and... uh... he has a camera? The one thing to be said for Harry is that, like Kurt, he is very easy to empathise with. There are plainly very few people who aren't like fish out of water when presented with such unrelenting brutality as that faced on the front lines.

I haven't been overly critical of either of the two designs as they stand alone here. Truth be told, the overall blandness stems from their simplicity. They are canvasses to be painted (pun still intended) on, and at no point do we encounter more than the most basic of motivations, like rats chasing cheese through a maze. It is assumed but not examined that they lack patriotic motivations to engage in conflict (which is bizarre, given how fervent war euphoria was at the outset, and given the strength of propaganda on all sides – again, topics which are not examined). Their respective motivations are reflections of those they love – but their loved ones are not themselves remotely developed as characters (Kurt's family are to a minor degree, but not nearly as much as I'd like given the comparative gluttons for exposition they are).

The one part of their characters which does work extremely well stems from their interaction. Both Harry and Kurt are monolingual (probably – I don't know whether a Canadian called Harry Lambert – and thus presumably from British rather than French Canada – would likely have learned some French at the time). Thus, when they meet, communication is difficult. Meaning often gets lost. And this – cross-cultural nonverbal communication – is a theme which, while it has received some examination, even in the context of WW1 specifically (At Night All Blood Is Black has sat on my bookshelf for some time), is something which is capable of fitting the gaming medium superbly well (Chants of Sennaar, Journey etc).

Sadly, this device is solely narrative and not really explored through gameplay. In fact, gameplay-wise there isn't much to 11-11. I wouldn't expect there to be – it's there to provide a world to be explored, to experience the audiovisual aspects ahead of traditional gameplay challenges. The closest one comes to gameplay is in trivially easy interactive elements (one example comes to mind which is essentially playing snap, except your opponents have the reaction speed of Muhammad Ali after his cognitive decline (and perhaps after his death – I didn't wait around to find out quite how long I would be given to react).

Indeed, while in one's exploration, there are a number of collectibles to be found, my experience of these was often frustration – it was often fairly unclear which route to follow to progress, and collectibles were often placed in dead ends at the end of substantial diversions, such that finding a collectible would feel like a missed opportunity to get to the next bit.

Given how the game plays, more light is shone on the themes, characters and plot.

I have made my thoughts on the themes and characters clear already, but by contrast, the plot is quite good. It's paced well, and has a reasonable number of twists which are unexpected but don't fall to feel conceited. The finale in particular is done excellently, and might have garnered a slightly more favourable review had it been more prominent in my memory when I wrote this review.

While trying to avoid spoilers, you will betray while feeling entirely justified, and be betrayed while wondering if you would've done the same thing. You'll sacrifice while wondering if you're making a mistake, and fail to make sacrifices you feel you will regret. There is a light amount of choice involved but as I understand it, it has minimal significance prior to a small number of alternative endings, all of which I believe to be broadly similar.

However, there's also missed opportunities. I've talked already about the lack of theme and character development; but there's an extraordinary number of missed opportunities to add narrative depth to the world the game exists in. In every episode, there's a large number of characters standing around, all of whom are interactable. They generally have one line to say on repeat, and none of it tells you much about them or your surroundings. Likewise, there's room for depth in narrative exposition in what you find around the world – and again, this goes unexploited. It's sad to see, as it's clear that the level of care in audiovisual design I mentioned at the outset isn't replicated in the game's writing.

Truth be told, there's still nothing fundamentally wrong with 11-11. Its issue is that everything which is immediately apparent is done to an incredibly high standard, and that creates expectations which aren't met elsewhere. However, if you're after an emotional war story in video game format, it'll scratch that itch raw; and there's enough to enjoy that if you can avoid thinking about what could have been, you'll have a good time.

6.5/10 (I wish I could post a review without giving a thumbs up or down)