izigame.me

Broken lines is a.... Have you ever played 7.62 high caliber? Its a really underground russian made indie game with an unique gameplay, where the game is an RTS that pauses every time one of the character completes an action, which takes X amount of seconds or hundredths of a second to complete, like changing stance, running, reloading, and so on.
This game isn't QUITE like that (which was dubbed smart pause system) but its similar. The game is actually a turn based game in which turns are 8 second sections, although if you suddenly come into contact with an enemy the previous turn and actions stops and you get the chance to cancel the previous orders and make new ones to not sprint into an ambush.
The only complain i have with this system is really that maybe you wanna execute a new order after telling, say, a medic to heal the entire squad, and while that takes 2 seconds, you still have to wait 6 more before you can issue new orders.
Other than that, the game is, from a gameplay perspective, fun, interesting, and well executed.
The issues i've got with the game, however, are technical and balance-wise.
The game runs like shit. Now, i've got a 3400G APU with 16gb of DDR4 3200mhz, not exactly a supercomputer, but god damn it, between max settings and all minimum the game runs exactly the same. Sometimes i SWEAR the FPS is capped at 16 while other times the game runs up to 60 just fine. The game also needs a full loading cycle when getting INTO a mission or tutorial and ANOTHER ONE to return to the main menu. Getting through the short tutorials was almost a chore in this regard.
One of the game mechanics is a darkest-dungeon-like morale meter for the squad. The more you restart a mission or return to a checkpoint the more drain the composure/morale will happen. Which would be fine if not because i've had the game glitch out and freeze the 3d image in a certain spot while the HUD elements moved freely, and reloading the checkpoints did nothing, forcing me to restart the mission... twice, all the while my save file taking the penalty from doing so.
I cant tell if my UI and orders issue happened BECAUSE of my reduced framerate or independantly from it, but they both happened, so be aware that the game can be quite finicky about where you click and sometimes fails to register clicks.
The game also tries to make you feel guilty about killing civilians, except that it does so terribly so. I've had a between-mission speech event between soldiers discussing the guilt of killing civilians and how many they had taken... Except that the map clearly says "0 civilians killed". The only time i killed civilians was 2 near the end of the game, and that's because their AI is incredibly dumb and will both walk into the fire and stand still while the enemies uses them as meat shields in true palestinian tactics.
The game has a vendor that works as a resupply and store shop between missions, where he sells a few very interesting upgrade weapons and items, except that no matter what you buy, you cant sell whatever you previously had? Even if you delete it, you wont get anything for it, you wont get extra salvage (currency) for it or anything, all you can do is buy items. Very strange gameplay choice, considering you are unlikely to stick to any starter weapons.
In the average difficulty you will have a few "what is this shit?" moments where your shotgunner will take over 5 shots at point blank range to kill an enemy that is panicking and unable to fight back, although compared to other strategy games, this is nowhere near the amount of bullshittery x-com (new or old) or xenonauts players are used to. Thankfuly the AI shoots by themselves, and while not very accurate, put them in a firing line and even if they dont hit, they will suppress the enemies very accurately.
The story sadly is not only... I dont want to say pretentious, but i want to say ominous while at the same time leading to absolutely jack fucking shit, but its also quite short. There are just a few missions, fun, of course, but the game can be completed in one afternoon if you know what you are doing. And while you get multiple endings, some requiring you to have done things rather early on in the campaign, they are just different ending screens to the end of the final mision, all of them bittersweet or just bad endings.
Then there's the dead and the drunk, which is an expansion that adds a new campaign (which, i have not completed, but didn't seem very fun) and a... Minor new mechanic that could have been added into the main game and would have probably worked better universally. Other than that there's nothing. No workshop support, no mod support that i know of (but maybe the game playerbase is too small for that), no multiplayer, skirmish, extra challenges or mission editor. You play both campaigns and that's it.
Im recommending this game more in a way to help support the devs which seem to be very friendly and into the community and they obviously have some neat ideas, but the game doesn't seem to be getting much more support now and its still borderline a technical mess. You dont even get to use all 8 characters at the same time. Honestly if you want something similar but maybe more refined you should play Partisans 1941.