I picked up
Suzerain in the Steam sale and have finished it a couple of times now. You play as the president of a fictional eastern-bloc country trying to manage and develop the nation, but it’s a narrative game rather than a strategy game, where all you ultimately do is have conversations with people and then make decisions. It’s a great way of allowing you to play politics, with a huge scope of possibilities and consequences for your choices that range from subtle backstabbing to sudden crises. If there was a Soviet version of the West Wing that was made into a game, this would be it.
The writing is admittedly a bit wonky at times, but that seems to be mostly due to the translation and it’s not that terrible. Having played through it twice now, I also noticed lots of repeated text for very different styles of play, although it’s surprising how some dialogue comes across totally differently depending on the context. There is enough choice to warrant multiple playthroughs - I played my first president as an idealistic Corbyn-style reformist who tanked the economy and eventually got betrayed by his whole party and was given the boot, whereas my second president was a misogynistic dictator and all-round ratbastard who used bribery, intimidation, police brutality, military expansionism and media censorship to achieve national prosperity and a glorious second term. Public health, education and basic human rights got binned along the way, but if I learned anything it’s that tyrannical lunacy paves the way to success.
Well worth a few quid and several hours to see how well you can ruin a country.
