The last four years certainly made it seem like anyone can be president, and with Suzerain by Torpor Games, you can try your hand at it from December 4.
You take the role of President Rayn, the newly-elected leader of a nation that's been through a civil war under a dictator. You're replacing the former president, but his traditionalist government still remains, making your own job that much harder. To make matters worse, the country isn't looking good overall—the economy's in recession, the welfare systems aren't adequately helping your people, and both the military and the law are in dire need of a reform. It sure sounds like a lot, huh. In order to make the decisions you believe are right, you pick cabinet ministers with different ideals and ideas of how to improve things, from matters like healthcare to immigration and diplomacy. Despite everything that's going on, you also have to avoid neglecting your family and take time for yourself to deal with the pressure of leading a nation.
Suzerain is a completely text-based RPG, in which every decision will have consequences and eventually lead to one of a number of different endings. It sounds like someone took the diplomacy part of 4X games, or city builders like Tropico, and made them into their own game—I keep thinking about Tropico because of your character's dashing moustache. Suzerain looks a lot like the diplomacy menus from management sims, too, complete with breakdowns of the current situation and a newspaper you can read to find out how your decisions are affecting your people. The main aspect of Suzerain, however, is storytelling and creating understandable consequences from your actions, like many other choice-based adventures.
While it's a slightly heavy game to play in 2020, I nevertheless look forward to finding out how much detail Suzerain goes into, and of course if I make as good a president as years of strategy games told me I do. If you have similar ambitions, get Suzerain on Steam from December 4.
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