While the fundamental idea is an interesting one, the visuals are neat, the necessary information to properly play the game is conveyed really poorly.
- While I understand that a degree of ambiguity is the point, the way information is relayed is not enough. For example, it’s completely unclear what the three values are even supposed to represent; “Happiness - Defense - Peace” as far as I can tell, but it’s not clear how they even relate to each other and to events. For example, my first game I lost, because Westland had %85 happiness, but -100% peace… so I everyone turned into marauding bands of happy Jokers I guess.
- The second issue is how every map-event is simply labelled “Stop them / Dismiss”, which can be really confusing; for example “Corruption has been discovered”… okay, now what does each option mean? Does “Stop them” mean “Stop the corruption charges and let them (whoever that is) continue be corrupt”, or does it mean “Stop the corruption and bring them to justice”.
Both these issues combined, means it’s purely a game of memory.
That all said; still neat idea and super neat presentation.