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The Rally Point: This Is The President is light on strategy, but novel with itPower to the people
Power to the people
This Is The Presidentis a game that, partway through, had me worried it wouldn’t really qualify as a strategy game. As you’d expect, it’s about being the US President, and making lots of decisions about running the country and trying not to become too unpopular. But it’s far closer to interactive fiction than a simulation, with a main plot whose demands, if failed, will instantly end the game.
It has, however, got me considering what exactly “political strategy game” means.
This Is the President - Gameplay TrailerWatch on YouTube
This Is the President - Gameplay Trailer
This is not a game to be taken entirely at face value. And against my assumptions, it works. It’s refreshing to see a work about American politicians that doesn’t treat them with reverence, but as unremarkable figures in an innately corrupt system much like the sadly never-followedShape Of America. The plot has enough levity to keep you from agonising over decisions. Especially once it tells you, a little too far in, that you can replay a month at any time. This isn’t as useful as a full save function, but it’s adequate for keeping the fear of screwing your run up with one misclick or poor decision. It keeps the story and your thoughts moving, always focused on that single, very tangible goal.
Stress is a core system in fact, as anything your staff do wears them down, limiting what you can achieve in any month. It goes down when they get holidays or expensive perks, and up in varying amounts when you lean on them in events. There’s not a direct correlation between the stress cost of an action and its efficacy, making it a game of judgement and reasoning rather than number-crunching. Stress can go up or down passively depending on who you’ve appointed to each formal office, which will also change income or public opinion over time, again depending on the individual.
Money is important but your main resource is your staff, and half the game is in the balance between keeping them busy, keeping them rested and ready to deal with problems, and hopefully only occasionally letting them burn out.
The cost in this case is that, even more than Suzerain’s many secrets and interrelated subplots and side events, This Is The President can only provide so many permutations of its one main plot. You can twist that plot here and there in dialogues, filling in your back story a little. There’s a hint of something like80 Daysin that it sort of encourages you to go for options that are obviously a terrible idea just to see what happens. Or perhaps it compares better, weirdly, toSkyward Collapse, a game that I only enjoyed when I realised you weren’t supposed to be cautious and sensible, but to gleefully escalate hard and often then try to deal with the spiralling consequences. But you’re still the same crook.
Playing that explicitly crooked person is oddly freeing, as the game never assumes your president’s actions reflect anything about you as a person. Anything immoral or inconsistent is just a means to an end. Be it the safe route of gathering enough money and material to bribe and blackmail your legislation through, or agreeing to every radical change in a bid to pressure the Supreme Court through overwhelming public opinion. Or do you even want to have a change of heart, and make an effort to be an actually good head of state?
Your average Prez or PM pursues high office for various combinations of greed, sociopathy, and megalomania, and this one wants nothing more than a get out of jail free card. But since you have no other agenda and no interest in remaining in office, it’s possible to accept your looming arrest and do some good before you go. I was willing to hit a lot of big targets hard for the gain in public support, and the sheer novelty of a president not afraid to call the NRA evil mass murdering bastards. But also totally willing to solicit an occasional kickback or invest in an underhanded scheme or twelve for profit. Got to get that bribe money. Eyes on the prize and all that.
I’ve enjoyed This Is The President. It’s an edge case as far as strategy goes, but it’s got me optimistic for where political strategy games might be going over the next few years. For most of my life it’s been slim pickings, with a very dry, spreadsheet-y feel, and a disproportionate focus on elections. I think there’s plenty of room for more imaginative fare, with more exploration of storytelling, and of government as a dramatic interplay of the personal and political. And if nothing else, it’s quite an achievement to portray an outright criminal in office in the present day without just feeling depressingly accurate.
