Enact all your mutant political praxis dreams in Evil Democracy: 1932, a new election simulator from Evil Bank Manager developer and publisher, Hamsters Gaming.
Evil Democracy: 1932 allows players to take the reins of a political party and reshape pre-WWII history according to their ability to agitate, demonstrate, publish, and fundraise. As an early-access release, many of the game mechanics leave much balancing and depth to be desired, but the foundation for a potentially good game like Evil Bank Manager is there.
GAMEPLAY FLOW
Alike any other simulator, the flow of each turn dictated by competing mechanics is the meat and potatoes of the experience. Upon first encounter, Evil Democracy: 1932, appeared to be intricately layered with complex variance in potential gameplay styles. Between the different modes of garnering voters, powering up leaders, and attracting rich sponsors all set in front of an ideological dogma progression system was alluring and intimidating.
However, after my first campaign the intricacies turned into repetitive monotony, the dogma progressions proved arbitrary, and the balancing revealed itself to all revolve around money. I was able to double my vote lead against the next highest competitor on the hardest difficulty before turn 200 out of 500 in the British scenario with the knowledge of exploiting the game around sponsors. The decision flowchart boils down to: Buy leaders to help make more money (sponsors, treasurers, editor), always print maximum leaflets for the sponsor gain, and use all the leftover money to either buy agitators or demonstrations.
Regardless of political ideology, country scenario, or starting difficulty, Evil Democracy: 1932 lacks variance. Every playstyle is the same because the dogma modifiers are not impactful (or even sensical, why can I have freedom of religion and a ban on religion simultaneously?).
Activists are sorely in need of work because they are only used 1 turn out of an election cycle ranging between 150 – 500 turns total based on the scenario. And region based decisions are another mechanic introduced, but certainly not fleshed out. I also faced a couple of frustrating bugs–namely that when I would win I would still get the Game Over you lost screen, and my British playthrough corrupted around turn 200 when my “Next Turn” button grayed out saying I had “No more turns left.”
HISTORICAL STYLE
Despite the disappointments in gameplay, I’m still a sucker for anything geopolitical. I’ve poured countless hours into Paradox Interactive and Sid Meier’s Civilization games precisely for the historical-simulator aspects promised here in Evil Democracy: 1932. But while the concept of the game–going back in time to redo paramount elections–is fantastic, that’s as much as we’re given in terms of historical immersion.
The models for all the characters are still the Germanic-looking men, there are no live historical events that play into any kind of dynamic decision making, and there’s no repository of knowledge to do any research about any of the party’s histories or about the time period itself. Part of what makes Civilization fantastic is its Civilopedia breaking down key historical geography, people, and events. Part of what makes Paradox simulators fantastic are the embedded historical events that shape the decisions of the players as they did to the real historical decision-makers.
Overall
Evil Democracy: 1932 has a long development path ahead of itself to reach its full potential, because sadly, as it plays now, its not much more than a mobile game clicking simulator. Its core mechanics engender similar playstyles regardless of political ideology, and variance across the country scenarios is lacking. Despite that, I was still engaged enough to play through all three scenarios, and the potential for a good game lies latent.
Check Out the Evil Democracy: 1932 Steam Early Access Trailer:
Evil Democracy; 1932 is available for PC via Steam Early Access.
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Recent Michigan State University grad and current Game Studies researcher who plays fantasy RPG's to escape, Smash to compete, and Stardew to chill. Also have a +1 to rage/toxicity resistance due to the many hours sunk into WoW, R6, and LoL.
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