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dkirschner's Suzerain (PC)
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| [September 24, 2024 07:39:01 PM]
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I bought a narrative game bundle from Humble Bundle recently because it had a couple games on my wishlist on it, plus Immortality, which I played on Game Pass and which I loved, so now I own it on Steam. It had some others I'd never heard of, like Suzerain. It looked interesting, a political strategy narrative game. I've not played anything quite like it, but after playing it for a while, I realized I was nodding off every time I opened it. Even tonight, I'm not tired, but I'm starting to drift to sleep. That's a sign that I'm not engaged!
That's not to say I dislike it. It's well written and detailed, and the premise is intriguing. You play as the newly elected President of a fictional country with a revolutionary past. The country is in a recession and needs to carve out space for itself in the international landscape so that it can thrive. There are other alliances of countries, those which are capitalist, communist, and monarchies. You'll sort of chart your country's course (though I...doubt [?]...that you can become a monarchy), meeting with advisers and reading a lot of policy, deciding what to enact, who to ally with, and so on.
My favorite parts of the game are when the non-policy narratives move forward--when it's about your family adjusting to their husband/father becoming President, when it delves into the history between you and other cabinet members, when it explores the political history of the fictional world, when you get to attend a funeral of a communist poet and make a speech, when a violent event happens and you see how political violence affects you, your family, security, citizens in various political groups, relationships to other factions, and so on.
My least favorite parts are reading newspapers and reports, and talking with advisers about policy. There are like 6 different newspapers, and boy are they busy writing stories! It seems like after every decision you make, up to a dozen articles will be published. Papers span the range of political ideologies; one is communist, one is capitalist, one is centrist, one looks at international news, and so on. Similarly, reports from various cities and countries are constantly produced and icons beg you to read them. This all lets you know what's going on and lets you know the public's opinion on things, but it's a lot of tedium, I found. Policy wonks will love this game. Most of it is meeting with advisers about policies, listening to them banter back and forth about what they think you should do, reading about policy positions and deciding which ones to enact, then seeing their consequences on the story and the political scene.
I played about 5 hours in total, and it's losing its novelty and morphing into drudgery for the most part. I'm not committed to learning the ins and outs of the political scene. I think something like this could be used pedagogically to teach about politics, policy, and institutions for sure. Actually, I learned a new word. The game's title is an actual word in politics referring to when a state has control over another autonomous state, I suppose by influence or something. I learned this when I was giving a talk on interaction and socialization in digital games last week, and someone asked me what I was playing. I mispronounced the title of Suzerain and said I had no idea what it referred to, and some historians in the audience had their moment to shine.
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dkirschner's Suzerain (PC)
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Current Status: Stopped playing - Got Bored
GameLog started on: Monday 9 September, 2024
GameLog closed on: Tuesday 24 September, 2024 |
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