8-hours I am not proud of.

So, I’m not exactly proud of this review, and I’ll tell you why. But first, some background:

I am an ENGLISH major, specifically, English Literature. Y’know, Shakespeare, Melville, and the story of Walden - the dude that wrote about his time in nature when in reality his mother was doing his laundry? I have absolutely no training nor education in politics, nor political science. Someone once suggested I do debate club in high school and I ran in the opposite direction. All that to say, I love reading and writing, even if I’m not good at either one.

Now with the background done, onto the review:

Back in 2016, I was in college, playing my first rounds of Dungeons and Dragons (fifth edition) and the world was alright. Sure, it wasn’t perfect, but my world was pretty swell. My friends gathered at our usual spot on campus with our cheap lunches and began to discuss all things gaming, school, and the professors who may or may not be robots in disguise. I began to talk about this new game I was playing.

The premise for Democracy 3 was that you get to rule a country however you want. So, I dove right into the good ol’ United States of America.

To be fair, the game sets the crime rate to be high, medical care to be low, and a divide down the middle of other political topics.

So what was I not proud of doing?

I obtained a United States that was one hundred percent crime free. When asked by my friends how in the world I did that, “Easy. I gave every police officer an assault rifle and gave the command to shoot at will.”

Needless to say, a big debate exploded in the room as our poor Dungeon Master skimmed through his notes from our previous session of rolling clicky math rocks and doing funny voices.

On that day, I learned about the word “totalitarian” and also learned that some people agree with that word, and others…not so much.

After much squabbling and friendly banter (I promise it was all friendly, despite the volume of voices in the room), I conceded to restart the game and let bygones be bygones and see what I can do with the country without going to such an extreme of capital punishments on the streets. Soon after starting my new game, I was shot. Like, ding-dong the witch is dead.

So, all of this to say, I don’t think I would be the best candidate to run any country. England practically ran itself and other countries didn’t have as much of a visceral knee-jerk reaction in me as the United States did whenever the next attempt on my little life happened at every policy change.

As of writing this, there is a Democracy 4, which I hope to play in the near future. For those interested in that game right now, you can pick it up on Steam for $10 on sale until September 15th, or at the regular price of $27 on Steam.

As for Democracy 3, if you’re interested in testing your leadership skills (you’ll probably do a much better job than I did), you can pick it up on Steam for $9 or the regular price of $25 after September 15th.

Have you played Democracy 3 or any of the Democracy games? I have also heard of the Tropico games in which you literally play as a dictator, but I need to ramp up to the level. Like my prior review of Beholder, I think I need to reevaluate my morals. Or maybe I’m more evil than I give myself credit for.