ANTIWARGAME | a Review
originally published on 14/12/2024;
Hello everyone, I am the solidly positioned as anti-war G.E.M.Simov, an anti-warrior here to tell you about the flash game “Anti-War Game”.
Simple review details - I rank games on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it.
Gameplay
This is a very, very simple game. It is so simple it is a bit difficult to call it a game.
The Player is asked to select whether they are uncle Sam or auntie Samantha. This has no bearing on anything. Then, the Player is told to balance the USA’s budget through a pie chart - by positioning the mouse cursor over one of the pie’s slices, the budget allocated for that particular thing (out of three) is increased, while that allocated for the other two things is lessened.
The game does not seem to have a particularly explicit goal. The Player just has to manage the budget, which has an effect on a number of things - the number of people in the USA who are enlisting in the military and the number of people becoming activists; the performance of business (read Wall Street) and the Player Character’s (PC’s) approval rating… Or, rather, popularity.
By increasing military and business spending, the performance of business increases, the PC’s popularity grows to a certain level and many citizens become soldiers. These soldiers can then either be sent abroad or sent to the national guard. Sending them abroad slightly increases popularity, but then creates the need to manage them, which management occurs by promoting active soldiers and having them motivate the disobedient ones.
However, as with everything, the Player needs to be careful - too many motivations by one promoted officer will result in said officer being killed by the disgruntled grunts, resulting in a hit on the PC’s popularity… And a problem the game runs into is collisions.
Whenever citizens (soldiers) are sent abroad, they pile on one corner of the field (which never starts off correctly positioned and must be dragged with the mouse, which is never indicated as the way to approach the situation). The key here is that the soldiers drop down onto the field corresponding to the location they occupied in the USA… And since the field is not on the screen, and no instruction on how to move it is present, the soldiers all fall on one corner of the field, as close to their correspondent location.
The soldiers pile on, right on top of one another, and become inaccessible. The one on the front of the pile can be clicked, and thus promoted to an officer or sent home. If promoted to an officer, the soldier can motivate another soldier, but doing so requires clicking on a disobedient grunt - which are all behind the officer, thus making it either hard to click one, or straight up impossible.
So the game has issues with sprites, or maybe models, overlapping, which lead into either difficulty with or impossibility to engage with a mechanic. Then, the game also has issues with… Ending?
When one’s soldiers are under control, and not promoted to officers, they can also be made to “go to” certain locations - those being oil rigs on the field. Doing so makes the soldiers start killing the foreign citizens, which, in turn, boosts business, but sours foreign relations. Business will, however, start paying the media to run good press for the PC, increasing their popularity.
Too many oil rigs, too many dead foreigners, and too little foreign aid, however, will lead into terror attacks, which not only reduce popularity, but also kill USA citizens and can lead to a number of game overs.
The Player can slowly increase social spending to brew up more activists, naturally increasing their popularity, but doing so is at odds with business, who start off very strong. If they are strong, they can assassinate the PC, leading to a game over… But if the Player does the increase even more slowly, business weakens gradually and does not assassinate the PC, which can lead to a revolutionary ending with different, depending on the PC’s popularity, conclusions for the PC.
Every one of the managed budgets can lead into a different set of game over screens. However, at the same time, there are moments when said game over screens do not trigger, thus leading into perpetual states during which nothing happens, even though something is meant to happen.
Overall, this is a game that carries a very potent political message. All the endings are simply “game over”, with there being no “you win” screen. Everything is about the message… And that’s that. Playing it is not enjoyable, though it was probably not meant to be. 1/3
Presentation
The game looks okay. As stated in the Gameplay section, it has an issue with how it presents valuable, even vital information to the Player, due to the fact that it just does not. That is a big minus.
When it comes to how things are portrayed, they are shown off quite nicely. The sprites work, the User Interface elements also work wonders, in particular the pie charts and the influence of “business”. Additionally, hovering over citizens of the USA has them share their thoughts, which are quite interesting from time to time.
The game’s audio is quite weak, with there being almost no sound effects, and those that are present are not leveled properly - as an example, there is a helicopter sound that is deafeningly loud. The music in the game is also relatively unimpressive, with it being a droning, monotonous bit of ambiance that is just there. It works, roughly, but it is… Nothing special. The visuals do what needs to be done, and nothing else. 1/3
Story
This game takes place after a terrorist attack. The PC is the President of the United States and must manage the budget. That is the story, and everything else is tailored to be a possible end. The stories that get told through the achievement of these possible ends are neat, but they are very short and tiny, relying on interpretation - thus, emergent storytelling.
It is something, it is a bit neat, but it is, ultimately, very small and feels lackluster. The message is there, but maybe it gets a bit lost along the way… 1/3
Legendary Point
Does this game get the Legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? For a project like this, which is not fun to play and is not especially profound, I am hard pressed to do anything but announce that NO, Anti-War Game does not get the point. 0/1
Conclusion
3/10. ANTIWARGAME is barely a game. It is clearly anti-war, even without the title, but it is very messy and clunky. It conveys the message it seeks to convey, but the experience of booting it up and dealing with it is hardly worthwhile. It is not entertaining, nor is it engaging. It is just a flash game with an idea, but that is not enough for me to recommend it. If it was more fleshed out, then it could have worked wonders.
On the wall of shame it goes. It could have been so much more poignant if it had more oomph… Instead, it is this.