The Shadow Government Simulator Review: A Conspirator’s Dream

The Shadow Government Simulator is an interesting turn-based strategy game that will please subterfuge lovers and schemers. Developers did a good job at giving you the feeling of pulling the strings from behind the curtain. However, the repetitive gameplay drags the game down quite a lot and makes it feel like a lost opportunity.

The Shadow Goverment Simulator Review A Conspirator's Dream

The Shadow Government Simulator is a nice turn-based game with an interesting idea behind it: to influence key figures around the world and secretly rule all nations on Earth. The gameplay is rather easy to grasp which makes the game easily accessible to most players. The difficulty is also well scaled and allows you to learn the ropes while taking the first steps toward world domination.

The absence of micromanagement and the simplicity of the gameplay make The Shadow Government Simulator a rather casual game. It could easily capture you for hours of gameplay or bore you equally easily. Those factors, in fact, make the game a bit repetitive, difficult to keep on playing for a long time, and definitely hinder re-playability.

In short, The Shadow Government Simulator is a good game but not for everyone. One of its strengths is that there aren’t many alternatives on this subject. While one of the main turn-offs is the lack of depth and details that would have prolonged the game’s life.

The Shadow Government Simulator was released on October 17, 2022, and is available on Steam for $9.99.

Story – Unleash your imagination

In The Shadow Government Simulator, you create your own story. There are no options to play a story or a specific scenario and you should just think of it as a sandbox. At the beginning of the game, you can choose between three factions, Illuminati, Templars and Freemasons, but this choice doesn’t impact the gameplay in any way.

In each map, you start from your HQ from where you can gather info on the key players of that region and convert them to your cause. Those really into roleplaying can easily imagine the story behind the first contact with a senator, the bribing of a general, or the intimidation of a media personality. Otherwise, all you will probably care about is conquering the world and defeating your rival secret societies no matter how.

The Shadow Government Simulator Review: Global View

The Shadow Government Simulator Review: Global View

Gameplay – The Shadow Government Simulator Main Traits

There are three main factors that affect the mechanics of The Shadow Government Simulator: abilities, traits, and connections.

HQs and people have three main attributes (Intimidation, Seduction, and Bribery) to which correspond three abilities. These abilities are used to enroll people in your faction and their success depends on their numeric value. For example, a character with 5 points in Intimidation will defeat one with 4 points in the same ability.

The score of each ability can be influenced by traits. These are passives that provide bonuses to allies or maluses to enemies. In turn, traits are affected by connections that determine which people are linked together and thus influenced by the passives. Connecting with allies or enemies also allows using abilities on characters.

When you capture a new unit, you can choose 2 out of 3 available abilities for him or her. These abilities cannot be changed later in the game so it’s important to choose them wisely. Connections, on the other hand, can be formed and destroyed at every turn.

The Shadow Government Simulator Review: Global View

The Shadow Government Simulator Review: Global View

Resources and Feats

Of course, it is not possible to just use abilities and create connections at will. Each action costs “Funds” or “Intel” to perform. As you start each map, you’ll have only a limited amount of both but you can increase them by expanding your network. At the end of every turn, Funds and Intel replenish based on the stats of your characters and the number of connections, respectively.

Part of the strategy in the game is based precisely on these two factors (Funds and Intel) plus a third one, “Visibility”. The latter is nothing more than the awareness of the world towards your organization: the more it grows, the more visibility you acquire. The result is that it’s going to be always more difficult to operate in the shadows and, towards the end game, you’re going to face a real challenge.

Luckily, there are also advantages to expanding your influence in the world. As you conquer regions, you can unlock special feats that will be yours forever. There’s also the possibility of completing side objectives that allow you to choose even more bonuses. The aforementioned bonuses can grant you more Funds per turn, decrease your Visibility or increase the attributes of your HQ and pawns.

The Shadow Government Simulator Gameplay in a Nutshell

The whole strategy of the game resides in finding the balance between resources and people. It starts with the gathering of information, creating connections, recruiting key players, and building up enough power and influence to convert the regional leader to your cause.

Do not expect to find different scenarios on different maps. The gameplay in each map is exactly the same, the only things that change are the side objectives and the difficulty. The more you expand your influence on the world, the more difficult it is to win regions. This comes in the form of maluses and an increasingly aggressive AI. To counter this, however, you’ll have the possibility of unlocking bonuses with the completion of side objectives.

Though the gameplay is not too complicated, it’s recommendable to do the short tutorial before delving into the game. It’s very well done and it gives all the necessary information in just a few minutes.

The Shadow Government Simulator Review: Ability Targeting

The Shadow Government Simulator Review: Ability Targeting

Graphics and Sound – They Won’t Blow Your Mind Away

The game has a clear and easy to navigate U.I. with very simple graphics. Generally speaking, in strategic titles, graphics and animations aren’t the most important aspect of the game but just a nice extra. Think of the map and visual of Europa Universalis IV, for instance. The best game in its genre yet its graphics are pretty basic.

The Shadow Government Simulator is no different and seems to focus just on providing clear information in the most minimal way possible. Nothing out of the ordinary if not, maybe, for one nice touch: the animations that accompany the use of abilities on enemies and allies.

One could say that, for extra immersion, at least the characters could have had some generated faces or pictures. However, the main point of the game is to play with numbers and use people to achieve your goals. Thus, objectifying the characters also visually is not all that shocking after all.

Regarding sounds, on the contrary, there’s really not much to say. SFX is pretty basic and the music, even if pleasant and immersive, is way too repetitive in the long term. Again, sounds aren’t the most important aspect of a strategy game like The Shadow Government Simulator. In any case, having more variety at least with the soundtrack would have been a nice touch. Of course, you can always turn off the music and put on your own.

The Shadow Government Simulator review was possible thanks to the key provided by its publisher Play Way. The game was played on Steam.

Summary
The Shadow Government Simulator is a nice game with good potential and an interesting idea behind it. It's very immediate and quite fun from the beginning. However, it fails at giving depth to the gameplay which makes it simple and repetitive, thus likely to bore many players after a few hours. All in all, it's definitely worth a try if you're into scheming, conspirations, and conquering the world with subterfuge.
Good
  • Easy to learn
  • Pretty casual and relaxing
  • Not many alternative games on the same topic
Bad
  • Gameplay can get repetitive after a while
  • No story or scenario options
  • Repetitive music
6.5
Fair

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