Dictator Of Nothing
Dictator: Outbreak is a game that has potential. Potential that is possibly realized in the paid version of the game, Dictator: Revolt. But as a free iOS app the gameplay is frustrating and tedious, eventually leading you to step away from the dictator’s seat.
The 30 Minute Review
Dictator: Outbreak makes a good first impression. The visual design is great — cartoon-style characters and bold colors give it lots of personality. The gameplay starts off intriguing, seeming at first like a puzzle as you try to figure out the best decisions for each faction with limited resources. You carefully read each scenario and try to balance the opinions of everyone. You stress over the burdens of being in power as you feel the tension rising with each faction’s disapproval.
Unfortunately, the immersion quickly ends after a few rounds of play when the frustration begins.
The 1 Hour Review
The beginner tutorial almost gives you the idea that you should be mindful of pleasing all 3 factions. But limited starting funds basically require you to achieve a certain setup within 10 turns or so. Dividing funds among all factions and attending to all of their needs will guarantee a quick game over.
The unintuitive truth is that you need to focus on keeping one faction at 15 crosses (X marks), then ensure that the other two are constantly either neutral or disapprove of you. This is the optimum setup as you will earn as much money as you spend per round. Get even higher approval and you can actually net a profit when buying off other factions during conspiracy choices. Due to always starting each new game with the exact same amount of funds, once you know how to consistently get to this point the game feels extremely repetitive.
There’s an element of danger though, since getting too much approval (20 Xs, specifically) will result in a game over (because they’re too happy?). This just seems like a contrived mechanic to cap the amount of money you can earn. The first time you see this warning it rips you out of the feeling of fun you just started to have. Moments ago you were suppressing or controlling two factions while gaining income from another to continue your rule. You kind of feel like a dictator, ruthless yet generous. Suddenly the faction that likes you is close to a revolution, and you’re left scratching your head why.
The 2 Hour Review
There are still some ways the game keeps you on your toes. Some decisions will either universally increase or decrease all factions’ approval, while occasionally selecting yes to a faction’s request actually decreases their approval. So, some judgement is necessary to maintain higher faction ratings. But once these are memorized, strategy disappears.
There are hints of something fun with the character designs and decision scenarios, but it’s only a glimpse.
After enough playtime, you’ve at this point seen many game over screens with your dictator’s legacy. These screens try to convey how you impacted the country, but there is no indication of how decisions affected anything besides text. This feels hollow without an in-game environment to tie to or even a visual analysis of how the citizens felt about you as a result of these “key decisions”. There are hints of something fun with the character designs and decision scenarios, but it’s only a glimpse.
After investing a couple of hours into the game you’ve no doubt noticed the ads. Since the game is free, it’s reasonable to expect ads and upsell messages. But much too often every few turns a pop up ad interrupts gameplay and covers the whole screen. This usually happens right before making a decision or selecting a faction which can result in accidental taps, exiting the app completely.
The gameplay boils down to generally tapping yes or no depending on your desired approval rating outcome. Perhaps something like “dictator powers” or sudden world events could have spiced things up and given the player more feelings of authority. The advice feature somewhat lends itself to this concept, but because it’s labeled as advice and not your all-powerful word you don’t feel like a dictator. You feel like his secretary.