Political Animals – Review
Political animals is a deceivingly cute looking game where you need to campaign, bribe or manipulate your way into presidency of one of the in-game islands. This game is developed by Squeaky Wheel and published by Positech at just the right moment in time. Always wanted to be a back-stabbing pig president? Time to try it out in this game.
Story
Political animals is a strategy game based on real world politics. It’s a fun, tongue-in-cheek parody on how a presidential campaign works. There is no background-story needed for this game to be fun: you just have to try to outsmart your opponent and become president using whichever strategy you wish to conduct for your campaign.
Graphics
Political Animals looks pretty cute, the graphics are 2D, cartoonish and colorful. In this aspect Political Animals is much like the story it -most likely- references to: Animal Farm by George Orwell. While looking cute and childish, it’s actually about making moral choices or using foul and sneaky politics. Whenever you select one of the characters you control in the game and choose an action, you’ll see an animation displaying that action, and you also see the movements and actions of your opponent on the map. The graphics are clear and serve their goal well. There are a lot of helpful and insightful graphs in the game helping you to plan your actions, which are all clearly explained in the tutorial.
Sound
Political animals has a cheerful looping tune as background music, and several short sound effects accompanying all actions your character and it’s team do in the game. The sounds are cartoonish, like the graphics, and fit in well in the overall theme.
Gameplay
Political animals is a real strategy game: it’s not easy to win, you’ll have to figure out a plan and a good strategy to win votes and outsmart your opponent. Even in the easy difficulty setting it’s a challenge, especially if you are trying to do what you would envision a presidential candidate would do: rally for your causes, raise funding and campaign on the issues that matter most for you, in the districts where these things are serious issues. All the while your opponent will bribe important figures in several districts and spread rumors about you, heavily diminishing your support.
When starting the game you have to create your presidential candidate. You select a look, your traits, your key campaign issues and your staff. Next you’ll select your country, starting district and lastly your opponent’s style.
The tutorial is pretty extensive, but reading it is useful to understand the game. While the game looks simple, it’s actually pretty complex. However, after one or two games you will understand all elements you should make use of to master the game, and you can have fun and focus on your strategy.
You can choose the number of turns at the beginning of the game, which determines the play time. It’ll take about an hour to work through the tutorial and complete a game of 20 turns, but as you get used to the game the time you need per turn will diminish and you’ll play the game a lot faster.
The strategies you can make use of are very diverse: you have your presidential candidate with a special skill, but also a team of three different animals with special skills; like report on a scandal, inspire people or even threaten somebody. These four are the characters you control: you can select a character by clicking on it at its position on the map, and then choose one of the actions using the action buttons at the bottom of the screen. However, you have limited logistics (moves) and limited money for these actions. Choosing an action will display the action on the map, using animations.
The map you choose is separated in different districts: each has their own worries, which you can amplify by rallying or addressing them in your campaign. You can click the district on the map the see an overview of all important information, like their concerns and the amount of voters planning to vote for you, your opponent or are undecided. States also have patrons, which you can please by giving gifts, which will influence the outcome of actions in that district. You can raise money for your campaign, or bribe somebody to enlarge your influence, using the action buttons for one of the characters. However, things like bribes can create scandals.
During the game you will encounter random events which can range from helping victims of a flood to a celebrity confessing their love for you on a popular TV show. Choosing how you deal with the situation can influence your resources, reputation and influence.
The game features a set of handy overviews accessible by the buttons at the top of the screen, so you can keep an eye on the votes and the statistics without having to click every state. It takes a while to discover and make use of all functions in the game, but once you get the hang of it, it feels pretty complete.
At the end of your turns election day will happen and you’ll see the outcome of your actions, and how many undecided voters you managed to sway using your strategy. Finally, after a victory or defeat is announced, a moral compass will show, ranking your style of campaigning. After this, it’s time for a new challenge!
Conclusion
Political Animals is a cute looking game, which is pretty challenging to learn but fun to master. It is a challenge to try out different strategies for the achievements. This is an amusing game to play around with if you have an hour or two on your hands, and try out the many options this game has to offer.
The developers seem pretty active in responding to comments on steam, and keep adding nice new features to the game since the beta release. Things we would like to see added to this game: watch the results of previous playthroughs, and multiplayer mode so you can battle against your friends.
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