Where do cars come from? That century-old question is answered in Production Line [official site], a car-building factory management sim from Gratuitious Space Battles dev Positech, which has now hit early access. We all know cars live in symbiotic relationships with humans, letting us ride in their cheek pouches in exchange for food. And many of us know that a car nearing death will make one final journey to a local park to be set ablaze by teenagers in a mating frenzy. But their beginnings? The truth might surprise you. Read the rest of this entry »

This election cycle in the United States has been drama-filled and both candidates have engaged in a ridiculous cartoon-like behavior towards the opposition. This makes Squeaky Wheel’s Political Animals [official site] more realistic than its developers probably intended when they set out to make the turn-based strategy game about a presidential election on a fictional island with animals as the candidates. Here, check it out in this new half-hour gameplay walkthrough: Read the rest of this entry »

You can have any genre, says Positech, as long as it’s management. Production Line [official site] will be the studio’s new game of building cars on a long assembly line with the penny-pinching efficiency of Henry Ford. “I never used to care about cars,” said Cliffski, the creator of Democracy and Gratuitous Space Battles, in his announcement. “Then I bought a nice hybrid one (Lexus) then I bought a stupidly flash electric one (Tesla). I started to realize cars had become interesting to geeks, not just petrol-heads.” Right so. Here’s what we know so far.

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Dearie me, Positech Games have been lucky. While the UK’s political situation stumbles into chaos on all sides, like a Three Stooges skit full of pratfalls and kicks up the jacksy, Positech have launched the Electioneering expansion for political strategy game Democracy 3 [official site]. What convenient timing! The expansion lets players campaign to win elections and maybe I’m getting ahead of myself with this ha-ha-hilarious satire given that you need candidates before anyone can go electioneering.

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Ha ha hooo elections, eh? In that there politics. With the votes. And those things they say. With those ideas they have. Hitting the ole campaign trail. Kissing all that baby. Shaking a hand. Posing with them famous folks. And the things they say! Did you hear what that one said? And then the other one…? Putting papers through your door. Love it. Knocking on my door. Sitting inside my TV. Electioneering. Love ’em all. Happy times. Big japes. Shaky hands. Kissy face. Good jokes. Good jokes. Proper fun.

So yeah, the next Democracy 3 [official site] expansion will add electoneering. Topical.

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Political Animals [official site] is a turn-based strategy game. It’s also a colourful election simulation where candidates are replaced by cartoon animals. It should be released in time for November’s US elections. No, really. As the blurb goes:

“Building a wall around a country to handle migration is completely insane, except when the candidate suggesting it is a mongoose with severe hair problems, then it’s practically cute.”

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Over and above its management and strategy groundings, Big Pharma [official site] shines a light on the billion dollar, often unscrupulous, pharmaceutical industry. While Alec enjoyed his hands-on time with Twice Circled’s medicine manufacturing sim last year, he noted it didn’t “go for pharmaceutical industry’s jugular”. Its first expansion – Marketing and Malpractice – takes a distinguished step towards doing exactly that by introducing dodgy tactics and the ability to manually set medicine prices.

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When Big Pharma [official site] appeared last year, Alec approved but pointed out it perhaps went a little easy on a severely dodgy target. Today’s announced expansion, Marketing And Malpractice, looks like it might add a few more teeth to the management satire. With your drug developed, you now need to ensure doctors think it’s the right one for their patients. “Take them to dinner, buy them some drinks, maybe a new set of golf clubs? It’s no biggie! Everyone does it.”

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Regency Solitaire took Castle Shotgun by surprise, and transformed it into a Victorian mansion for a while, all gossip and idle chat and falling in love with the cold and distant guy who secretly has deep passions but cannot show them because it’s not cool.

A few months ago, devs Grey Alien Games announced they were going to spice things up a bit and throw some action into the mix. Shadowhand [official site] reiterates on their card-game-plus-visual-novel formula, but pairs it with a darker setting of villains and outlaws, “mysterious woods and gloomy manors.” And now there’s a short trailer to show you how it’s shaping up.

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“If you want to play a deep, balanced politics simulator, and prove your ideals correct, then Democracy probably won’t satisfy past a couple of hours of play,” our Graham said in his Wot I Think of Democracy 3. “But if you want to teach someone about the basic connections that form society, Democracy 3 is the perfect way to do it.”

Come next year, you’ll be able to poke at the underpinnings of other, perhaps less familiar societies, as the political simulator’s developers Positech have announced a standalone expansion named Democracy 3: Africa [official site].

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For a game about the inner workings of government, Democracy 3 [official site] is surprisingly violent. I don’t think I’ve played a game of it – whether I built a land of hugs ‘n’ kisses or a brutal police state – which didn’t end up with me being violently turfed out of office by explosions in Westminster. Maybe the new Democracy 3 update will help: it doesn’t reduce the number of security threats, but it does make it easier to track how ready you are to deal with them.

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Oooh. You know how happy Regency Solitaire made Adam and me earlier in the year? Its creators Grey Alien Games have just announced ShadowHand [official site], the tale of a notorious highwaywoman and her secret identity, which they describe as a historical visual novel crossed with a collectible card game.

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Big Pharma [official site] is “part business sim, part logistics puzzle”, where you’re dealing with balancing three competing resources: the limited space you have for the machinery that makes your drugs; the money you make from selling those drugs and spend to buy new machines; and your own conscience as you get reports back on the side effects of your pills. It’s out today.

Do you have enough heart to sacrifice money and space to stop the terrible nightmares your hypertension pills are giving people? Think about it while watching the trailer below.

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It’s always nice to have a demonstration what a complete fool you are and how poorly you think things through. Humbling. Gratuitous Space Battles offered that experience with huge spacefights where your input ends as soon as the battle begins, and all you can do is watch as the plans you laid, the issues you ordered, and the ships you designed failed spectacularly to deal with the enemy’s far superior plan. Or maybe you were good at it. I don’t know.

Either way, you may get something out of Gratuitous Space Battles 2 [official site], which launched yesterday.

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Is pre-ordering still pre-ordering if you get instant access to the game? That’s the case with Gratuitous Space Battles 2 [official site], Positech’s follow-up to the spacewar/laserguns management game. If you buy the game now via the developer website, you get instant access to its beta. There’s a new trailer below to prove it.

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Democracy 3 is a political simulator that works best when treated as a toy rather than a strategy game. Put aside your instinctive desire to win and instead just tinker with its societal web and play out different what-if scenarios. “What happens if the welfare state is dismantled,” you ask. And in the game.

The last expansion let you push those what-ifs into extremism, and the just-released Clones & Drones DLC seems to exist on a similar knife-edge between timely, politically-charged issues and ‘ooh won’t that be fun to make people do.’ Check the trailer below.

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Big Pharma is “part business sim, part logistics puzzle”, set in the cutthroat world of throat lozenge development. Like Theme Hospital, Big Pharma looks at the price of healthcare through the lens of a management sim, and it seems likely that it’ll bring a strong dose of gallows humour to help the medicine go down.

Being totally altruistic may not be the best BUSINESS PLAN. The uncomfortable truth (is there an ointment for that?) is that some remedies are more profitable than others and illness is good for business.

As well as researching new machinery and active ingredients, you’ll have to cope with a dynamic marketplace and puzzling factory layouts.

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I’ve spent untold hours watching back replays of my own Supreme Commander games, taking the opportunity to slow-down or speed-up time, watch maneuvers by my opponents I missed the first time around, and to marvel at the bombastic laser wars that eventually decide each match.

Gratuitious Space Battles is that whole process as an entire game: you build a fleet, design the ships, and then click go to watch a spectacular hands-off space battle. The sequel seems determined to make those battles more spectacular than ever, as demonstrated by this new trailer. Such pretty lasers and explosions.

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