Congresswolf

So this game is better, I think, than its steam reviews would suggest. A few people seemed to have bombed its reviews over there. But its not perfect.

The writing in this game is descriptive, and I could picture all the characters clearly. You play as an aid to one of 4 different congressional candidates. Unlike other games that play it a bit safer, this one uses real life US parties (Republican and Democrat). It doesn't seem extremely biased one way or another; someone mentioned the game as treating Republicans as 'evil' but I chose a Republican millionaire and the game seemed just fine with that choice.

In this game, similar to Werewolves: Haven Rising, werewolves have been around for a while and are subject to harsh restrictions on their freedom.

The main threads of the game are:
-Deciding to do a dirty or fair campaign fight
-Making a decision about how you feel about werewolves
-Dealing with the aftereffects of a grisly murder
-Running a monthly budget

Someone said on Steam that the game seemed to assume a female protagonist. You can choose your gender, but some scenes in the game do feel written for a female protagonist in mind. For instance, there is a frightening scene where the protagonist (major spoilers for the middle of the game) (Spoiler - click to show)is being followed on a dark street alone at night, and is attacked in an alley by a werewolf, and is worried for about a month afterwards so it can see if they turn into a werewolf at the next full moon. Its easy to see this as an analogy for (Spoiler - click to show)rape and possible pregnancy, and that's not a theme that's very common in other media (except for the (Spoiler - click to show)Alien series). But it worked for me, and I don't see it as a drawback.

The biggest drawback I do see is that the narrative arc is relatively flat. I didn't feel a real build-up in tension in any of the main plotlines, although there was some there. The overall writing level was great, though, and I felt like my decisions definitely mattered. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this to fans of werewolves, political games, or simulation text games.

I received a review copy of this game.

Werewolves exist alongside other humans. Also, they have certain demands in terms of rights and laws. Still, all is not well with that group. Some folks see werewolves as a threat which requires a tighter leash.

You begin this tale as a junior staffer for a congressman or congresswoman, but get a quick promotion when something unfortunate happens to your boss. (A higher-ranking staffer, not the congressman or congresswoman.) Once that happens, it is up to you to tackle mountains of paperwork, phone calls, late nights and stress, all to bring the campaign to an electoral victory.

There are four candidates you can choose to work for, two republican and two democrat. I ultimately picked one by trying to translate their description to gameplay stats, and trying to guess which would work best with my character build. Speaking of which, unlike other CoG games, this title keeps your gender ambiguous rather than allowing you to specify it up front. Personally, it wasn't something I minded.

There is a simple but pretty interesting management minigame, where you decide to how you will allocate campaign funds towards different endeavors. Interestingly, I removed the pollster to save money halfway down the line, and stopped receiving reports on predicted results. (You'd think I couldn't find at least one news website which does that for free.) I did run dangerously low on funds twice without being a huge spender, so the challenge is there.

You'll need to tackle the issue of werewolf related legislation, along with a ton of other bread and butter issues like the economy and unemployment. Annoyingly, especially at the start of the game, people will ask/ambush you about different positions your candidate has, but you can only give them a solid yes/no or a solid brush off. Some way to say 'I'll need to discuss this with my team' or 'I'm not sure yet' should have been available even if it might not have pleased the other side fully.

There is some romance in the game. Still, I did betray the trust of that RO (I was trying to do the right thing for someone else, and the game suggested I could be discreet about it), but I got caught anyway and sent our relationship to the bottom of the sea. But eh... that's life, I guess.

The ending was somewhat unsatisfying. After a personally horrifying incident which put my character out of commission towards the end, my congressperson still won the election by a wafer-thin margin. However, there is little detail on what happens later, whether people got the jobs they were promised, how said congressperson made things better/worse and so on. There were a few loose ends such as decisions on certain bills and a personal secret of the congressperson which were also seemingly unresolved. I did not speak to the congressperson later, so I'm not sure if they followed up with me or helped me secure future opportunities. (C'mon, I helped you win this. Shouldn't I at least get a B+ on my report card?)

It's an interesting story with an interesting concept, just that I wasn't quite satisfied with some parts of it. The writing is good, and also conveys some really harsh realities of the job. But if you're into politics, go ahead and give this a try.