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[umiman]

http://dosdose.com/game/140/floor_13/

This is a very old dos game that recently resurfaced in the form of a java browser version. It's very interesting, essentially V for Vendetta the videogame (from the perspective of the antagonists). It's also very, very difficult and it's really tough to predict how the various scandals you're supposed to "avoid" and "solve" will play out.

Example:

The US President's son is studying in England and his bodyguard (a Sir, making him quite difficult to touch) has been acting strange recently. Being the Department General of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries *cough*, you take it upon yourself to send a few agents to keep track on both people. An agent, in an "inspection" of the bodyguard's holdings, discovers that the bodyguard wants to resign in the face of the complete lack of security for the President's son; fearing the political backlash that comes from the inevitable kidnapping.

What do you do?

There is some element of randomization and even the same scenarios won't usually play out the same way it did the first time around. Keep in mind that the game is also really, really old and as such, the mechanics are honestly quite basic and sparse. But it's a great timewaster. Check it out!

Oh yeah... be prepared to learn how to fly. A lot.

[olemars]

I love this game. It is minimalist but has surprising depth and quite a bit of (british) humor. The interrogations have a lot in common with LCS.

The great part is how you have to do decision management based on the little scraps of information you receive. Often several dynamic, complex incidents are ongoing at the same time, some stretch out over several weeks. Some will turn out to be dead ends while other turn out to be major events.

Too bad the number of incidents/cases are so limited. They do get a bit repetitive after a few flying lessons, even though each one have a few different paths they can take each time (something that is a major terrorist event one game might be a complete dud the next).

There's also a little plot twist if you manage to survive in your DG chair for a couple of months.

[kulik]

For me it was try-fail gameplay. The scenarios aren't randomized from what i know, only their order.

[Sowelu]

That was interesting and pretty fun.  Except that I went from +55 to +45 two days before the next major poll due to some scandal, and instantly lost.  When you don't have anything to do or anyone to investigate, it's pretty boring.

[Rakonas]

Personally I found that interrogations were pretty stupid, as in I never got anything useful out of them. Disinformation seemed to be be the best impact on opinion polls though they didn't always seem to actually go through.

[umiman]

Personally I found that interrogations were pretty stupid, as in I never got anything useful out of them. Disinformation seemed to be be the best impact on opinion polls though they didn't always seem to actually go through.

Many of the scenarios require you to kidnap and interrogate people to get more information out of them. Or you can use it as an alternative to cold blooded assassination... well... more like time-delayed assassination. Good for getting people out of there immediately. Say... the mistress of a minister who's about to confess his love affair.

Remember. Your objective is not the opinion polls. You're supposed to make sure the inevitable scandals have a minimal or beneficial effect. This means that opinion polls will take small hits all the time, you just negate the big ones. That's all. In other words, if you see a known terrorist enter the country, immediately schedule a kidnapping or an assassination (obviously he's gonna be trouble the longer he's walking about). Save the disinformation for the big targets as they are expensive to undertake and may not have much of a use in the current scenario or you could even accidentally ruin the name of someone irrelevant to the whole thing which then leads to flying lessons.

[Sowelu]

I'm wondering if disinformation actually helps the scenarios, or if it only impacts the polls.  I mean clearly, if you discredit a huge anti-government guy, you end up with a huge poll boost when the Star runs some story about finding kids in his trunk.  But I've seen a few situations where I hoped that discrediting a pro-government guy would help out, and it totally doesn't (plus the inevitable poll hit).

Is it possible to lose in any way besides flying lessons or bad polls?  Last game I got up to like, +30 polls before I went flying.  I might as well have just slept at my desk at that point, huh...

[umiman]

The scenario where a minister wants to accuse the government of being KGB is heavily dependant on disinformation. I know there are others.

[Seamas]

A little dry at times, but I thought this was a remarkable game - only once did brute force really seem appropriate to the job.  I stormed some guy's house with an attack squad and set to stun.

The smoldering wreckage of his town house left no clues to the existence of Floor 13.  God save the Queen.