Possessing a minimalist card-based design art-wise, Lapse: A Forgotten Future is a political strategy game from the mind of Corango Stefano. It takes place in 2075, years after a nuclear or biological war left the Earth a post-apocalyptic wasteland with four countries standing.
You will take over one of the countries and will be responsible for handling the governance of your nation. This is carried out through a swipe left-swipe right game mechanic with an act or ignore response to each problem.
Important people in your cabinet will present each of these problems and your response dictates how much of a hit or bump the country’s environment, citizens, army, or finances take. There are also a number of buffs that can be obtained based on some decisions.
The problems and events will hit you at random and your other objective is to make sure no part of your government drops too low. If it does, it’s games over and you’ll have to restart again.
This is one of those games like Democracy which will test your personal beliefs towards when applied to both reasonable and extreme situations. You might feel that keeping your military on top is the best policy and it is for dealing with other countries but your money could take significant hits.
Lapse: A Forgotten Future is a pretty fun game that you can play in bursts. While you will sink time into the game in the pursuit of trying to remain president for as long as possible (my record is a 1 year and a few days), you won’t sink a ton of time into the game in one sitting. It is available on Google Play
RATING: B-