History VideoGame / ShadowPresident

* ShadowDictator: Ostensibly you play as the President of the United States. In practice, however...

* GameBreakingBug: While normally a high GNP growth rate for your country is a good thing, letting it exceed 10% when going onto the next year may cause an information overflow error and prompt the game to display garbage data in place of not just your GNP growth rate, but also popularity percentage and even the pie chart showing what percentage of income belongs to what taxes. This makes maintaining your country's economy and your popularity impossible and may also cause other glitches to occur.

** "Performing this action on your own country does not make sense. Fortunately, members of the press were not informed of your attempt."

''Shadow President'' is a MS-DOS [[PoliticalStrategyGame "Geopolitical Simulation" game]], released in 1994, designed by Robert Antonick and Brad Stock. The game's scenario is based loosely around the early 1990's and the [[UsefulNotes/ColdWar Cold War]]. Also, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait is another scenario included in the game that runs parallel to the main Cold War scenario. The game is somewhat like a [[TextAdventure graphical text adventure.]]

* KarmicDeath: You can suffer one, if you commit too many atrocities and end up assassinated.

''Shadow President'' is a [[PoliticalStrategyGame "Geopolitical Simulation" game]], released in 1994, designed by Robert Antonick and Brad Stock. The game's scenario is based loosely around the early 1990's and the [[UsefulNotes/ColdWar Cold War]]. Also, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait is another scenario included in the game that runs parallel to the main Cold War scenario. The game is somewhat like a [[TextAdventure graphical text adventure.]]

* ZeroPercentApprovalRating: Entirely possible to achieve, as demonstrated so succinctly [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNxHUfGc3gE right here]].

** Recklessly launching [[NukeEm nuclear strikes]] is a good way to cause nations to hate you. The radiation certainly does not not help either. Doing this against random countries for the hell of it may just cause you to [[ZeroPercentApprovalRating lose all of your popularity]], [[VideoGameCrueltyPunishment or worse]].

* DwindlingParty: In a bad situation, your cabinet may turn into this, between [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere resignations]], [[AnyoneCanDie deaths]], and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking the occasional scandal]].

*** The USSR may inexplicably nuke Japan in a game, which may cause the entire world to constantly overthrow the USSR and for a cloud of fallout to settle over eastern USSR.

** The Soviet Union seems to have a "hair trigger" in certain game instances, nuking a country for seemingly implausible reasons. For example, allowing Iraq to conquer Saudi Arabia has a chance of causing this reaction from the USSR; the USSR executes a nuclear strike against Saudi Arabia, likely starting a continental thermonuclear war between itself and Europe and/or China. In fact, any nation with a nuclear arsenal, high ambition and low ethics, has a chance to scorched earth a country if they lose a war in it.\\
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The USSR may inexplicably nuke Japan in a game, which may cause the entire world to constantly overthrow the USSR and for a cloud of fallout to settle over eastern USSR.

* BerserkButton: Recklessly launching [[NukeEm nuclear strikes]] is a good way to cause nations to hate you. The radiation certainly does not not help either. Doing this against random countries for the hell of it may just cause you to [[ZeroPercentApprovalRating lose all of your popularity]], [[VideoGameCrueltyPunishment or worse]].

* EndlessGame: You keep playing until you get removed from office - whether through losing an election or worse.

* VideoGameCrueltyPunishment: Dropping nukes on a country without nuclear strike capabilities will be met with a sharp decline in popularity, and increase your chances of being assassinated (if Congress doesn't impeach you, first).

* WhatTheHellPlayer: Behaving ruthlessly may cause an adviser to call you out or even resign for your cruel behavior. For example, they may say that they hope you had a "damn good reason" for nuking a country, after taking the fallout into account.\\
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Attacking a nation who lacks nuclear strike capability using your own [[NukeEm nuclear strike(s)]] will cause pretty much the highest amount of condemnation from world nations. Even worse, you set a possible precedent for the liberal (read: reckless) use of nuclear weapons by anyone who possesses them.\\
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Even the UI disapproves of such an action, especially if you drop several hundred or thousand nukes on the country: after selecting to commence preparations for the strike, the UI just says "[[{{Understatement}} Bad idea]]."

To make a long story short, some of your options/objectives are to maintain the budget of the United States, deal with diplomatic crises, send foreign aid optimally, and fight wars as necessary. Of course, [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential you don't have to be benevolent if you don't feel like it]] and can try your hand at expansionism, such as attempting a take-over of the Americas, or drop some [[ForTheEvulz nukes]] on a few countries, but beware of your approval rating dropping too far or you likely will be [[YouKeepUsingThatWord Impeached]] or even assassinated.

* AGodAmI: For better or [[CrapSackWorld worse]], you could attempt to play the game in this manner, but maintaining your popularity is part of the trick to this, if you intend to not get assassinated/impeached.

[[UsefulNotes/GeorgeHWBush Thank you, God bless you,]] [[GameOver and God bless the United States of America.]]''