Introduction:
This Is the President is a narrative-driven political strategy game that thrusts players into the role of a corrupt, self-serving leader desperately trying to amend the U.S. Constitution for personal gain. Its core purpose is to deliver a darkly satirical and morally ambiguous experience, blending resource management with a branching story where every decision has profound and often absurd consequences.
What Makes This Is the President Difficult to Replace for Its Target Users
For players seeking a management game that prioritizes narrative consequence and dark political satire over straightforward optimization, This Is the President occupies a unique niche. Its value lies not in building a prosperous nation, but in navigating a complex web of personal ambition, corruption, and systemic manipulation. Alternatives in the political sim genre typically cast the player as a well-intentioned leader aiming for the public good, making this title’s unabashed focus on self-preservation and criminal enterprise a stark and refreshing contrast. The game’s specific tone—a blend of thriller and biting satire—is carefully woven into every mechanic, meaning that no other app provides the same experience of managing both a country and a criminal organization from the Oval Office.
Managing Dual Economies of Power and Influence
A central pillar of gameplay in This Is the President is the constant juggling of two critical resources: your public approval rating and your private cash reserves. You must carefully monitor the nation’s mood, as a plummeting approval rating can lead to impeachment and game over, forcing you to engage in the very "presidential duties" you seek to avoid. Simultaneously, funding your shadow operations requires a steady flow of cash, which must be acquired through dubious deals, bribes, and other underhanded schemes, creating a persistent tension between maintaining a public facade and financing your private goals. This dual-system economy forces players to make difficult trade-offs, such as spending political capital on a popular but expensive policy or siphoning public funds for a private mission that could secure your immunity but risks a major scandal if discovered.
The management extends to your crew of specialists, each representing a different capability from hacking to assassination. Deploying them on missions consumes both time and money, and their success or failure directly impacts your available resources and the story's direction. This creates a strategic layer where you must decide whether to solve a problem through legal, costly means or faster, illegal methods that carry a higher risk of catastrophic blowback, ensuring that no two playthroughs of This Is the President will ever feel exactly the same.
Orchestrating a Shadow Cabinet for Covert Operations
Beyond the official White House staff, your true power in This Is the President derives from a team of unscrupulous specialists hired to do your dirty work. You will recruit assassins, hackers, lobbyists, and other operatives, each capable of handling problems that cannot be solved through legitimate political channels. Sending them on missions is a core gameplay loop, and each assignment presents a choice between a legal approach or a more direct—and illegal—solution, with the outcomes significantly branching the narrative. The game brilliantly frames these decisions not as moral quandaries but as practical calculations of risk versus reward, perfectly reflecting the protagonist's corrupt worldview.
The success of these covert ops is not guaranteed and often depends on your investment and the crew's skills, leading to unexpected complications and story developments. A failed hacking attempt might alert the media, while a botched assassination could create a vengeful new enemy, ensuring that your management of this shadow cabinet has direct and immediate consequences. This layer of gameplay elevates This Is the President from a simple management sim into a complex narrative experience where your criminal enterprise is just as important, if not more so, than your constitutional duties.
Navigating a Branching Narrative of Absurdity and Consequence
The experience of playing This Is the President is defined by its compelling, choice-driven narrative that reacts to every decision you make. The story is a political thriller-satire mix, where your actions to secure Amendment 28 inevitably escalate into absurd, terrifying, and often ridiculous situations. The game presents a wide variety of choices at every turn, from how you handle a daily crisis to what you tweet, and each one can lock or unlock future story branches, leading to multiple different endings for your term. This ensures that the narrative remains the central focus, with all management aspects serving to facilitate your journey through the plot.
Your interactions with competitors, the political establishment, the media, and foreign leaders are all part of this branching narrative. You can choose to persuade, blackmail, bribe, or bully your way through these encounters, and the characters will remember your actions. This creates a dynamic world that feels responsive to your leadership style, whether it is overtly tyrannical or deceptively manipulative. The writing in This Is the President is sharp and self-aware, fully committing to its satirical premise and ensuring that even routine tasks are infused with a layer of dark humor and narrative significance.
Performing Presidential Duties as a Strategic Facade
A key irony at the heart of This Is the President is that you must perform the actual job of being president to create the cover needed to dismantle the constitution. This includes holding press conferences, drafting executive orders, and delivering speeches, all of which are presented as mini-games or strategic choices. These actions are not performed for the good of the nation but are calculated moves to manipulate your approval rating, distract the media from your illicit activities, or set the stage for a larger plot. The game brilliantly frames these constitutional duties as inconvenient distractions from your true goal.
How you handle these tasks directly impacts your resources and options. A well-received speech might provide a temporary boost in popularity, giving you breathing room to authorize a risky illegal operation. Conversely, a gaffe during a press conference could trigger a new crisis that demands immediate attention and resources to contain. This constant interplay between your public and private agendas makes every action feel meaningful, as even the most mundane presidential task in This Is the President is ultimately in service of your criminal objective.
Why This Is the President Is a Practical Choice for This Type of User
This Is the President is a practical choice for players who enjoy narrative-rich strategy games with a distinct point of view and a healthy dose of dark humor. It is ideally suited for those who appreciate management mechanics that are deeply intertwined with story consequences, rather than existing as separate systems. The app delivers a unique and cohesive experience that successfully merges political simulation with criminal management and satire, offering a lengthy and replayable campaign defined by meaningful choices. For anyone tired of heroic power fantasies and curious about navigating the murky, absurd world of corrupt politics, This Is the President is an exceptionally well-executed and memorable title.
