# The Dictator

> A free satirical strategy game in the browser about how democracies are taken apart, and what stops it. You are the newly elected president of Freedonia, a fictional republic, with eight years to make your rule permanent. Each year you enact one decree; the press, the courts, parliament and the street answer. About 15 minutes a game, no download, no account. Play at https://dictator.one/play

The Dictator is made by Newton's Games. It is satire: the country, its people and its newspapers are fictional. The historical cases the game cites are real and sourced.

## How it plays

- A term is eight years. Each year you are dealt three decrees (cards such as "Expand and Stack Supreme Court", "Ban Independent Media", "Declare Indefinite Emergency", "Blame Foreign Agents") and enact one, or lay low.
- Five numbers run the country: Power, Democracy, Outrage, Narrative and Elites. You lose if Democracy goes above 85, Outrage reaches 100, or Narrative or Elites fall to 0.
- Every decree shows its exact chance of success; the odds depend on whether its needs are met, where you enact it (six institutions: Parliament, the Supreme Court, the Newsroom, the Military, the Internet, the Streets), your Narrative and the difficulty. Spin halves the chance of a backfire for two memecoins and some Narrative.
- Decrees cost the leader's own memecoin, $FIAT (Freedonia's Infallible Autocrat Token), one to five coins by how much Power they grab. Coins pile up at every institution you leave alone; enact there to take them. Where the opposition stands guard, the decree must work to stop their move and take the coins. Laying low banks two.
- Four opposition characters act each year and announce their move first: Vera Byline (editor of The Clarion), Ambrose Stare (Chief Justice), Barnaby Quorum (Speaker of Parliament) and Nell Picket (organiser). The right decree at the right institution stops, weakens or delays their move.
- The country votes once, at the end of year 4. On Hard and Crisis difficulty a landslide against you ends the game (Voted Out).
- Decrees have fallout that arrives years later unless another decree defuses it.
- Before year 1 you choose an ambition. Twelve endings: six victories (Iron Dictatorship, Soft Autocracy, Shadow Regime, Emergency Rule, Populist Strongman, Kleptocracy) and six defeats (Revolution, Military Coup, Media Exposure, Democratic Restoration, Voted Out, End of Term).
- Each game ends with a grade from A to F, a debrief (what enabled the regime, what constrained it, what would have stopped it) and a real historical parallel matched to the methods used, chosen from 41 cases with sources (for example Hungary 2010–2014, Chile 1988, Watergate 1972–1974, South Korea 2024).
- At the end the State Gazette prints a satirical front page about the player's term, which can be shared.
- Four difficulties: Story, Normal, Hard, Crisis. A first term is on Story; a win offers the next difficulty up, and a loss points to the ambition the regime came closest to.

## Today's coup

One seeded game a day, the same for everyone (the Midterm Coup around the 2026 US midterm elections, the Daily Coup otherwise). The first attempt goes on a daily leaderboard under a generated name the player can change; results can be shared as a grid (🟩 worked, 🟥 backfired, 🟨 laid low) with a link that plays the same game.

## Facts

- Price: free. Platforms: any modern web browser on phone, tablet or computer.
- Length: about 15 minutes per game. Single player. Language: English.
- Content: 147 decrees, each illustrated in a cut-paper, art-deco-meets-constructivist style (1,764 hand-reviewed images); four opposition characters; twelve endings.
- AI: the art is made in advance and reviewed, and the in-game headlines are written in advance and edited, several per decree; AI writes live only the end-of-game newspaper, labelled as satire. The game never waits for AI; without it, an archive edition is printed and cannot be shared.
- Stance: non-partisan. The satire aims at the ruler and the mechanism, never at a real person. Suitable for classrooms and civic education.

## Links

- Play: https://dictator.one/play
- Today's coup: https://dictator.one/play?seed=coup-YYYY-MM-DD (the UTC date)
- The Gazette archive (front pages players shared): https://dictator.one/news
- About: https://dictator.one/