Reviews

Although it's undeniably simplistic and the gameplay is a bit "dead end" in that there comes a point where maintaining a hold on the Presidential throne becomes next to impossible, it is nonetheless the case that this game with its cynical view of cold war politics and black humour remains fun and playable after all these years.

Unusually Dictator is a high score strategy game. You accumulate points by surviving in office but also by robbing Rimtimba blind and escaping with your loot. Immediately playable but with hidden depths this game forces the player to shed the desire to be everyone's friend and to unite army, landowners and peasants only by warmongering with neighburing Leftoto. Sell mining rights to the US in return for a personal foreign aid 'loan' and then see to your Swiss bank account whilst forcing peasants to conscript to your smarmy army...
Any score over 100 is doing really well and over 200, exceptional.
EDIT: Several years after... I initially scored this game 4, but the more I think back on it the more revolutionary Dictator looks and as a life lesson in greed and corruption I have come to see it as a peerless example of what was possible on the Spectrum driven by a great imaginative author. Time and again in my lifetime I have seen real dictatorships playing out the same sort of choices as Don Priestly laid out in this game.

1983 DK'tronics (UK)
by Don Priestley

Dictator was my first war strategy game. The player incarnates the dictator of a small banana republic called Ritimba, somewhere lost in central equatorial america.
Your goal is to rule as long as possible, and still keep everyone pleased. You need to fight the guerrillas and your belligerent neighbor Leftoto, but still maintaining peace and your country status. The dark side of the game is while you do all this you also divert the meager cash balance of your country to a Swiss bank account. If you get caught you either will be killed by the hungry peasants or you manage to escape via helicopter.
For your protection there is even a secret police, which must be dealt carefully, otherwise you'll end up like Kennedy. Hey FBI, I'm only joking eheheh, ahm, eheh, gulp *sweating*
Overall a very entertaining game, and although not the most accurate, it's still lots of fun.

While the idea is as interesting as it is morally questionable - a South American dictator simulator -, this game is too erratic to be really enjoyable. The underlying mechanics seem to be more random than logical; you will often not understand why things seem to go the opposite way you try to push them. In the long way this gives room to frustration and boredom. Not recommended.

Always enjoyed this game, it seems predictable as you keep playing it but I've always found a certain degree of charm with this game that keeps me playing regardless.

I used to enjoy this , and other games like this . . . 3,5 / 5 .

Dictator is essentially a management game but one of the whole different kind, because we're not a manager of a football team but rather a leader of a country.

You are the President of the Ritimban Republic, or Ritimba for short. Throughout your presidency you make decisions which determine the popularity and strength in the Army, Peasants, Landowners, Guerillas, Leftotans, Special Police, Russians and Americans.

At each month a request is brought to you which you can either accept or decline. As well as determine popularity and strengh, decisions you make can also add or take money to your treasury as well as raise or lower monthly costs.

Then you can make presidential decision, which you can please one group or all groups, strengthen a group, improve your chances by purchasing an escape helicopter or raise some cash. These also determine relations as well. You can keep track of your popularity and strengths by viewing a report from the Special Police, provided your relations with them are good. Poor relations can lead to war, assasination attempt and revolution.

There is no real strategy to this game apart from making decisions throughout the game to last as long as you can. Because Ritimba is an unstable country it's a guarentee your reign as President will be a brief one. You would be extrememly fortunate to last two years, the most I have lasted is 15 months. Over time your relations with certain groups will get less and less and your balance will get less and less, this seems to be the norm and it gets a little too predictable from time to time. Usually after a few months revolution takes place and you either escape of you are exiled. Your game can even be very brief, I was once assasinated by one of the landowners after 3 months.

But despite its shortness and its predictablity, Dictator is good fun and can be strangly addictive though it can be too repetitive and redundant at the same time. But I found myself playing this quite constantly lately, always changing my style, one game I would please the army and the next I would side with the Leftotans, then I would spent a lot of money and the next game I would turn down any requests that would cost money. Dictator's a type of game that would do that, and it's good fun.

Always enjoyed this one. I never really done too well on it but it's always a nice little game to go back to so often.