Games like Through the Darkest of Times

The Squirrel's verdictA besieged apartment in a contemporary unnamed city replaces Berlin's resistance cells, but the moral stakes are comparable: a small group, dwindling resources, and decisions that cost someone something. Scavenging, hunger, and civilian deaths carry the ethical weight here instead of historical resistance actions. Median playtime runs 26.8 hours. Built for players who want survival pressure and moral compromise in a civilian war context.

Not for you if you need a historical setting or named political actors rather than a fictional contemporary siege.

The Squirrel's verdictSuzerain is a presidential-palace text game set in a fictional country, where legislation, alliance-building, and power-balancing play out through dialogue choices rather than map or unit management. Reviewers disagree sharply on agency: some find the branching genuinely consequential across 39 hours of median playtime, others describe it as binary choices funneling toward a scripted outcome. Suits players comfortable with reading-heavy political decision-making in a fictional rather than historical frame.

Not for you if you expect strategic depth beyond dialogue choices, or reviews describing railroaded outcomes would undermine your engagement.

The Squirrel's verdictOstalgie swaps street-level resistance for state-level control: you run a Warsaw Pact government (GDR, Romania, Bulgaria) through the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, making policy and power-consolidation decisions in real time rather than turn-based missions. Same historical-simulation instinct as Darkest Times, aimed at players who want to run the regime instead of hiding from it.

Not for you if you want turn-based structure and clear feedback on choices, since Ostalgie runs real-time with decisions that don't explain their outcomes in advance.

The Squirrel's verdictNoviNews puts you on the other side of the propaganda machine: instead of resisting a regime's newspaper, you edit one, choosing which stories run and how they're spun. Choices ripple into your social life outside the office. Runs are short (median 6.2 hours) and built for replay across multiple endings, unlike the anchor's single 10-year campaign.

Not for you if you want deep management choices over specific topics and reporters rather than binary approve/spike decisions on pre-written stories.

The Squirrel's verdictHelp Will Come Tomorrow swaps Nazi-occupied Berlin for a group of WWI survivors stranded in the wilderness, but keeps the same daily-management-under-oppression structure: assign tasks, ration morale and resources, watch relationships fray. It leans further into survival-sim mechanics and RNG events than TDT's resistance-planning, for players who want the dread without the historical subject matter.

Not for you if you want meaningful choices and strategy rather than resource-juggling and RNG events dressed as narrative decisions.

The Squirrel's verdictMaking History II swaps small-scale resistance for full nation-state control of WWII: manage economy, military morale, and political stability while writing your own alliances and trade deals. Where the anchor scripts one Berlin family's survival, this one lets you rewrite the war's outcome entirely. Suits players who want grand-strategy scope over narrative-driven history.

Not for you if you want the anchor's tight narrative focus rather than nation-scale economic and military management with a steep learning curve.

The Squirrel's verdictHeadliner swaps 1930s Berlin for a Deus Ex-style near future, but the core mechanic transfers: daily choices under a political system, consequences tracked over time, no clean way to win. It's shorter and more linear, with editorial picks driving family and career outcomes rather than resistance-cell management. Suits players who want the moral-weight decision loop without the historical setting.

Not for you if you want the branching resistance-management depth rather than a shorter, more linear decision-and-consequence structure.

The Squirrel's verdictFor the People is a text-heavy, choice-driven visual novel set in a fictional post-revolutionary socialist state, where you play a low-ranking official navigating bureaucratic and ideological pressure. Reviewers praise its rare sympathetic treatment of reformism within a communist system, though several note the story left little impression after the fact. Median playtime is 4.5 hours. Suits players drawn to political moral framing over tactical or resource-management depth.

Not for you if you want systems with meaningful strategic decisions rather than a short, mostly reading-based experience with light city management.