For Power Struggle Games, the release of The Invisible Hand couldn't have been planned for a better time. After the especially high-profile stock fiasco with GameStop during the first part of the year, many gamers are a little bit more in tune with the ups and downs of the stock market. In The Invisible Hand, players are able to manipulate just that.

The Invisible Hand is the first big project from indie French game studio Power Struggle Games, published with the help of Fellow Traveller Games. For Fellow Traveller, publishing games like this is nothing new. The indie label focuses on supporting games with a narrative focus, such as recent releases like the noir space and time adventure, Genesis Noir, or the innovative xenobiology studies of In Other Waters. While The Invisible Hand is projected as a full-on stock market simulator, players should go into it thinking that it is more a narrative story with stock market mechanics.

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stocks going up and down

Right off the bat, players are dropped into the game during the utter chaos of a stock firm experiencing a market crash, giving an insight into the possible highs and lows of the career. Soon after, the main character books an interview with trading firm FERIOS Capital, where they fill out an ethics questionnaire, of which every correct answer is conveniently selected for the player. Of course, the player gets hired at FERIOS, and comes to the office on a sunny day in the fall of 2023 to begin their new career.

The main gameplay of The Invisible Hand is pretty straightforward. At the player’s computer station, they will be able to buy and sell stocks of all varieties, hoping to make the most profit out of each trade that they can. The first day, players will only have access to a limited number of stocks, but more get added to their portfolios throughout the game, from the coffee goods of Dark Roast Co. to the coal goods of FBR EarthDrill. Players can eventually sort each stock by its associated material, product, currency, or even country of origin. There are four screens that players can shift between, but only one will see the most action. Players that get invested in the game may find themselves using the upper two screens to select their favorite stocks to watch, but otherwise, they have little to no value.

The game provides a few beneficial tools so players aren’t completely in the dark about the upward and downward trends of stocks. The first of these is the Trade Feed, which is found on the main screen players use. This showcases different news outlets and reports about market trends, giving hints to whether a stock, product, or material will increase or decrease in value. The catch is that they aren’t all equally reliable. The more reliable tips will have more “likes,” but the market itself will still always be volatile. The International News Networks and GEISTnet are two additional information sources for players, with the latter being more accurate thanks to insider knowledge, causing trouble later on.

stocks informations

There are plenty of mechanics at play that help give The Invisible Hand a more robust feel, but some are clearly more used than others. Players are able to buy off some lobbyists to try and either increase or decrease the value of certain products, materials, or currencies. The game also provides players with a unique way to alter time in the form of coffee and tea. The strength of each beverage can be adjusted, but coffee speeds up time, while tea slows it down.

At the end of each day, players also receive an evaluation of their performance, showing experience gained, whether they’ve met the daily challenge, and whether the public is catching on to the player's shady use of lobbyists. The end of each day will also allow players to use the Lifestyle window to see certain aspects of their life outside of work. First off, players will be able to see their personal accounts, including how much money they made that day. Players will also be able to buy and furnish property, which can then be leased out for extra income each day, or used to host an office party of some kind.

Each day mostly turns out the same. Players enter the office, have a pointless conversation with the receptionist, then head into the workroom to begin a day of trading. It isn’t until about midway through the game that the more narrative aspects start to come into play. Not too much can be revealed without spoiling the plot, but the player meddles in the affairs of other countries by using lobbyists comes with a price.

a union pamphlet

While the actual narrative of The Invisible Hand is intriguing, the gameplay didn’t ever feel deep - just complicated. Once every possible stock portfolio unlocked, it became cumbersome to follow most of them, let alone all of them. Nothing felt worse than investing in a stock and sending lobbyists to increase the value of said stock, only to have the game arbitrarily decide that it should plummet instead. Eventually, that stock just had to be sold at a loss in the hopes of doing better in the future.

There are additional world-building elements that could be improved as well. The FERIOS office can be explored at will, allowing players to interact with multiple items through the office, even though it isn't exceptionally huge. One would think that adding a mechanic where players can pick up and set down items such as picture frames and books would mean making sure every surface in the office is solid, but that isn’t so. Unfortunately, several surfaces throughout the office aren’t physically solid, so trying to set a book down will just make it fall straight to the floor. This in no way impacts the narrative or actual gameplay, but is still weird.

Even further, while most players will just exit the office immediately at the end of the day, nothing forces players to do that. As the light dims outside the windows, players can remain in the offices until midnight (before a new day automatically starts), and nothing changes. No maintenance crew comes in, even though it is a repeated claim on the office TV screens, and coworkers remain at their desks. Moreso, it was always a bit disconcerting to hear the sounds of a busy, active office environment when there was only one other person in the office with the player. These are just some of the ways that The Invisible Hand reveals its flaws, showing a lack of polish in some areas.

wall with posters of stock market trends

While there are aspects of The Invisible Hand that raise some eyebrows, there are even more times when the game is genuinely entertaining. The dialogue is witty and outright hilarious at times, and it was always fun to listen to a coworker's meltdown when they were fired for whatever reason. It is also quite entertaining to begin throwing items at coworkers after being fired one time, playing the part of the disgruntled ex-employee storming out of the office. The game has some great sound effects, plus a zany soundtrack that helps each day go by, especially in special moments. Plus, over the course of the entire game, there was no better feeling than investing in a stock that began to skyrocket in value, leading to an immense payday out of sheer luck.

When all is said and done, The Invisible Hand is a critique on the economics of capitalism, presented through a story with a focus on managing stocks. Unfortunately, those looking for a game with a deep and innovative stock simulator system will not find it in The Invisible Hand. What players do find is an entertaining experience for a few hours, driven by a desire to be a better stockbroker than their coworkers. Power Struggle Games should be proud of the release of The Invisible Hand, letting players live out the fantasy of being a big-time stock trader, all the while warning them of the greater consequences of capitalism's, and Wall Street’s, "invisible hands."

The Invisible Hand is available now on PC. Game Rant was provided a PC code for this review.

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