Okay, okay, I'm sick of reading about 20th century German social democracy on PC Gamer.com. 'Write me about Helldiver! Say something about Palworld! One of you must have another bottle of Starfield! Anything but Rudolf Hilferding's lengthy discourse on political economy!" . [Otto Braun's contributions will continue until the crisis of capitalism is ameliorated.

No, I'm not losing my mind: it's Social Democracy: An Alternate History, a free browser game by Autumn Cheng that you can play on Itch.io right now. In my corner of social media, it's the latest viral hit, with people mostly ending long-standing friendships over a controversy about Karl Kautsky.

Based on a derivative of the "Fallen London" engine (also excellent), "Social Democracy" is a relatively simple card-based game in which you lead the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) through the turbulent years from 1928 to 1933 You will be the leader of the SPD during the turbulent years from 1928 to 1933. Your goal is to prevent the Nazis from coming to power in 1933 by any means necessary.

And I mean, good luck. If you are not familiar with European history: the period from 1928 to 1933 was a really bad time for the German Social Democratic Party. Once considered the vanguard of the left-wing labor movement in Europe, the SPD in 1928 had suffered a reputation damaged by its support for World War I, the aftermath of the failed Spartacist uprising, and attacks from the far right and the Communist Party (which considered the SPD a wing of "social fascism").

In short, your closest friends at the start of the game are the German middle class and bourgeois parties, who are not at all convinced by your Marxist talk over the past few decades and see you only as a stepping stone to power through a coalition government.

This is both a terrible situation and a wonderful one. For a free browser game, the possibilities offered are genuinely quite impressive. How you stop the rise of the Nazis is up to you. Do you pour every last Reichsmark into the Reichsbanner, a related paramilitary organization? Will you put all your efforts into winning elections (and if so, which voters and how will you target them)? Will they try to bridge the gap with the Communists and present a united front against fascism, or vice versa: will they try to turn on everyone at once, saying that the far left is as much a threat as the far right?

I lost more time yesterday than I care to admit on this subject. I am sorry to say this, but I have not succeeded in stopping the fascists. The best I could do was to get Ernst Tellmann elected and then plunge the country into a stalemate civil war. Sorry, Germany. How about the next election?