Have you ever wondered what goes bump in the night? Do you believe a cabal of evil is behind every major world event?

Well in The Fabulous Fear Machine, you get to influence the state of the world all with magical abilities granted to you by a corrupted carnival fortune teller machine.

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While the game may not be “scary” the top-down management RTS (created by Fictiorama Studios in partnership with AMC and Shudder), is vibrant and colourful with a classic pulpy horror plot that would make any B-movie blush.

It’s the End of the World as We Know it- How does The Fabulous Fear Machine’s gameplay keep players engaged?

Although the main focus of gameplay is increasing the fear of the populace on a tabletop-inspired map, the key to utilising the various myths and conspiracy at your disposal is through, espionage.

By sending agents into cities to insight panic among the population the key goal is to accumulate enough fear to make people susceptible to the “messages” that you want to broadcast.

The way that you affect the public is by placing and upgrading your “legends” around a map while harvesting resources and dealing with random events that can help or hinder your quest for world domination.

The rivals aspect of the game is also very entertaining, with a good, or not as bad, guy who will pop up to stop your plan for global domination. By setting up events in cities to block out your legends from being placed and spreading their agenda, rivals add an extra layer of tactics to your mission.

However, by using your agents you can infiltrate their organisation by digging up dirt and blackmail to destroy them.

The game’s tutorial is fairly comprehensive giving players a solid feel of the basic aspects of the title, while not providing too many mechanics to overwhelm you.

However, the tutorial, and the overall game, are hampered by a clunky UI that while, you will get used to can be slightly annoying at times to navigate through.

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However, with the unique premise of world domination through fear and conspiracy The Fabulous Fear Machine, sets itself apart from other games in the genre.

The agents you have access to are actually very limited, with only one or two available per level, but they are necessary to complete most of the key gameplay mechanics.

What this means is that you have to be strategic with what missions you send your agents on as each action they take requires a time investment.

This can become challenging and occasionally frustrating when rivals spring up, resources are low and you have to manage your fear. On top of having to deal with all these various setbacks, you are fighting against the clock.

While The Fabulous Fear Machine does not have a traditional timer, you are dealing with dwindling resources as the fuel source Oleum (one of the game’s currencies), begins to burn faster as the game progresses.

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What this leaves you with is the real challenge of The Fabulous Fear Machine; prioritisation. In short, you have to make sure to optimise every aspect of your gameplay if you want to succeed.

While veteran strategy players may be used to this aspect, you never know what random event or slip-up can lead to a malfunction in your machine.

Urban Legends- How does the fabulous fear machines story keep players hooked?

With three separate campaigns following different, unfortunate, masters of the machine, the game’s story Is presented to the player in a unique and vibrant pulpy comic-book style.

The Fabulous Fear Machine shares a lot of its DNA with Plague Inc. and other top-down management simulators, with campaigns taking place across a world map.

The story is the freshest aspect of the game but does suffer from some outdated and occasionally problematic stereotypes around addiction.

Nevertheless, the three masters of the machine you take control of all have different wishes they need the machine to help complete.

In the first campaign, you are introduced to a power-hungry scientist Jen who is happy to put her morals on hold to become the CEO of the most powerful pharmaceutical company on the planet.

By using the machine to insight fear she proceeds to crush rivals, destroy the healthcare system and create a global pandemic, (that last one may be in poor taste).

The whole reasoning behind her plot is that she was neglected by her parents so wishes the whole world to look to her for help, giving her the attention, she always craved.

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The second campaign lets us play as Jimmy who is swept up in a political scheme in which he is made a puppet candidate for a far-right group.

It’s revealed that Jimmy is just actually an addict, hoping to get his next fix so he can make it through the day. As mayor, he finally has access to all the drugs he needs, which leads him to overdose and die.

The last campaign, and the most cliche of the three, follows a cult leader who takes over a Caribbean Island so he can have his own Jonestown-style massacre.

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While the mechanics stay the same, the variety of anthology-style stories does present an interesting premise that keeps you playing. The only issue is that none of them quite seem to pay off in a satisfying enough way.

While The Fabulous Fear Machine may be more Goosebumps than Scream it still does provide a breath of life into the top-down strategy genre. Overall, the gameplay and story make it unique and interesting enough to ignore its shortcomings.

7/10

The Fabulous Fear Machine was played on PC on a review code from Evolve PR.

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