The Invisible Hand allows you to become a stockbroker and live the busy life of a man who can manipulate markets for his own good. Developed by Power Struggle Games and published by Fellow Traveler, The Invisible Hand is a unique stock market game that allows you to live the life of an aspiring entry-level stock market analyst who grows from a newbie into a huge market manipulator. This is our review of The Invisible Hand in which we buy some stocks and sell some more stocks in order to manipulate the stock market to our advantage.
The Invisible Hand begins with a one-sided interview where you must tell FERIOS about what sort of a candidate are you and how will you react in certain special circumstances while working as a broker for the company. Despite being an MCQ test, the test only allows one answer since it is scripted and fails on all other options. At this point, you become aware that the game does not really want you to take it very seriously and there is a good amount of humor involved in it. The humor is not like it will make you laugh but the fact that the game sometimes laughs at itself is something that you do not find normally in video games.
With that said, The Invisible Hand does it brilliantly as well. After clearing the test, you are invited to join FERIOS as an entry-level analyst. Your hiring comes after the company recovered from a big market crash, so your timing is just critical at this point. Before you start the game, you are given two choices for difficulty. One is Story where you can make whatever choices you want in the game and you will not be fired from the company however the default setting will get you fired if you step out of the line. The game’s characters comment on what sort of difficulty you chose is hilarious once you listen to their dialogue.
However, there is a third option here as well which is Random. Choosing this randomly chooses a difficulty for you that is new and something that I have never seen in any video game before. Choosing Random does not tell you which difficulty the game has selected from the two options listed in the game so you do not know whether you will get fired in the game or not upon making questionable decisions. After everything is done, you are invited to the office as a probation officer.
The life of a stockbroker is not easy, and you are given the taste of it right on your first day. There is one seat, and the company is giving two candidates a shot so the candidate who makes more money gets the promotion while the one who fails is fired from the job. This is not the first person that you get fired in the game as well. Throughout your performance in the game, you can get anyone out of your way. The game opens up gradually by showing you the basics of how to deal with the market shares and making wise investment choices in the game. However, it quickly changes pace once it introduces you to an insider group where you can get some tips for investments and which stocks to buy or purchase.
While the time for completion of in-game objectives has been different for various people, for me it was my second day when I managed to get myself promoted and have the other candidate fired from the company for performing poorly in the game. After that, the game keeps unlocking additional features for you as you progress through the days. You are also able to purchase and keep your very own investments in the game as well that include furniture, cars, art, and real estate. Real estate can also give you another safe investment opportunity as you can liquidate your assets in the market quickly if you need more cash.
While you spend a typical day in The Invisible Hand behind your office desk, staring at two screens, you can also get up and look around, check other people working in the office and listen to their updates on their stocks, and more. There is also a coffee and tea machine in the office that you can consume at your own will. There are three different blends for both coffee and tea and they affect the speed of time in different ways. You can drink accordingly to how you want to manipulate the in-game time. Each day brings a unique challenge for you and you must rely on insiders and news outlets for tips on where to trade and which stocks to short or which to invest in for a long time.
However, these inside tips can sometimes get you into trouble as well. Get too many goods and the people start questioning you and if your rating gets too much into red, people start noticing your actions and they become against you. Apart from following the normal rules of the market, you can also play dirty and manipulate the market according to your own will as well as using lobbyists. These lobbyists will increase prices of stocks, decrease prices of stocks and even crash companies in their stock prices if you order them too. This is the dirtiest of the bit of the game however for getting rich quickly, the game gives you every last bit of option to use.
Market manipulation is one of the biggest tactics in the game and you will not be able to succeed in the game without it. You can dump massive amounts of stocks in the market to reduce the cost of shares and purchase when the price goes down only to sell them at profit later. Apart from major companies, you can also manipulate the share prices of smaller firms that are overseas and produce manufacturing parts for bigger products in your country to bring those companies to their knees and in return making you lots of money. You can also control the economies of countries this way if you are good enough in the game. The Invisible Hand gives you this much freedom in the game.
At the end of every day, there is an evaluation of your performance throughout the day and your supervisor tells you of what they did about your performance along with some tips and tricks on getting better. You can use this screen to see how the public sees you currently and also how much money you are making for yourself as well for investing in your own assets. While it all might sound really boring, but the game really hooks you in with its decent gameplay mechanics and a brilliant jazz soundtrack.
I do not recall playing any stock market game before The Invisible Hand still I found the game to be a decent one. This caters to a genre where not many developers have ventured before despite being one of the most elements of real life. Power Struggle Games have made a decent game however more content would have made it really good. An online PvP mode would have been amazing in the game where two players would try to get the other one fired by beating their market score at the end of the day. For a single-player experience, The Invisible Hand is a decent game however it falls short of content massively.
Coming to the technical side of things, The Invisible Hand is a pretty stable build. There were no crashes or bugs during my playthrough. I completed the main game twice with different approaches and each time I ended up on a different day, there is no real ending of the game that you must get to on a particular date in the game. The ending time depends on how well you manipulate the market and how good you are with guessing the dynamics of the stock market. The soundtrack is brilliant and really keeps you in the mood throughout the game. Visually, the game is not really demanding however it offers a good blend of visual fidelity and desk customization is a neat feature where you can place different things at your workplace that you get throughout your gameplay.
Final Verdict:
The Invisible Hand is a fun but short experience of living your life as a stockbroker. The game gives you a small taste of how the stock markets work and how the people with enough power can easily manipulate the market to turn the tide in their own favor. If you do not take it too seriously, it is a goofy game with enough tips and tricks that might get you interested in getting into the stock market in real life as well. However, the game falls short on content and leaves you wanting you more once you have completed the main story of the game. Throw in some more content and you have a solid stock market game with really good mechanics and soundtrack. If you want a short stock market game that does not take itself seriously and allows you to become a complete monster to other people in the market, The Invisible Hand is good for you however do not expect a lot of content.
Final Score: 7.5/10
