Today seems a good day to remind the world of David Eastman and Shahid Ahmad's Floor 13, one of my favorite games of the 16-bit era. In it, you play the head of the British government's secret crisis management squad. If a standard spindoctor scores a 1 and In The Loop's Malcolm Tucker a 3, you are dialed to 11: fake news stories blend seamlessly into blackmail, warrantless wiretaps and people whose deaths, though unexplained, are not treated as suspicious. As secret government agency-em-ups go, it's unique and uniquely over-the-top (the conspiracies start out realistic but eventually go Dan Brownesque) and a great way to kill half an hour.
Though long out of print, you can find it and its manual easily online. It plays well in DOSBox on Windows and Boxer on OSX. Chop chop!
