

I love the sound of this. The article itself I found to be a bit of a rambling mess, too full of references and insiderism, but skimming around to get the gist of the game itself it sounds incredible. High-level “God” gaming with grand strategy simulation, that manages to not go totally off the rails because it’s so big and detailed you have to work together to keep the system in balance.
And (I think; the article went on a tangent about the game designer’s theoretical relationship with their reputation instead of detailing how this actually works) some kind of mechanics that challenges such high power players to reflect on their relationship to that power?
Given the common headaches of finding ~5 people with the schedule compatibility and emotional maturity to make a more standard RPG campaign last, finding a group to play this with feels challenging. But I’d watch the hell out of a well-produced Actual Play of it.
You’re not going to find an app that doesn’t use analytics. It’s unreasonable to expect someone to build / run a service for users with no idea how it’s actually functioning for them. To any app using Google Analytics, you are only one of hundreds of thousands of anonymous data points; get over yourself or buy a burner phone if you’re that concerned about some upstream data broker knowing that ::gasp, shudder, horror:: you were on a dating app and ::shriek, cower, cry:: maybe targeting a romance-related ad to you.
If you can get past that, I’d suggest https://datefirefly.com/ - it’s independent and trying to rebuild the old OkCupid kind of experience before Match Group bought OkC and drove it into the ground.
Or if you’re in / near a city, try speed dating groups or see if there are matchmaking services with a good reputation.