The Political Process

Began my political career as a young, 18-year-old fresh-faced Republican from the state of Rhode Island who desperately tried to win everything from school board to city council with never any luck. Not that it bothered me. I was just happy to learn the ropes, to make some contacts and to throw my hat in the ring. I found it fun, like I was living my true life. On a whim, I took a crazy chance on running for president when I was twenty-two years of age, raised millions of dollars during that campaign, joined a caucus, and even gave endless speeches to people who genuinely seemed to care about my ideas. Somehow, I lost that election in the primaries after riding a brief wave of popularity from the New England states. With the money I made, I ran for governor--it just seemed more reasonable than president, and I was entering my mid-twenties as a bit more of a mature politician who now had

The game is pretty fun, if you have a lot of free time. But it could be better if they added A map of the the US House, State Senate, and State House districts Allowed you to interact with your fellow legislators. Allowed party leaders to call caucus meetings or meet with the members of their party in office. For example a Democratic could be able to meet and discuss key issues with the Democrats or Republicans in the State Legislature. Allowed for Governor's to pick Lt. Governor's. Allowed for impeachment. Recall elections. Special elections. Endorsements. Interaction with party leaders (i.e. a Republican running for the House, Senate, or Governor) should be able to meet with the RNC chair to discuss their campaign. Allow for President's to pick a White House Press Secretary, and hold briefings. Allow for cabinet meetings and more interaction with cabinet secretaries. Allow f

As a former city council member and congressional candidate, this one does scratch that particular itch. The loop of tweaking your campaign and watching the results turn by turn is just deceptively simple. I can see that a ton of work went into getting all these systems and statistics true to life, and seeing the charts update based on my decisions is just gratifying every time. From setting up volunteer offices to running attack ads and being confused when your rally has zero effect on public opinion, it's just all tasty game play. And this is early access, so I can see all the untapped potential. Here's what I hope for the most: Personalities. Politics is people, and seeing the traits like 'humble' or 'shy' or 'genius' attached to a person is a good start. But I really hope that these modifiers at some point affect scenarios that make you feel like you're really dealing with, sa

Great game but needs more depth and wayyy more policies. I would like mods as well as more parties or atleast be able to stand as a Independent EDIT: They have done this!

This is a great game, and as you can see I've put quite a few hours into it already. But I do have quite a few issues with it that I've seen completely ignored by most, if not all reviewers, likely because they haven't really played past the game's surface level yet. So yes, I would recommend buying this game, but I would also hope any potential customer is aware of the issues below. Also, as of the time of my edits (5/29/20), many of the issues I've described have been fixed! The developer of this game is clearly quite attentive, although I hope some of the larger issues, like the enormous and unrealistic weight of platforms on voter intention, are balanced out in the future. 1. Balancing and repetitiveness. This is a big one. Progressive Democrats absolutely dominate Presidential elections in this game, and win huge blowout victories every time. These victories are also boring to wa

For context: I'm a political scientist by training (PhD), specializing in American politics. This game is really good, and it does a decent job of capturing a lot of the complexity of politics and government. The graphics aren't spectacular but for this kind of game they don't need to be. Dealing with legislation can get pretty complicated and if you're a policy nerd you'll definitely enjoy the depth there. However, my one big complaint is that the election/public opinion model is fundamentally wrong. When you start a game, you answer a series of policy questions about your character. When you run for office, your policy positions get compared to the policy positions of the voters, with certain positions being more important than others based on the office you're running for, and though you have some limited ability to influence public opinion through campaigning, for the most part pub