Democracy 2 has been released by Positech. While our games focus on the battles called elections, Democracy 2 focuses on running the government. Cliff Harris, the lead game designer, has done great work with the interface. I love how the game abstracts out to a common interface for dealing with various things, and spatializes it. Here is a screenshot:
Check it out!
Looking for an Alberta election game? Then look no further. We are about to release Premier Forever – Alberta, extending our provincial game series to another Western province. We intend to have the game released before the election on March 3rd.
The game will use the Premier Forever engine, and will feature 12, count ‘em, 12 Alberta scenarios. We’re excited about this game and the upcoming Alberta election.
The years included in this game are:
Alberta 1967, 1971, 1975, 1979, 1982, 1986, 1989, 1993, 1997, 2001, 2004, and 2008. Phew! An incredible opportunity to figure out Alberta politics, and enough to occupy the political wonk for many, many hours.
President Forever 2008 + Primaries was reviewed by Scott Colbourne of the Globe and Mail in January. Some quotes:
“Barack Obama wins the Iowa caucuses, with John Edwards in second and Hillary Clinton a distant third. He takes the New Hampshire primary in a landslide and seems destined to win the Democratic nomination and with it the presidency of the United States of America.
Yes, it’s all going according to plan in President Forever 2008 + Primaries, an election simulator for PCs, and now I unleash the big guns: click the “crusaders” button, select Oprah Winfrey, say goodbye to some valuable influence and command points and hello to a boost in the polls. [...]
A great way to learn how an electoral system works.”
For the record, it is difficult to beat Clinton starting in the standard October 1st scenario (which is what Colbourne goes on to note) – which is a testament to how well Obama’s real campaign has been run. The Democratic side is really monolithic at that point, with Clinton having a large lead nationally and leading in practically every state.
GameTunnel released their top 5 computer simulation games for 2007, and our US political simulation game President Forever 2008 + Primaries made it!
“The game is brilliantly, and often dauntingly, deep, giving players full control over every aspect of the political aspirations of the current presidential hopefuls (or your own custom characters). There are few more fascinating things to watch than the US President-picking process, and President Forever does it all in a riveting manner that kept us on the campaign trail for weeks.”