Political Games Forever

Crumby and Co. returns! This fun game about office politics has been re-released.

We’ll be adding details to this page in a bit … but if you want to get a look at it, you can download the demo here:

Crumby & Co. Demo

You can get the game here:

Boris, as he’s known in England, won the London 2008 mayoral election - defeating incumbent Ken Livingstone. A London 2008 scenario, by Zion, has now been added to the scenarios page for our election game simulation.

Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone are featured, along with a plethora of other candidates.

From the scenario designer: “Three Main Parties, Three Big Characters, One Big City, One Big Race. Can Ken hang on to the GLA for four more years? Has Boris got what it takes to run the big city? Can Paddick pound the streets, all the way to city hall? Amidst economic woes, and a less than popular government, can Ken hold on to the Mayoralty, or is London destined for Conservative government?”

With the Italian elections just past, Italy - 2008, by Francesco Privitera, has now been added to the scenarios page for our election game simulation.

This election scenario for Italy 2008 features Veltroni running against Berlusconi. Have fun!

From the scenario designer: “This my scenario on the upcoming Italian elections. It’s about the Senate race, more specifically. It includes the 5 major parties and is updated with the latest regional polls available. Will Veltroni be able to make a miraculous comeback or will Berlusconi become Prime Minister for the third time?”

Just a quick update. We are finishing President Forever 2008 + Primaries: Multiplayer. We’re also upgrading the primaries AI in P4E8 so that they act a little more realistically, and should be releasing an update for that soon. Once those are done, we’ll be turning our focus again to Congress Forever.

Looking for a California election game? Then look no further. We have posted a California Gubernatorial scenario on our new President Forever 2008 + Primaries scenarios page, here. (Note: these scenarios have been made by third-parties, not TheorySpark.) This scenario features the 2010 California election for Governor, and is compatible with President Forever 2008 + Primaries. With Schwarzenegger not running due to term limits, there is a strong crop of candidates - can you take Villaraigosa, Newsom, Sanchez, Whitman, Hunter, McClintock, or one of a bevy of other candidates all the way to Governor of the nation’s largest state?

The Alberta election is today, and we have it covered with Premier Forever - Alberta. Enjoy!

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.”