Political Games Forever

In the upcoming version, we have introduced a new variable called Electability.

In the 2008 scenario’s primaries, Ron Paul tends to do better than people think he should do. Part of the problem with Ron Paul in particular was that in the scenario he receives large amounts of money (reflecting his real-world fundraising success). However, it was also a trend with other candidates that people did not expect to do that well. This has become known as the Ron Paul Problem.

To address this, we have introduced Electability in the upcoming version. Each candidate has an Electability value, from 0-100. It is determined by 3 things. The candidate’s attributes (such as Leadership, Issue Experience, and so on) weighted for the attributes’ profiles, the candidate’s distance from the center for various issues weighted for the issues’ profiles, and their momentum.

The lower the Electability value, the less likely potential voters are to move to that candidate’s camp.

Here are some sample values from the upcoming 2008 scenario for various candidates:

Obama: 84

Clinton: 76

Edwards: 75

McCain: 83

Romney: 92

Paul: 35

(Note: These can and do change as a game progresses.)

Electability goes part of the way to solving something that was missing from the game (a voters’ reluctance to vote for someone who was not “Electable” in some way), and therefore part of the way to solving the Ron Paul Problem.

Feedback appreciated as always.

Just an update:

For the upcoming version of President Forever 2008 + Primaries, we’ve added Bob Barr to the 2008 scenario (as well as Ruwart and Root). The Libertarian party vote at the beginning of the scenario is split 3 ways right now between Barr, Ruwart, and Root.

We’ve also added 2 Romney money events, because of his self-financing. He now receives $18M on October 22, 2007, and $9M on January 1, 2008.

We’ve also added Charles Baldwin for the Constitution Party.

We’ve also added some Democratic and Republican Veeps to the 2008 scenario. These include (Democrats) Gen. Anthony Zinni, Sen. Jim Webb, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, and Gov. Janet Napolitano, and (Republicans) Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Gov. Charlie Crist, Gov. Sarah Palin, and Sen. Joseph Lieberman.

We’ve also changed some attributes based on a retrospective evaluation of candidates. In particular, we’ve strengthened Obama’s Leadership 3 -> 4 and Stamina 3 -> 4. This reflects his campaign’s demonstrated organizational strengths.

Feedback appreciated as always!

We have released a fun office game called Crumby & Co. For 1-4 players, work your way up the office ladder. The game is about cooperation and hard work, or back-stabbing and Machiavellian office politics … You get to decide. Fun for the whole office.

Crumby & Co. is a cross between Monopoly and Scruples, where you navigate the office waters by collecting projects and gaining points for promotion. Collect underlings, steal opponent players’ projects, shred files, and much, much more.

Here is a screenshot where the player Brad has just been promoted up the office chain:

It even includes a special Boss Key for emergencies.

You can get the demo from here.

Campaigns Forever Help is now available here.

This new Help system allows for Scenario Designers to give feedback on parts of the Help file, right then and there as they are reading it.

Our goal is to make Campaigns Forever Help a comprehensive source for President Forever 2008 + Primaries scenario designers.

The Help file (with ability to give feedback on any page) is online, as well as a Blog which will contain posts on Campaigns Forever and notices about changes to the Help file.

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:

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.

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