It’s happening !!!
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Congratulations Kramer wow
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Congratulations Kramer on the release
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Why does it seem like the only options in this story are to LARP as Trump, a Neo-Liberal, or a Neo-Conservative?
We haven’t had much else in the past 100 years so it seems accurate
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Well, regarding the Trump analogy we have options to replicate his actions. Including executive orders to ban travel to the Middle East for multiple months and can “build a wall” in the MC’s speech after choosing it even though this book is supposed to take place after his first administration, border security fencing before his presidency aside. Not to mention we can reenact the controversial executive order Schedule F.
And the other two analogies seem to be things that are mainstream in today’s U.S. society. Such as for the economy, it generally seems to be in favor in game of deregulation and privatization or an executive order to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 dollars, despite the fact you think it would be somewhere around that by the time of the 50th President.
But I’m venting, sorry for that.
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I would appreciate more options as well but I’m assuming the intention is to keep things manageable and realistic for US politics. Going too far left would not be an option that would be allowed by the rest of the government
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I’d like to thank you all for the warm wishes so far!
It’s been quite a long process to get here, and just about all of it has been detailed on this thread. I know so many of you have been following along since I first posted on the interest check thread, and I have so, so much gratitude for that. Those of you who have tried writing interactive fiction before know how challenging it can be, and I doubt I would be looking towards being published this week without the support of you all.
I also need to give an extra special thanks to @Snowflower and @11110, who have both been incredible beta testers. They’ve consistently helped to fix code, patch continuity errors, and stop Nunez from showing up in places he didn’t belong. Combined, I’m sure they’ve both played through the story more times than I ever will.
You will notice some small changes in the final version: much-needed bug fixes, grammar tweaks, and even some new scenes depending on your choices. Overall, I am very happy with the state of the final release, and I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it. 
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That’s great news, I already got Book 1 on Playstore and I’m playing it right now, all the best for you ; )
Btw, I hope the game can get into Steam as well someday, it would have a special place on my library there 
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You can larp as trump? Sounds like a funny way to mess with America in the game.
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Yes and no. You can mimic some of his policy proposals and you can go all out with corruption and double dealing, but you can’t really do a True Trump type of run
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Ah, it is what it is.
Anyways I wish we could go to do international travel not only once but two times or more!
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So I wanted to like this game. I am very politically active, the book is well written, it goes pretty in depth, and there’s a lot to praise about it.
I want to like it. It just gets a little bit difficult, because I feel like the decisions that you make don’t actually matter. I made what I thought was the objectively worst decision imaginable every time. Outside of a small scandal, nothing really happened. I know there’s a lot to be said about how the president is relatively insulated from the consequences of their decisions.
I played the game the first time, the second time I stress tested. And realizing that I could attempt to make every bad decision and still somehow win a second term and still somehow have everything, turn out great, it kind of remove the importance of the decisions for me. Which in a choose your own adventure game, is problematic.
Is there something I missed?
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Nope. You can’t ask another foreign leaders why they aren’t wearing a suit for example lmao
Idk, maybe that would sound too far fetched for a interactive fiction piece that takes itself seriously, and doesn’t try to invest too deep into paradoy lvl crazy stuff like “This is the President” game… but unfortunatelly our current reality looks more and more like a paradoy of TITP itself 
lol next thing we know, dealers gonna be selling some brand of coke powder with Trump’s name on DC streets 
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Unfortunately though, a us realistic political game set in current time must take into account the crazy stuff that’s been done.
Yep, it’s just easier to write something from the point of view of stereotypical American politician with stereotypical American politician problems. That’s garden-variety corruption, a cheating scandal, and foreign influence scandals. Boring and not what it looks like right now, yes, but one of these is more practical to write than the other
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Indeed, writing different types of events, actions, etc. can be quite challenging.
But i don’t think The People’s House it’s boring on it’s content, since for example, in Suzerain
You can get impeached by helping your son get into a State Uni, cause the silly boi failed at his exams lmao But you can’t cheat on the first lady… something that happened irl with Clinton for example… but your VP does that and triggers a Scandal, cause not just he was having a affair with one of the staff, but the girl was also a foreign spy no less.
So we got very similar events if I have to analyze these two political sims with rpg elements.
But one thing I felt that was lacking in The People House was more depth in the romantic scenes.
But that doesn’t necessary ruin the game, since in Suzerain we doesn’t have much detail on the romantic scenes, but I think that’s something that could improve both games, giving the player some respite from the politics insert on the story and having we connect with the protagonist having more human interactions in that regard, but don’t get me wrong, nothing too out of place, since romance isn’t the focus here.
Another thing that I hope we can get into the sequel, and that its on Suzerain, but I always crave for more, it’s warfare based crisis, wars and conflicts that can be defused, escalated, solved over our decisions.
Like, I hope that in the sequel, depending on our foreign policy choices made in the first game, like the travel options, we can have different outcomes or scenarios for international events.
Like, by trying to apease Russia in the first game, you get the option to ally with them and deprive China of a close ally, but ofc they wouldn’t be a realible ally I guess. But you could try make EU and NATO have them onboard, that would be a interesting twist or plot path for example.
So that’s what I’m craving for happen in the sequel, more intricate political schemes being developed.
So far the first game it’s fun, but it feels that you are kept at surface lvl when comes to big things happening on realpolitiks/geopolitics, and that makes me feel, we could do so much more by being on such powerful position, but my choices are few and not that diversified. Irl I could trigger wars by being on such position and not doing the right thing or playing the wrong “card/move”.
And a point that I also noticed, is that through the game, we are reacting a lot more to the events, than acting. For example, I don’t get to call to the CIA and have them do something for me, but I got them by some point in the story being present and awaiting my input on something. I feel that if the game, was more diversified on that regard of both acting and reacting with the protagonist, things would feel a lot more interesting too.
Long text, sorry in advance. My two cents is basically that the game story isn’t boring, but you got to be cautions with your expectations, since there’s some areas where the game it’s a bit limited and could be improved with a sequel or dlc.
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it’s a matter of pacing and plotting, really:
The prologue and chapter 1 is your character intro, establish yourself, get introduced to the system, that sort of thing.
Chapter 2: your big legislative push, get through your trademark political policy that will define your presidency and will be your key achievement for you to run on. Very important, very big, and something you have a lot of hand in.
Chapter 3: this is the foreign policy chapter, your state visit, your United Nations speech, and a bunch of other other related things thrown in there to make it feel like you’re doing other stuff as well.
Chapter 4 is the handling of midterms and scandals, bogus or real, it’s one massive election chapter, covering the buildup, their results, the aftermath.
Chapter 5 Takes place a few months after chapter 4, in the third year of your presidency but that’s also around the time that campaigning for your second term would start, so it’s back to an entire election all over again.
Notice the issue here?
Only 40% of this game really lets you go into the nitty-gritty of being the president, of substantially doing actual presidential things. The other 60% is either establishing yourself or elections, which is why a lot of those little crises got thrown in, they give you stuff to do so it doesn’t feel like you’re spending your entire time campaigning.
What’s going to be different in the sequel:
No big intro chapter, nowhere near the same focus on second midterms because they just aren’t important anymore, you only have two years left at that point anyway so your power is basically gone when it comes to the legislature.
What we do know: there’s going to be some sort of conflict with China, there’s too much foreshadowing for that, there’s going to be budgeting negotiations, there’s going to be a ton more of those small scale vignettes we saw from the first game. A common refrain I’ve heard a lot is that that’s too much of you reacting to stuff and not initiating, and I do agree there’s something to that. But not so much because this is a bad thing, but because there should be more chances to initiate major things, and I’ll get to that in a second. But these small crisis, honestly, a lot of what the president does when he’s not doing anything else, is running around putting out fires and dealing with stuff he never wanted to start to begin with. It’s A job that requires you to be proactive just as much as you have to be reactive. What should make these difference is that those others were essentially a problem being thrown at you and you have to fix it or minimize the damage as much as possible, these new things are going to be, without spoilers, thanks for you genuinely get to change the course of events in terms of multiple options among a spectrum of results.
Also more lighthearted moments are planned where your character just gets to breathe and enjoy themselves for a bit because that is something I agree the first game is lacking.
In general, there won’t be a single overarching plot line in the way the first one seems to feel like. Your job in the first game is, above all else, to be successful enough so you get reelected. Your Job in the second is much, much more open, it’s to build a legacy, to make something out of yourself now that you have nowhere near as much political pressure on you. From a game structure standpoint, that means you can throw a bunch of stuff together and turn it into a coherent story in a way you would not have been able to do with the first. And I’ll leave it at that before I start going into spoiler territory
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That’s a great analysis you did there! I mean, you broke down both the game’s structure and mechanics, as well as the direction of the narrative.
If we get a sequel, I think it’s going to be even more interesting indeed.
But I also heard people saying it’s possible for the First Lady, given her political background, to become POTUS down the line. Do you know if that’s true?
That would be cool, but I think it would fit much better if the author explored that in a possible third game… because by then, the character would be far more developed. It would also be pretty unique to switch perspectives like that, with the previous protagonist stepping into the background while we take control of the other partner.
I mean, it would be something truly unique since nothing like that has ever happened irl. We almost got there, though many people wanted Michelle Obama to run in the last election… unfortunatelly it didn’t happen 
So, such a storyline would be really interesting to see for various reasons.
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It’s possible in the current version of the game right now, actually, if your spouse is Richter, you choose not to run for a second term, and you back there run. No reason that can’t still be the case at the end of the second game when you’re picking your successor, either. And as for a third one, it’s confirmed that’s not happening. I’m actually good with that, at that point, your character arc is going to be complete and there’s just not really much else you can really add onto it, especially with the many, many, many planned ending states. Also, American politics and really any sort of real world politics in general is extremely limited for a writer, if you want to make something realistic, you have to stay within the boundaries of what’s plausible under the current system. There’s a lot more fun to be had in creating your own entirely new political system And doing interesting things with it,
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