It’s been a while since I’ve checked up on this WIP. If you don’t remember, I was that annoying person who accused the game of being bourgeois propaganda or something like that (who knows what lurks in the dark hearts of Antifa anarchists?).
Honestly, coming back to this game, I’m really pleased with it. I don’t have the option of destroying car culture and capitalism, but there’s this real visceral satisfaction to constantly pushing through progressive legislation despite endless opposition fuss - the power fantasy of being the Minnesota DFL on the national level, I think. The player gets to proactively spend government funds and bypass the national debt vultures, which is always lovely to see.
There were also some genuinely challenging choices here. Game designers usually act like the “complex moral dilemmas” come from political or moral questions, but let’s be honest, all of us are already rather stubborn about those beliefs. They’re our core values. So it’s really refreshing to see a political simulator where the challenging choices are about balancing risk and trading opportunity costs. One particular bit I enjoyed was the animal rights protesters. I decided on carrying out an interview, because I imagined my president to be fairly forceful yet populist. It seemed like the natural conclusion, but it landed me an opinion poll hit. And that’s when I realized that actually, yeah, in practice, no matter how populist a politician is, drawing attention to that kind of thing without immediately moving to carry out the legislation is a bad idea. It’s a real credit to this game that I didn’t want to safescum at all, because it just felt like a natural consequence of who my character is.
Then again, I’m not so sure about the romances; I just neatly avoided them because there wasn’t much emotional heft to push me into those scenarios, but I think that kind of scandal is a really important part of the US political process, so I’d really enjoy a mechanic or more interactions that would encourage the player to make compromising choices.
Overall though, great work! Really looking forward to more!
Something I forgot to add: I don’t know if anybody else is having this experience, but does the game inexplicably freeze up right after the UN address? Dashingdon isn’t displaying any errors, but the next chapter just isn’t loading. Perhaps it’s the previously reported cache issue, just in a different form on Firefox? Or does the public demo end there?
SATO/SEATO is moving well apace. Though they should be paying me for being their shield from the Chinese Communist Party. Hell, give us the option to make the Europeans pay too!
I just saw that when you choose the gender of your spouse, it sets the “SpouseMiddle”, but it does based on the reason the MC was interested in them and that gets set only after choosing the spouse’s gender.
Also COINCIDENTALLY President Kennedy (Not THAT Kennedy) has Canceled his Vist to Dallas, Texas which was Scheduled to take Place On November 22nd… we’re also pretty sure that President Kennedy is Taking every safety precaution as Possible
VP to Secretary of Defense: Hes Got To Be Doing This For A Reason Right?, Wonder what it could possibly be?, I mean Nothing Bad Ever Happens to The Kennedys Right?.. Right?
Hi all, regular update coming out tomorrow but wanted to post a quick survey! At this point, I don’t think it’s a huge spoiler that there are possible affair options in the game. I won’t get too involved in the various options to avoid any larger spoilers, but I’m interested to see how many of you plan/have gone down each route!
As a general warning, there may be some mild spoilers ahead. Nothing major related to the plot, but avoid the post if you like going into stories with no prior knowledge at all!
Do you plan on exploring affair options?
I plan on staying loyal to my spouse in all playthroughs
I plan on exploring the affair options in my first playthrough
I wouldn’t pursue an affair option in my first playthrough, but would in future playthroughs
0voters
For those of you who plan on exploring affair options either in your first or subsequent playthroughs, which option(s) interest you?
Interest in Affair Options
Walters (White House Staffer)
Bennett (Prime Minister of the UK)
“Old Flame”
Something else (Please share!)
0voters
“What’s the ‘Old Flame’ option?”
While not set up like many other Choice of Games stories, there are three different “romance options” implemented throughout the story. The background of why you were interested in your eventual spouse determines which of the three romance options is selected. All three of them are unique characters who react differently to events throughout the story. If you select wealth, you’ll get Walfort; political connections, Richter; and for love, Clark. So, the “Old Flame” option will be an opportunity to meet with one of the two other spouse options you did not pick at the start of the story.
Happy to hear your feedback and suggestions as always!
Is it possible to a show a different text if the MC didn’t manage to make a deal during the trip because they went back to the states? At least in the asian trip it’s at least implied that the MC didn’t do it because of budgetary concerns.
Firing an intern as a cover up is like cutting butter with a hot knife. But handling the hot knife is a struggle. I felt bad for the intern I fired to save a bill, I did suggest you give an option where the MC would decide to secretly support the fired intern, all this completely off the books, of course.
Since this is a choice game I wouldn’t want act like nothing ever happened, like what the Mc did in the game.
Hello all! First off, thanks to all of you who participated in my poll, which is still open if you haven’t voted yet! Overall, progress is going well and I’m happy to share it!
The Updates
As mentioned in my last formal update, I’ve made a lot of great progress toward the formal nomination process for your party’s nominee, and the opposition party’s nominee
I’ve also gone down a fairly lengthy set of branching through the post-Walters affair. Each different spouse option has different reactions and responses, and there are a lot of other variables at play as well
With the last point, there is additional branching after it becomes public where you’re able to decide how to respond to it (this also plays a role in how your re-election prospects are)
I’m also looking into ways to flesh out the Walters affair a bit more – give their character some more depth. It won’t be a full re-write, but I hope to make their character more interesting and help to stimulate some more interest in them
Moving to election events, as of right now I’d say I’m about 75% of the way through the Iowa Caucus scenes (and the scenes leading up to it), and just need to finish the last touches on election night coverage itself
Following the Iowa Caucus, I’ll be writing out the last few states before Super Tuesday – the results of the Iowa Caucus are by far the most impactful, but readers will have a chance to turn things around (if they didn’t go their way) in New Hampshire and Nevada
In all, I’ve made some great progress and am excited to keep writing through the election chapter! It’s going to take a bit of time to rebalance variables, so bear with me in the early stages once I’m able to upload these updates to Patreon. (I think) I’ve got a really great outline for the second term, and am eager to share it with you all as I get there!
Is the public demo abandoned and all updates are just for patreon? Because I see new update briefs from author like the reelection and pets but none of them are in demo.
The patreon demo is one chapter + the currently developing chapter ahead of the public demo. The public demo contains up to Chapter 3 (complete), while the patreon demo contains Chapter 4 (complete) and Chapter 5 (in progress).
