The Political Machine 2020
I played a few rounds of this game, some multiplayer, some singleplayer. Overall, I really enjoyed this game for what it was worth. The game is charming, in a humorous way. I really enjoyed the ideology system, and how it influences and reshapes the race depending on candidates are in on the race. My friend and I made some custom candidates, did stupid matchups, and we had a lot of fun just pushing the ideologies to their limit. Some of the ideologies, like fascism or giant meteorism, just end up shooting you in the foot, and its amusing to see races devolve into stupid fights between two godawful candidates.
– Real player with 25.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Competitive Politics Games.
This game needs a LOT of work, and with it now being over six months from launch I doubt that’s happening. It seems more time and resources were put into releasing the “Founding Fathers DLC” then going back and finishing their original broken product.
Perhaps the most glaring issue is that this product seems to have been made purely off some designers intuitive bias rather than any actual polling data. Universal healthcare and universal basic income are unpopular with “independents” but “Build the Wall” is. It also lists Trump’s intelligence as “smart” while Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s intelligence as dim, despite placing second in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair while in High School, being bilingual, and graduating cum laude from Boston University with a bachelors in both international relations and economics. Meanwhile the geniuses that built the game have the same issue “farm subsidies” listed twice in the policy management tab, as well as a few spelling errors.
– Real player with 17.7 hrs in game