Political Machine beta released

Let the games begin

Published on April 14, 2004 By Draginol In Politics

If you have Drengin.net (www.drengin.net) you can now download the beta of The Political Machine.

The Political Machine is a strategy game in which you run for President of the United States. Its home page is www.politicalmachine.com.

Let us know what you think if you've got it here!

Comments (Page 3)

vernmeister2u

on Apr 15, 2004

Thanks for the manual Brad!!

I like what I see in the early goings of the game.

VES

ScottTykoski

on Apr 15, 2004

Oops, sorry Don, I guess I mis-understood your problem. Mormegil is corrent, though, once your candidate is selected, user the right mouse button to select the State you want to move him to. No dragging needed!

BiffMan

on Apr 15, 2004

Didn't notice till just now that the beta had been released... Can't get it to run from my work system, getting the same 20-25 seconds of a blank screen with orange cursor followed by a CTD. Later attempts to run will crash out faster, usually 10 seconds, but still always a CTD.

System specs: IBM Thinkpad T23, 16MB S3 SuperSavage on-board graphic card, 512MB Ram, Cirrus Logic on-board sound, running WinXP w/ Directx 9.0b.

Given that it's a laptop and I'm stuck with on-board audio and video, I'm not too surprised it didn't run, but I should otherwise be fully DirectX 9 ready (tests fine and other DX9 games work okay), but my guess would be the S3 chipset is the weak link.

Hopefully will have better luck with my home system tonight, but it'd be a darn shame if I actually had to work while at work rather than play TPM...

-BiffMan

Tony The Tiger

on Apr 15, 2004

To add to the bug regarding little/few interviews..... I have not had any debates yet......

having fun though

mormegil

on Apr 15, 2004

BiffMan
We are hopeing to support down to 8megs of Video Ram, by the time we have things polished. Hopefully you will be able to run it in the next few builds.

Don Bemont

on Apr 15, 2004

Windows XP, 512 RAM, GeForce4 Ti4400 (driver 5.2.1.6), A7N8X Asus Mobo, AMD Athlon XP 2600+

Game played on cakewalk level

ProblemsAs far as I can see, the game make me (Kerry) the incumbent even when I try to correct this before beginning.

Highlighting of issues for for speeches, ads is problematic -- the blue highlight can easily end up covering two issues

After building up political capital, the main screen does not update loss of stamina

No interviews, debates, special events

Major graphical slowdowns, especially evident when clicking states and the cancel button

General comments
As others have observed, I don't feel like I am playing against anyone. There is no sense that I need to respond to my opponents' strategies, that he's killing me on some issue, etc.

The way the game is set up, everything really revolves around money. But so far, I haven't seen anythning interesting about seeking contributions. It appears that you just go to the rich states and hold fundraisers. Maybe I missed something on the cakewalk level, but that seems pretty dry. It would seem that taking certain stands makes fundraising a lot easier (or more difficult) with certain groups.

Again, maybe this is because of the easy level, but issues don't feel fleshed out. Being pro-environment and pro-jobs is all it seems to take. These easy cmpaign stands work on everyone, and there is no downside.

peterb

on Apr 15, 2004

I put a preliminary review on my weblog:

http://www.tgr.com/weblog/archives/000059.html

BiffMan

on Apr 15, 2004

Ran fine on the home system at least and played a full game without a hitch. Good news about supporting lower end/older video cards... would be a shame to have to be productive at work!

Frogboy

on Apr 15, 2004

peterb: Thanks for the review.

Now..as for being a "right wing kook" I don't think I have any opinions that are significantly out of phase with the majority of Americans on any major issue.

I'm pro-choice, fairly secular, and anti-prayer in school for example. My "right wing" that you see probably come in the form of articles which I write with the explicit intention of getting people to respond to. Most of my views are fairly middle of the road but no one wants to read moderate articles.

Frogboy

on Apr 15, 2004

Moving a unit:

Left click on your unit. Right click on the destination.

CorranH96

on Apr 16, 2004

I'm on Windows 2000 SP4 and it'll run.

CorranH96

on Apr 16, 2004

Also, is there a "proper forum" to go to report bugs?

Don Bemont

on Apr 16, 2004

I played a "normal" difficulty game, and found this much more challenging.

Assuming you are looking for feedback, here goes:

1) I am troubled by speeches and ads claiming that "my opponent opposes ______." Does anything affect how well this works? Does the opponent's lack of statements on the subject, for example, leave him vulnerable?

2) Related to this, in my view, what is really needed to flesh out this entire part of the game would be if candidates came with a "record" ranging from clear past actions on one side of the issue, to past statements, to unknown... In the best of all worlds, there would even be a "self contradictory past" on an issue. In game terms, this would affect both positive and negative advertising. Negative ads would work best when they fit the established record, next best when pointing to a "self contradcitory past" but also quite well on "unknown." Negative ads would do little good when they are opposite the established record. (Can you imagine the real life Kerry trying to claim that Bush is against the war in Iraq for example?) Positive ads would then be needed more in areas about the candidate needing defending. Just my opinion, of course, but I think something like this is what stands between this game and a truly gripping experience.

3) The 8 points of political capital needed for an endorsement seems very high compared to the 3 for other operatives. Unless an endorsement is extremely effective, it would seem that this would make endorsements very unwise purchases -- since, compared to other uses of political capital, there is always a downside to an endorsement. (This in NOT a criticism of the downside to an endorsement -- I strongly feel that that is on the right track; almost every move in a political campaign has a downside.)

4)) A major piece of missing info: As far as i can see, there is no place to see the total "ongoing expenses" for ads and campaign headquarters... Related to this, I see no way to turn an ad off, if you wish to end that ongoing expense.

5) Regarding candidate statistics, the words are not really self explanatory. Whate is better than what?

6) Regarding the second webmaster choise, it is not clear what television interviews this refers to. Does this really give a bonus to all future appearances of the candidate in this state? A general bonus to the effect of campaign headquarters? A bonus to effect of ads in this state? Campaign speeches in this state?

7) On one occasion, I noted an inconistency betweem the "top state issues" and the "create ad" screen regarding the effect of an issue on independent voters.

None of this is meant to be negative -- I hope that you are looking for constructive criticism, and that my comments can be helpful.

Draginol

on Apr 16, 2004

Endorsements are extremely powerful. That's why they cost 8 points.

BiffMan

on Apr 16, 2004

Ads can be turned off by clicking on the ad itself in the state and then the lower right screen (above turn button) will have an option to end the ad.

Have also seen the "create ad" screen issues differ from what you see in the state, but I had figured that was by design and the ones on the create screen ad are the "standard" skew for that type of ad, but the detail you see in the state screen is how that particular state really feels. Like by default the indepentents are neutral on the war in Iraq, but in some states they favor or are against it. Of course that's all just observation and I have no idea how it was intended to work.

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