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 4)

Don Bemont

on Apr 16, 2004

One more thought... If endorsements are powerful, then they should not be available to everyone at the same price. Your position on issues (and your record, if you incorporated anything of that sort) should have an impact. A candidate with a "to heck with the environment" stump speech -- and possibly past record -- is simply not going to get the environmental group's endorsement, while a candidate running mostly on pro-environmental issues is going to need very little political capital to garner such an endorsement.

Solitair

on Apr 16, 2004

Can't seem to post anything on the political machine website. The submit button fails to work! Here are my comments from last night. Should have more later or tomorrow.

Played a few games over the past two days and here are my comments.

- Beautiful look to the whole map. Just that right balance between graphics and usability.
- Love the election sequence at the end. Can it be a bit slower or use triggered per state? Seems to end the game before all the states have voted though (I still haven't seen California vote) and there is no end screen, just back to the initial start screen.
- start-up is too small not to have some loading symbol/screen. I'm sure that will come though

- many functions still missing. Set-up doesn't allow new candidates or edit candidates. detail button does nothing.
- as mentioned by others the option button has no return to game button on the option screen
- 'Fat Loot' event fails to say WHO gets the loot. it just says 'to 's campaign'
- Interviews need some more information or feedback. I find it very hard when asked a question to know which reply my candidate should be following. No indication of effect on democrat or republican voters. Also I occasionally only get 1 reply option. No choice at all.
-Still get occasional crashes to desktop. Do you want us to run smart exception and sent files?
- occasionally the text gets totally messed up with missing letters in all text. Big problem as it makes it very hard to figure anything out.
- occasional long delays occur when trying to do things. Slow responses are common. Good example would be when I try to select endorsements. Can take 10 second to switch between them.
- special interest actions which remove stamina do not update your stamina display in the main menu (they do reduce your stamina though).
- 'Time warner' event shows 'string not found'

That's it for the moment. Will play some more this evening and post more feedback.

Paul.

Calin2

on Apr 16, 2004

Hi,

Here's a list of the problems i encountered.

First of all, the game would often crash (not surprising tho, since it is the first beta)

AI Took control of my candidate, Completed 1 move, made a second and then the game Crashed.

Sometimes the opponent will do nothing or only 1 action during his first turn at normal difficulty. This happens when i restart a game.

I had smart-exception running at that time. Please give us an address for us to e-mail the file.

Now that this is over, let me say i like the game, i believe it will be great once it's finished. I hope you will keep us posted as to the changes made to the game from build to build.

Thank you,
Keep up the good work.

A Better Tomorrow

on Apr 17, 2004

I've been having problems with the game stalling, but not CTDing. It will stop, and just sit there playing music and not responding at all. It is also using enough ram that CTL-ALT-DEL takes about 2 minutes to come up. First game no problems, but since then I have not been able to complete a game.

CorranH96

on Apr 17, 2004

Been having a lot of fun, only one CTD and I have the SmartException log for it if you want to tell me where to post it/send it.

A screen from one of my recent victories on the simple difficulty:
Link

Calin2

on Apr 18, 2004

Here's another problem i noticed.

It occured several times, my opponent actually dissapear from the map for the rest of the game. He still does things, but i just can't see him anymore. However, i can still see his "helpers" (Cheerleaders, Grannies, Definers etc...)

Also, i had problems moving my new "helpers". I see them on the clipboard, select them (The clipboard becomes light blue), and right click on the state i want it to go in, but nothing happens. Other times, everything works perfectly.

Calin2

on Apr 18, 2004

This might be a lead to a problem previously mentionned. It would seem that when i start a new game, having left the first one using "option", it would seem that some of the previous game's data remains. Exemple: The cursor displaying the location of my candidate was not in the state i'm in, but rather in the state i WAS in the previous game. That might also explain why my opponent dosn't move; perhaps the AI considers that all his stamina has been used. Good luck.

Calin2

on Apr 18, 2004

Here's another problem i saw a few times. When there's a political opportunity in one of the state, i send my candidate to grab it. However, once i land in the state, i do not grab it, and it remains there. Then after, my opponent would fly in that same state and he does grab it.

Maybe the AI considers it has captured it when it was "thinking" his moves, and not actually when he did complete the move.

However, it seems a rare problem, i only had in twice in about 10-12 games.

Don Bemont

on Apr 18, 2004

One more thing. I've been noticing that the colors on the popular vote map are not very helpful. You can be seriously misled and find that the "almost black" state has become a runaway for your opponent.

vyshka

on Apr 19, 2004

I was having CTD until I turned off my norton anti-virus. Just made it through my first complete game.

Jeff George

on Apr 19, 2004

Any chance of this topic being moved to The Game forum?

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