As a follow up to previous news of retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s new gig as a videogame promoter and developer, the Washington Post takes a look at the first two games to emerge from her stewardship.

Dubbed “the best” of the two titles currently available online, Supreme Decision centers around the rights of a student prevented from wearing his favorite band t-shirt to school. Players will take on the role of a Supreme Court clerk charged with advising Justice Irene Waters on the case.

Do I Have a Right casts players as a member of a pro bono law firm and has them introducing civil right case clients to lawyers.

O’Connor met a sixth-grade fan (and future World of Warcraft addict?), of the Our Court games, who told her that he stayed up until midnight playing them and now wanted to become a lawyer.  O’Connor  responded:

We're not trying to produce a new generation of lawyers; we have plenty already. But I was pleased by his response.

Backing up previous comments made about the value of including political statements in games, developer Borut Pfeifer is working on a title set amidst the riots of post-election Iran.

Pfeifer, an ex-full time Electronic Arts employee who is now developing his own games, while still working part time for EA, is attempting to fund his game’s development on the Kickstarter website. The 2D puzzle/action game aims to be a downloadable title for the PC or Xbox 360 and will feature around two hours of game play.

Pfeifer, who was one of the few developers to weigh in on the Six Days in Fallujah controversy, explained the impetus for making the game:

I’ve been really passionate about using games to explore more serious topics or themes. Most games are still about fun, diversionary topics. There’s even a lot of professional game designers who don’t think we can treat serious subjects appropriately, which I think is bullshit.

Pfeifer is aiming for $15,000 in seed money to develop the game. So far he has 30 backers and $2,107 pledged towards his goal.

Thanks to GP reader Shane for pointing us towards the story and also to DarkSaber for being another swell GP-er in general.

New from Addicting Games is the tongue-in-cheek puzzler Where's the Naughty Governor?

The super-easy Where's Waldo? clone challenges player to find visual clues related to the cases of philandering guvs and ex-guvs like South Carolina's Mark Sanford, New York's Eliot Spitzer and New Jersey's Jim McGreevey. Philandering would-be president John Edwards is tossed in for good measure. Sarah Palin  made the cut too, but for quitting her post rather than for extra-curricular marital activities.

As an added bonus (and this lackluster game needs all the help it can get), the Los Angeles Times has an interesting article on the creative process behind Where's the Naughty Governor?:

The quintet [of game designers] quickly work their way through 15 politicians with slippery zippers before settling on five. Sen. Ensign of Nevada is labeled "kinda boring" and tossed out because he promptly admitted his infidelity; mayors Villaraigosa [of Los Angeles] and Newsom [of San Francisco] don't have big enough national profiles; former Sen. Larry E. Craig of Idaho is set aside because his arrest for allegedly soliciting sex in an airport bathroom by tapping his foot could... deserve its own game.

Those making the cut: Sanford, Spitzer, McGreevey and Edwards [Palin was apparently added later]. Dave Williams, senior VP of Nickelodeon's games group, even reaches into the past for one more addition.

"Could we end on Bill Clinton? He's the big boss!" [a designer] says with a laugh, using the video-game term for a final and most difficult opponent.

Tyler Hudgins plays politically-themed games like The Political Machine 2008 and Oval Office on his PC and dreams of a career in real - not simulated - politics.

Oh, and the Arizona teen just graduated from high school.

The East Valley Tribune reports that Tyler (left) is, for now, dedicated to local politics but has aspirations that extend beyond his home town:

Hudgins spends more time in the council chambers than just about anyone who isn't on the council or the town payroll. He hopes to be a councilman himself someday, a first step to what he says will be a long and illustrious political career...

 

But, for now, he's reading "How to Get Elected to Local Office" during breaks from his job at Liberty Market. He said it's a long road to the White House, and that's how it should be.

"I'm stopping to study the issues that will come into play in the future," he said. "I feel like I'm going about this the right way, by starting at the grass roots."

Here at GamePolitics we lay no claim to understanding the complexities of Lebanese politics.

But we do note that Lebanon-based WixelStudios has launched what it says is the first use of games for a political campaign in the troubled nation. From the company's website:

For the first time in Lebanon, games are used as an election propaganda! ...

Wixel Studios produced an interactive animated documentary for the Liberty Front... in addition to the documentaries you will find four games accompanying to the stories.

The four browser-based mini-games, which are nicely varied in presentation, involve themes in which the player does battle with Syrian forces. Based on its Wikipedia entry, Lebanon's dealings with Syria is a prime concern of the Liberty Front.

Check out the games here.

The authors of the parody children's book Goodnight Bush are back with a bit of post-presidential Dubya bashing.

While not excatly a game, The George W. Bush Presidential Librarium is an interactive parody:

Completion of the George W. Bush Presidential Library... may be stalled indefinitely, due to an apparent lack of funding, public support, and basic legality. Make no mistake, the public's desire to endlessly relive Bush's greatest achievements may go unanswered for years to come—and his legacy remain (like America) in limbo.

All hope is not lost. We at Origen & Golan Architects are proud to unveil the plans for the George W. Bush Presidential Librarium! Themed attractions provide more entertainment than a library, and more accurately represent Bush's remarkable legacy—start by exploring The Stax, Supreme Food Court, Book BBQ, and the ever-popular Golden Parachutes...

Via: Water Cooler Games

Like chief executives in other big cities, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter has been forced to make some tough financial choices of late.

Perhaps His Honor should spend some time playing Philadelphia Budget Challenge, a new online game offered by the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia.

Alan Tu of Philly's public radio station WHYY has a review of the game:

This budget game asks 15 questions, giving you a choice to raise taxes or cut services in each case. My secret for solving the city’s budget crisis over the lunch hour is as follows.

The first thing to do is raise everybody’s taxes. That makes the game more fun. Who wants to be the mayor remembered for closing libraries?... The rest was a breeze. I ordered a 10 percent across-the-board cut to to all departments that were considered “administrative,” sold off 400 city cars, and then refinanced a loan the city has for paying into the pension fund...

It’s kind of fun, because it’s feels a little like playing Sim City. No big budgets to read. Never have to hear the citizens complain (although in the game they move away), and if you don’t like the results, you can play it over... the game is simplistic, but it is a wonderful way to generate debate in your office...

At Water Cooler Games, Prof. Ian Bogost writes that the Politics Online Conference is accepting votes for 2008's best online political game.

Unfortunately, only two choices are offered: Bush Move In Day and Dress Like Palin. Both were publications of the California Nurses Association.

Bogost comments:

Neither of them are games; they're both little drag and drop toys that give more detailed information about what could have been done with Palin's clothing budget, or about the residue of Bush policy after his departure from office. It's disappointing to see that this is the cream of the crop among online political games this year.

GP: It's unclear why only two games from the same non-profit are on the ballot. Perhaps organizations needed to nominate themselves but didn't get the word. GamePolitics, however, reported on dozens of political games in 2008. These included commercial and amateur offerings distributed both online as well as on DVD.

President Barack Obama's status as a pop icon seems to have breathed new life into the niche market for political strategy games.

GamePolitics has previously covered Commander in Chief: Geo-Political Simulator 2009 and CNN now has a video report on the game.

We've also stumbled across Oval Office from Zero G. Beyond its marketing blurb, we don't yet have much info on the $19.99 PC game:

Can you run the country better than the people in charge? Oval Office is the ultimate political strategy and simulation game! As president, you will have to balance the budget, keep taxes in check, make snap judgments, and much more.

 

Prefer a green paradise, or socialist utopia? Control crime without destroying civil liberties? These are only some of the tough issues you will face. But the biggest question of all is can you win re-election? It's not as easy as it sounds in the Oval Office!

GP: I've been playing a bit of Commander in Chief recently. It's fun, but fairly complex. The game has garnered a couple of glowing user reviews on GameSpot.

The Kansas Department of Transportation is offering citizens the opportunity to try their hand at balancing its budget - or not - via an innovative web-based tool.

Writing for the New York Times' Freakonomics blog, UCLA transportation researcher Eric Morris praises T-Link:

I can’t help but wonder how many urban planners were inspired to enter the profession by computer games like SimCity or Railroad Tycoon... these programs convey information about arcane topics like utility maintenance costs and right-of-way clearance in a fun and accessible manner...

 

Now the Kansas Department of Transportation has come up with a neat way to both educate the public about its services and get valuable feedback about customer preferences, using a game-like format. The T-Link Calculator allows you to set transportation policy in Kansas and see the fiscal results of your choices...

 

By presenting the information this way, [KDOT] reaches out to voters (particularly younger ones) who are accustomed to interactivity and immediate feedback from their information sources. I have a feeling that many people who would never think of sitting down and reading the state budget will warm to playing “transportation god” on this site.

Moreover, the site makes it clear that we can’t ask for everything from our government; tough budgetary choices have to be made...

Shawn Recinto of HeadlineGames dropped by GamePolitics the other day to let us know that a pair of games loosely based on the misadventures of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich are available.

Blago Run, a Frogger-like affair, challenges players to guide Senate hopefuls past FBI and police patrols in search of President Barack Obama's former seat.

Meanwhile, Blago Red Tape Breakout is a Breakout clone in which Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan must get her supoena past rows of red tape in order to serve Blagojevich with impeachment papers.

As George W. Bush turns over the reigns to Barack Obama today, online gamers will have their final chance to zing the 43rd president.

Goodbye, Mr. Bush is a whack-a-mole sort of affair in which players hurl objects at a cartoon version of Dubya which pops up in various locations on the White House lawn. Weapons of choice include eggs, candy and, of course, shoes.

The game, like the man it lampoons, will soon be forgotten. But there is one clever moment. Players who choose Weapons of Mass Destruction to hurl at Bush are informed that WMD can't be found.

Hmmm... Where have we heard that before?

If you'd like to give it a try, click the thumbnail image to play.

Via: Huffington Post

While the current state of the economy isn't much fun, The Bailout Game offers a somewhat entertaining look at the financial mess wrought by the ugly marriage of Wall Street greed and governmental ineptitude.

The web-based offering uses board game-style interface and challenges the player to selectively bailout financial institutions and the auto industry, all the while trying to keep one step ahead of recession.

Although we found the game worth a try, Ian Bogost of Water Cooler Games was less enthusiastic:

The game itself is a repetitive and seemingly meaningless trudge from square to square (bank to bank), each offering the same basic question: Do you bail out: YES or NO? No matter your answer, you'll get an animation or video with some vaguely related news bit or textual riff...

 

I was never able to determine why or how the game wanted me to chose to bail out specific banks or to let them fail, save for invoking the "Ask a Greenspan" button or following obvious hints on the playing cards. It's games like this that make me wonder if I should give up tracking them entirely.

In recent days GamePolitics has covered web games propagandizing the current Gaza conflict from both the Israeli and Palestinian viewpoints.

The latest of these is Iron Dome which takes the Israeli perspective. Along with a Missile Command-esque interface, Iron Dome offers three levels of difficulty as well as several links offering the Israeli version of the issues behind the conflict.

GP: Thanks to GamePolitics reader Itamar for the tip!

At the Georgia Tech News Games Project, Ian Bogost discusses Raid Gaza!, an editorial game dealing with Israel's offensive against Hamas in Palestine.

Raid Gaza! is hosted at Newgrounds and has an RTS-like interface in which the player, acting as the Israeli side, builds structures and uses them to create military units which are then launched against the Palestinians.

Of the game, Bogost writes:

The game argues against the justification of Israeli attacks on Gaza, representing them as unprovoked and characterizing Israel's response as overt aggression. The game's goal is to kill as many Palestinians as possible in a three minute session...

The game is headstrong, suffering somewhat from its one-sided treatment of the issue at hand. But as an editorial, it is a fairly effective one both as opinion text and as game... It's release on user-contributed animation and games portal Newgrounds came on 30 December 2008, only three days after the Israeli Defense Forces launched airstrikes...

Raid Gaza! was probably not created by a journalist nor a professional game developer (it was submitted to Newgrounds eponymously). Still, the piece was timely, coherent, and exerted commentary that is appreciable, even if it is not profound...

Before taking office on January 20th, Barack Obama might want to spend some time playing Democracy 2.

At least, that's the view of Cliff Harris of UK publisher Positech Games. Harris has offered a free copy of his firm's  political sim to any politician or candidate who would like to "practice."

Are you a politician? a candidate for real political office? an MP in the UK? A Senator or member of the House of Representatives in the US? or the equivalent anywhere in the world? If so, I...a humble games programmer from the UK would like to give you a free gift. a FREE copy of Democracy 2 for you to practice with.

 

There are no strings attached whatsoever, I won't publish your name anywhere unless you say I can, I'm not getting anything out of it other than the knowledge that just *maybe* I'm helping to make our current crop of politicians more prepared for the task ahead, especially with a global recession on the horizon.

Go on, give it a try, make your policy errors in a game, rather than making them for real...

For non-politicians, Democracy 2 is US$22.95, available for PC or Mac.

Via: Water Cooler Games

By our count, Bush's Shoe Dodge (screen shot at left) is game #5 based on the now-famous incident in which an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at President George W. Bush during a recent news conference.

Flash games based on Muntader al-Zaidi's shoe toss have been arriving on the Web at the rate of one per day. The latest offering comes from Atom. It's the second game in which you play as the President with the goal of dodging al-Zaidi's shoes. The other game based on Dubya's perspective is Flying BaBush.

Of the remaining games, in two (SockAndAwe and Can You Throw a Shoe at Bush?) you play as al-Zaidi, while in Bush's Boot Camp players assume the role of a Secret Service agent.
 

On Sunday, an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at President Bush during a press conference.

Within days, nearly a half-dozen Flash games lampooning the incident appeared on the web (you'll find all of them linked here on GamePolitics).

Given the speed and reach of the web, the Amazon Game Room Blog wonders whether browser games have replaced the role of the political cartoon in modern society:

Web-based flash games continue to take over the satirical role that political cartoons once filled... Our country has a rich and scathing history of political satire in cartoon form in newspapers and magazines and anyone who noticed how fast the [various Bush/shoe games] popped up on the Web after the footwear was flung... should be able to acknowledge the potential for this in flash technology.

 

The games are certainly is no works of art, but they were not designed to be awe inspiring. They were instead designed to capture the moment, and immortalize it from a particular point of view that people in this particular time can appreciate, or at least recognize. In a hundred years... these snippets of code will offer a window into the past... it is all just part of a media continuum that stretches forward and back further than we know.

Barack Obama will take over a mess of historicial proportions when he is inaugurated in January.

Gamers can get a feel for some of the issues that will be faced by the President-elect with Commander in Chief, a soon-to-be-released strategy game for the PC.

AppScout previews Commander in Chief, which is being developed by Eversim, a Frech company:

Players begin by selecting members of the Cabinet and heads of states from "250 personality types and 20 variables including age, gender, political leaning, religion, charisma, competence, popularity, etc...."

The Player President then begins facing internal and external decision-making, and every decision comes with a consequence. The player must navigate budgets, security, education, health care, special interests, and critics. Cut spending, and encounter outrage from special interest groups; raise taxes, and hear the complaints of taxpayers.

In addition to domestic issues, the game proposes to replicate real-world international situations and circumstances with detailed maps showing 192 countries and 8,000 cities, and comes pre-loaded with information on each country, such as unemployment levels, arms production, inflation rates, stock markets, sports... Players can determine the course of world events by invading countries, plotting assassinations, brokering trade agreements and spending time with fellow world leaders.

GP: Obviously, a complex strategy game like this won't appeal to everyone, but it's definitely on my list. Commander in Chief will launch in the U.S. on January 20th, the same day on which Obama will be sworn in.

Although GamePolitics tracked numerous election-themed games during the presidential campaign, we just stumbled across one of more unique and interesting ones.

Steal This Election is slick look at how to use dirty tricks to win the White House. The game has more attitude and atmosphere than most of the other offerings we've seen, which are generally variations on martial arts, FPS or whack-a-mole.

Our only gripe is that the online game is broken. GP's candidate (a Sarah Palin knockoff) won with 182% of the vote. Also, there doesn't seem to be much replayability. No matter which candidate you choose, the dirty tricks are the same. It made sense in the game for my Palinesque character to paint Obama as a terrorist, since that was, unfortunately, an actual theme in the election. It made less sense to have the same tactic available for the Obama-like character to use against the game's faux McCain.

Despite these rather significant flaws, Steal This Election is worth a look if political games float your boat. Let's hope that they fix the game mechanics by the time November, 2012 rolls around.

GP: Okay, that's it. No more election games. Probably...

Gene Koo of Valuable Games live-blogs an appearance by serious games guru Ian Bogost (left) at a Harvard study group led by Nicco Mele:

Video games [serve] as a centrifying values issue, making it very cheap [for politicians] to decry video games. Ian mentions the ECA (Entertainment Consumers Association), and the idea of a union of video game players, or a common identity among gamers, “weirds” him out.

Gamer demographics — if there are political games, whom will they reach?: There’s a lot of bad data, but… see the Entertainment Software Association. The better question is to break them down by style/type. Ian’s own games — TSA game since 2006 has approached 50M plays. (< $10K to build).

An Obama game could really sell. Who wouldn’t buy an Obama game? Well...

So what about an abortion game that attempts to help each side understand the perspective of the other side of the debate? ...

Nicco mentions that the [Howard] Dean [2004] campaign’s game did inspire people to donate, get involved. Ian wonders if this idea will “peak” (novelty factor).

The problem is that the vast majority of these [political] games are meaningless tripe. See Ian’s discussion of Pork Invaders, in the Gamasutra article, and also the contrast with Tax Invaders as a rhetorical device.

FULL DISCLOSURE DEPT: The ECA is the parent company of GamePolitics.

In his Gamasutra column, Georgia Tech prof Ian Bogost writes of the decline of the officially-sponsored campaign video game:

The 2004 election cycle saw the birth and quick rise of the official political video game... It was easy to get public attention around such work, and indeed one of the benefits of campaign games revolved around their press-worthiness. By the final weeks of the last election cycle, all signals suggested that campaign games were here to stay.

But, as Bogost notes, only the McCain campaign's dreary Pork Invaders emerged in the 2008 presidential election season. There were, however, a plethora of unofficial games, as tracked by GamePolitics. Bogost, who has designed political games himself, does not regard them highly:

Unofficial political games also made few innovations this year. The largest crop of them are game-like gags about Sarah Palin, from the almost-topical Polar Palin to the toy-like Palin as President to the wildlife sendup Hunting with Palin to a series of Palin chatterbots to the inevitable whack-a-mole clone Puck Palin.

We'll have to take issue with Bogost's head count of commercial games with political themes. While he does mention The Political Machine 2008 and the very forgettable Hail to the Chimp, he seems to miss Democracy and President Forever.

If politically themed games are indeed dwindling, why is that happening? Bogost suggests that campaigns are turning to other online resources:

There are reasons games have grown slowly compared to other technologies for political outreach. The most important one is also the most obvious: since 2004, online video and social networks have become the big thing, as blogs were four years ago...

 

Online video became the political totem of 2008, from James Kotecki's dorm room interviews to CNN's YouTube debates. At the same time, the massive growth in social network subscriptions made social connectivity a secondary focus for campaign innovation, especially since Facebook opened its pages beyond the campus in 2006.

Just when I thought that I had overcome my tower defense game addiction, along comes White House Tower Defense.

From the description at Kongregate:

Players can use characters such as Vice-Presidential hopeful Sarah Palin, who sits astride a moose, armed with a tranquilizer gun. Joe Biden is also represented in the game, sitting atop an Amtrack train, “gaffing” his way to victory. The game includes most of the political season’s key players, from George Bush to Bill Clinton...

In this game, the map is Washington DC, and the path leads to the White House. The player is trying to prevent Democrats or Republicans from reaching the White House and gaining 270 electoral votes

Unlike the rash of current Flash games which drop Obama, Biden, McCain and especially Palin into goofy Mortal Kombat or FPS-style action, White House Tower Defense is one political game you'll still enjoy after the campaign is over.

GP: Big thanks to GamePolitics reader CMiner for recommending this one...

Although we griped last week about the seemingly never-ending stream of Sarah Palin-themed games, we found one this morning that breaks the standard Sarah-shooting-at-stuff mold.

Palin as President is an entertaining trifle which explores how the controversial Guv might perform in the White House. It's definitely good for 3-5 minutes of work avoidance at the office. Forward it to 19 other people and - presto! - you've sabotaged an entire hour of organizational productivity.

Via: Political Irony

Boston-based Metaversal Studios has released Rock the Quote, a web-based game which challenges how much players know about remarks made by November hopefuls John McCain, Sarah Palin, Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Players earn two points for correctly identifying a quote and one point for getting just the party right. Three wrong answers leads to game over.

Metaversal Studios' founder Jay Laird, lead designer on Rock the Quote, talked about his game:

With over 100 questions, we have yet to see anyone finish the game... [While watching the debates] I noticed how many of the candidates' sound-bites seem interchangeable. Sure, there are things like the hockey-mom references that make it easy, but when it comes down to the bigger issues, I wonder how many people can tell the difference.

 

[For example,] McCain says he won't raise taxes, while Obama says he'll cut them for 95% of Americans.  In the past, you'd expect the latter promise to come from a Republican, and I bet a lot of people would still make that assumption.

It was pretty depressing to hear Biden say so forcefully that he doesn't support gay marriage.  I know it's a political maneuver to try to hold on to some socially conservative votes, but now that 3 out of 50 states have legalized it, you'd think they'd make it part of their 'change' initiative.

Rock the Quote is planned as a trilogy, with the second part launching on Tuesday. Check Metaversal's Burning Village site for updated news on RTQ.

Online games spoofing the 2008 presidential election are plentiful these days, but Truth Invaders takes one of the more unique approaches that we've seen.

In the Space Invaders knockoff, players select among several questionable statements made by both the Obama and McCain campaigns and then try to turn lies (red) to truth (green).

Designer Jeremy Bernstein, who previously created The Redistricting Game, describes Truth Invaders as FactCheck.org meets Space Invaders.

Theory Spark has issued a hefty patch for its excellent campaign sim, President Forever + Primaries.

The game has been decribed as "part SimCity, part C-SPAN" by the Washington Post. It's certainly the deepest of the current crop of political games.

If you're a current player, be sure to grab the update, as auto-patching has been disabled.

A clever online game offered by Peritus Public Relations of Louisville, KY challenges players to predict which states will be carried by Republican John McCain or Democrat Barack Obama in November 4th's presidential election.

Peritus will send $1,000 to the winner's favorite charity. And, no, your PS3 acquisition fund is not among the list of eligible charities...

I registered and gave it a try. It's fun to use the interactive map of electoral votes to make a prediction, although the registration process was slightly intrusive. Why do they need my address? Confession to Peritus: I lied.

Here's some info from the press release:

We are a firm of veritable political junkies... We created this game because we wanted to inject some fun into the political season while benefiting a charity at the same time. We felt by creating a game that was essentially unprecedented, and entertaining we would be able to reach to people who are generally politically apathetic. So we asked ourselves, why can’t politics be fun for everyone?

The Peritus Pundit gives the user an opportunity to compete against a national audience of political enthusiasts in picking the next President of the United States. The winner picks a charity of their choice and our firm will donate a $1,000 to the organization...

GP sister site GameCulture points us to Singh Is King.

The Flash game, posted on an Indian website, parodies the numerous political struggles faced by India's Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh:

Singh Is King's charm and goofball mood belies the black humor behind the game's obstacles. There's the obvious, such as a grinning President Bush floating in air with an outstretched arm, but there are also references to the PM's frequent clashes with India's communist party... as well as India's failure to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

 

Perhaps the darkest token, however, are the Indian farmers that Singh is occasionally forced to leap. In 2003 alone, more than 17,000 farmers committed suicide in India, swallowing pesticides to avoid the shame of debt and family financial ruin brought on by an agricultural economic crisis...

 

Singh Is King is, therefore, worth a look on two fronts. It's a reasonable way to pass a few errant minutes and gives a peek at how politics are penetrating game culture around the world.
 

Bush's Billions, the latest news-oriented, online game from T-Enterprise parodies the current bailout crisis in the U.S. financial markets.

From the game's description:

US President George W Bush has an imaginary shoot out with the speaker of Congress to get his hands on the $700 billion bail-out cash, in this weeks FAB game.

 

You control "Dubya" hiding behind a patrol car after robbing a bank, and must fire guns at Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Bush comments on game progress during play, using real life audio clips of the President.