Power Politics (game) is a

Government simulation game A government simulation or political simulation is a game that attempts to simulate the government and politics of all or part of a nation. These games may include Geopolitics, geopolitical situations (involving the formation and execution of for ...

published by Mindscape who obtained it from

Will Vinton William Gale Vinton (November 17, 1947 – October 4, 2018) was an American animator and filmmaker. Vinton was best known for his Claymation work, alongside creating iconic characters such as The California Raisins. He won an Oscar for his work a ...

's Cineplay Interactive. Vinton was famous for

Claymation Clay animation or claymation, sometimes plasticine animation, is one of many forms of stop-motion animation. Each animated piece, either character or background, is "deformable"—made of a malleable substance, usually plasticine clay. Tr ...

featuring the

California Raisins The California Raisins were a fictional rhythm and blues animated musical group as well as advertising and merchandising characters composed of anthropomorphized raisins. Lead vocals were sung by musician Buddy Miles. The California Raisins w ...

. Version I featured the 1992 United States Presidential election. Version II was re-branded as The Doonesbury Election Campaign, essentially the same game, but starring the characters from the

Doonesbury ''Doonesbury'' is a comic strip by American cartoonist Garry Trudeau that chronicles the adventures and lives of an array of characters of various ages, professions, and backgrounds, from the President of the United States to the title characte ...

comic strip. ''Power Politics III'' (2004) featuring then current candidates, stronger graphics and online competitions. The game simulated the real world so well that the Associated Press printed its "simulated" results predicting a victory by Bill Clinton in the 1992 elections.

George Magazine ''George'' was a glossy monthly magazine centered on the theme of politics-as-lifestyle founded by John F. Kennedy Jr. and Michael J. Berman with publisher Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. in New York City in September 1995. Its tagline was "Not J ...

ran a feature article on it in their premier edition. While it is a worthwhile and challenging simulation for gamers, Power Politics also found its way into classrooms in over 400 colleges and universities, including

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Washington DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

as a tool for teaching the realities and complexities of political campaign management. The game won numerous awards for content, quality and creativity. A player can campaign for one of thirty previous presidential candidates in an attempt to create an alternate history. A player can ''create'' a political candidate with specified strengths and weaknesses, defining how liberal or conservative the candidate will be; select positions on the important issues; set the schedule; determine what type of advertising campaign will be run and how much to spend on it. Selecting a running mate is part of the game simulation. Players can also do “what-if” scenarios just to test how candidates would have done against different opponents from different eras and political climates, rather than the one in which the candidate really lived. The historical cut-off is the 1960 campaign, the first in which television was an important factor. FDR vs JFK” or “Adlai Stevenson vs H. Ross Perot” would not work because FDR and Stevenson were candidates before 1960. Similarly pitting JFK against Lyndon Johnson would not work because they were from the same party. However a JFK vs Bob Dole or Jimmy Carter vs George HW Bush would work because they were real candidates, from 1960 and after.

Development, Current Status

The game was developed by Randy Chase, who obtained all rights to the earlier versions and was planning to bring the game forward to apply to the 2008 presidential election, but died of heart failure and complications of diabetes at age 53.

Reception

In a 1994 survey of wargames ''

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through t ...

'' gave ''Power Politics'' two-plus stars out of five, criticizing the requirement that all historical candidates run in 1992 (" Quemoy and Matsu do not translate well into contemporary economic issues").

References

Simulation & Gaming Journal

External links

*{{MobyGames, id=/power-politics
IGN Review
1992 video games Government simulation video games Mindscape games Video games developed in the United States Windows games Windows-only games