Today marks the release of the Political Machine from Stardock.

So I will most likely be pretty busy with that for a few days. I will be updating this with several thoughts and impressions of my own.

Recently, I came across this excellent game. Cool School is a game targeted at kids ages 5 to 7. Its goal is to help kids learn valuable skills in avoiding and resolving conflicts in their life. I decided to take the game for a test drive. After playing for a while I had some interesting first impressions.

First off, the game is very easy to play. This is due to the games target audience. Little kids. Secondly, the game’s characters are very lively. Again, the target audience. The message of the game is very clear and it works well in the game play. Avoid letting conflicts build. Resolve them quickly and in the most fair way possible. Many of the conflicts in the game are of simple varieties, sharing, rules and bullying. Each case of conflict is presented with four possible choices that the player can choose to resolve the conflict. Often there is only one good choice. Other times there are several good choices and one best choice. The game let’s you pick until you choose the best resolution.

Aside from these impressions, I had several concerns and questions regarding the game and its characters. I contacted the game’s creator F. J. Lennon and Dr. Melanie Killen of the University of Maryland, she was the main creator of the conflicts and resolutions. They were kind enough to provide some answers.

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That’s the message coming from a student of the University of Virginia.

While not revealing his name, he told WSLS that he is creating a game to stop the Christian and Islam religions from being founded.

Atheists have never really had anything to speak for them like this.  It’s the general atheist premise that the world might be a better place without some of those religions

So far nothing more than few screen shots have been revealed of the game, so we don’t have much to go on. But according to the report the object is to kill Abraham and Muhammad before they can found their respective religions.

While I am not one to judge a games message, this one has the potential to cause a lot of controversy amongst people of all faiths.

We will definitely be on the watch for further updates.

I came across The Waffler today. This site is run by Joost van Dreunen a Ph.D. student and writer. He posted an article in which he says he will be attending the Games for Change conference.

In this article he shares some his thoughts on several serious games out there and some tips for developers of these games.

These tips are as follows:

1. Serious games should represent a ’serious’ topic both in game play mechanics and representations.

2. Serious games should be free.

3. Serious games should be easily available.

He even poses a question to his readers:

what does an appropriate organizational model to produce free, serious games that are available for digital download look like?

So what do you think? Feel free to share your thoughts here and on his site.

It looks like I am a bit behind in my coverage of The Political Machine. According to the website, They will not be able to release a beta. They will be going straight to release for June 17th. That Kind of sucks.

Greetings!  The Political Machine 2008 is nearly done.  Originally, we intended to have a public beta as we do with all our other games.  Unfortunately, to make our June 17th retail release, we have to go gold in basically a week which cut the time down on when we’d have a public beta.

But the ydo have plenty of screen shots available. GameSpot also has a Q&A with Brad Wardell about the game. This has juicy news about the game, such as:

GS: Certainly many of the issues in 2004 have changed, while many have sadly remained the same. What are the hot-button topics candidates will touch on this election, and what are some of the best strategies for handling them?

BW: There are some interesting topics that have come up this time. You still have the war in Iraq, and the economy is right at the top too. But this time we have things like alternative fuels being a hot topic, as well as freezing mortgage rates and other things in which the political parties differ on.

One of the biggest changes is that we have scenarios. So we not only have the 2008 US election, but we include a Civil War scenario with the issues from 1860. We also include “Europa,” which is Europe as seen by a typical American tourist (i.e., highly politically incorrect satire); “Germania,” “that little country by Poland”; “Australia” (as opposed to Austria), with the issues being, well, let’s just say not accurate.

And of course, this time you can finally run for Emperor of the Drengin Empire. Are you pro slavery or pro genocide? These are the tough issues that Drengi politicians have to deal with.

IGN also has some early coverage of the game.

In the meantime, Check out the screen shots in the links above and enjoy.

The Games For Change Conference will be coming to New York on June 2-4. Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend this year, but hope to be able to next year.

But there is still plenty to be had if you are attending. The speaker list is quite impressive. There will be Mallika Dutt, the founder and executive director of Breakthroug. This company brought the game ICED to the world. Also speaking is Asi Burak, co-founder of ImpactGames developers of PeaceMaker (a game I still need to check out), a video game simulation of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. There will also be Chris Crawford, long time video game veteran and author of five books. And many, many more.

Of the conference, the site reads:

This June, the only festival dedicated to the exciting new movement using Digital Games for Social Change will explore real-world impact, the latest games and funding strategies. Hosted in New York City by Parsons The New School for Design, the 5th annual Games for Change Festival will take place on June 2 - 4, 2008.  Expert practitioners — academics, activists, non-profits, funders — will be called in to examine the impact of current games, evaluations planned and the ongoing work to build the field. You will have a chance to see a variety of new games in development first-hand, and at the Games Expo sponsored by Microsoft, festival-goers can play the latest state-of-the-art games.

I really wish I could attend this year. I will however be reporting on the transcripts that I gather after the fact. There will be plenty of valuable information to glean from this conference. So look alive.

What do you get when cops use tazers a little too frequently? Why a game of course.

This game was created by Jason Rohrer from New York. He made it in response to a video of the “Don’t Taze Me Bro” incedent at the John Kerry speech at the University of Florida.

The video reminded me of how scary police can be; they’ve got guns, and clubs, and Tasers, and they are sometimes prone toward a “stay the course” mentality, even when their course has escalated past the point of reason.

The video left me thinking that every onlooker in the room was a coward. I was also left with the impression that John Kerry, the most influential and tase-proof person in the room, was a double-coward for not stepping off the stage and getting involved.

The game itself is rather simple to look at. Some easy graphics to develop. But the idea behind the game is a bit more profound.

The point of the game is to get all the people in the auditorium to stand up to the police who are attempting to remove trouble makers from the speech. You do this by controlling the people and having them shout for help to incite others to help. Then having those people block the path of the police to prevent them from removing other people.

There is quite a bit of strategy to this. So it is fun. The game itself does not portray enough of the message to get it through if someone has not read his article first. So it may not be as effective.

When making a game of this nature, the game should carry enough message on its own to work effectively. If it does not, it may risk becoming just another game.

I am glad to see this sort of game come along. There certainly is a need to be aware of the police’s methods of handling situations. I may not completely agree with the idea of standing up to authority in this way, but there is no need for excessive force when dealing with a person.

I came across this gem of a political game today. The game is called Campaign. This is a nice change to all the crappy political fighters out there.

This game let’s you choose from a set of six presidential hopefuls (a little out dated but still fun regardless.) Rudy, Mitt and Fred round out the Republican side. Yes I know Ron Paul is not there neither is the Republican nominee John McCain. I believe the game was made well before it was thought that he had a chance.

The Democrats are fielded by Hillary, John and Obama.

The game centers around the player choosing a nominee to help win the presidential election. At the player’s disposal is a team of crack campaign officers. You have the Spinmeister, who flings mud at the opponents to cause damage and slow them down. The Hatchet Man, who makes direct attacks to damage the enemy. The Fundraiser, who gathers resources so that other characters can use their more powerful attacks. Finally there is the Operative, who uses subterfuge to attack and has the ability to hide from opponents. Unfortunately you only get to play with three of these characters, but you get to choose any combination and number.

The game plays as a turn based strategy in which the goal is to either ‘kill’ the opposing candidate. To do so, you need to make your way to them and beat the living daylights out of them. Kind of refreshing when going against Hillary or Mitt, if  Ido say so myself.

The main reason I like this game is the fact that it is different. Sure I also wrote about Political Machine, but for a web based game, it is a cut well above the rest. So far there has been fighter after fighter after fighter. IT needs to stop people! There are plenty of ways to editorialize and parody politics. You don’t have to simplify it that much.

The really best thing about it is the fact that it caricaturizes the tactics used by politicians. It lets you use actual mudslingers and operatives to demolish your opponent. I would love to see more of these types of caricatures in games. It is very easy to do this.

As I said, I like this game and hope to see more of these types of games in the future.

On March 26, Stardock announced the up coming release of their latest political game, The Political Machine 2008.

This game puts the player in the shoes of the campaign manager for one of the Presidential candidates for the 2008 elections.

Play as the campaign manager for a host of candidates including Barack Obama, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, historical candidates or design one from scratch.

Players then choose their campaign battlegrounds and are off on the campaign trail to face a host of challenges including fundraising, talk show appearances, hiring spin doctors and winning endorsements. The game is won on Election Day by the player who gets the necessary electoral votes to become President.

The Political Machine uses uses real world data to feed the campaign. The issues discussed today are the same as the ones reflected in the game. So look forward to debating on topics such as the War in Iraq, North Korea, the economic slump and more.

The game is not due for release until June 17th. But that does not mean that you won’t be able to have any fun.

This game is the sequel to the 2004 game. That version is available for sale on Stardock’s website. It also has a demo available. I played the demo and the game is remarkably fun. Nothing fancy or tasking, but fun. To be honest, I lost the quick game. Even though Bush won in 2004, you just can’t repeat it. You know, hind sight is 20/20.

While this game is not exactly an editorial game, it does shine light on what money and political capital can mean to a campaign. For example in the demo short campaign, when it ends it judges the prospective winner by how much political capital was used during the campaign. This allows you to receive support from organizations representing gun ownership, environmentalists, Christians, etc.

One of the claims to fame made by Stardock is that the 2004 game successfully predicted the 2004 election.

The 2004 edition of the game was a tremendous success. Using actual demographic data, the game accurately predicted the 2004 election months in advance. In June of 2004, Stardock’s CEO and Lead Designer Brad Wardell said that The Political Machine predicted that Ohio - not Florida - would be the key state and that whoever won that state would win the Presidency.

I look forward to playing the 2008 version. There will be two betas available to those who pre-order the game. When those come out, expect a review of them.

Over the last few years games have been cropping up all over the internet which touch on political and social issues. These games come in a wide variety of artistic style, gameplay, topic and slant. Some games have brought on debate over their message; others over their method of discourse.

Regardless of the message or outrage, these games need to be documented. They need a place where they can be discussed and debated without any interference.

Editorial Games will strive to be that place. It is the purpose of this site to find these games, discuss them and help them come out of obscurity.

Aside from discussing the games, we will also discuss the people who make them and how they are made. This will help those who wish to speak out beyond their game to do so. It will also help those who want to break into this field of development.

Let’s face it. This is a natural step in editorial content. For centuries we have used written and spoken word as well as cartoons. Games are the natural progress of editorial content.

I would like to send out a call to all of you that have developed or will develop these sorts of games to let you voices resonate and your games shine. We will be watching, listening and playing.