The Political Machine 2012

The Political Machine 2012 is a strategy game in which the player runs in the 2012 presidential elections of the USA. The player either creates a new character or runs with the real candidates Barack Obama or Mitt Romney (or other political players like Donald Trump or Ron Paul). Each character has eleven statistical values which influence the public opinion, e.g. stamina. fund raising or charisma.

In its core, this is a turn-based strategy game. In each round (one week), the candidate can undertake actions like interviews, flying to a state in order to hold a speech, starting an ad campaign, raising funds, opening offices or starting smear campaigns. Each action uses stamina as as soon as it runs out, the round is over. The goal of all actions is to raise the awareness in each state and win the majority of voters. The touched on issues, e.g. health care and same-sex marriage, are contemporary and were regularly updated during the 2012 campaign. The presentation is humorous. The player can change the campaign length and randomize the states' preconditions like wealth or what issues it cares about most.