Tuesday, September 28, 2004

Mud Slinging on the Go

New cell phone game allows players to run their own campaign.

Netherlands-based Lunagames released Election 2004 for cell phones in the first half of September. Election 2004 takes a humorous look at the 2004 American election through a game in which players employ smooth talk and back-stabbing tactics in order to garner more votes than the other candidate.

The title screen of Election 2004 urges players to “run for president.” The American flag and presidential eagle ensure players know for which country’s presidency they are running.
Screenshot courtesy Lunagames. Copyright 2004 Lunagames.

The game takes place on a RISK-like map of the United States. Each state is color-coded as being greed for the player, red against the player or grey in a dead-heat. Clicking on the state brings up details on the percentages of voters and the number of people you have campaigning for you in that state.

Candidates choose a set of issues to campaign on from nine areas: agriculture, health, economy, justice, environment, education, internal affairs and foreign politics. Each of these areas has more specific topics on which the candidates spend money and debate.

Most of the South is against the candidate. But at least she’s got Texas.
Screenshot courtesy Lunagames. Copyright 2004 Lunagames.

The game's debates are in multiple-choice format. Each question has answers that are along the lines of agree, disagree or a vague dodge. Depending on what the voters want to hear, the answers the player chooses will change her standing.

But the player doesn't have to spend all her money on honest campaigning.

"The game is open ended, in the sense that you control all aspects of how you want to manage your campaign," Lunagames CEO Hazenberg said in an e-mail interview with the blog. "The game gives you broad options and it's the players' choice to run a fair or dirty campaign."

Much of the game's humor comes from playing rough. Candidates may hire investigators to dig dirt on the opposition. Or they can pay for what the game calls "Active Actions," fabricated scandals that range from seducing the opposition with a hooker - complete with photos - to paying for misleading newspaper stories. These scandals are revealed in CNN-style news-flashes. The embarrassed candidate is then given a series of choices that represent stances they might take in such a situation. Of course, a wrong answer can lose the player valuable voters.

After 30 turns - each round representing a week - the winner with the most votes takes the White House.

Yet it may seem like an odd prospect to have a European game-developer create a game based on the American election. But Hazenberg said that the game came from an interest in the election that crosses borders.

"I've always been fascinated by U.S. politics and have been thinking about a game in this direction for quite some time," Hazenberg said. "[In] early 2004 one of our game designers analyzed the election process and we came to the conclusion that it had real great potential for a strategy game."

According to Hazenberg, Lunagames relied on CNN's election coverage, the U.S. census and University of Michigan's election 2000 archives for the majority of its research on election 2004.

With the race neck and neck, the taller candidate once again proves superior.
Screenshot courtesy Lunagames. Copyright 2004 Lunagames.

Election 2004 is notable for its length and depth, taking hours to finish just one election. Many games - such as the popular Bejeweled - in the Western market are of the puzzle variety. The game requires some serious effort on the part of the player. The developers seemed to want the player to experience the pure work that goes into all the handshaking that makes up real elections.

"We recognize that the game is more difficult than an average mobile game," Hazenberg said. "We strongly believe in a market for more in-depth style games for mobile [gaming platform]."

Despite this complexity, it's hard to call Election 2004 an accurate representation of American politics. Rather, it feels like an extended political cartoon that comments on the values of Americans during an election season. The importance game designers placed on mud-slinging and creating simple answers for complex questions seems to say that Americans care as much about the issues as they do the images of candidates. Does this make the game an outright attack on American politics?

Tough questions warrant tough answers. Or at least a good dodge.
Screenshot courtesy Lunagames. Copyright 2004 Lunagames.

Well, not exactly. The complexity of the game indicates the developers' understanding that the election isn't just he-said, she-said. Rather, the developers are saying the election is far more complex than the simplistic news-briefs and catch-phrases make it out to be. The simple facade of yes-and-no questions and sound-bite news versus the behind-the-scenes frenzy of planning and budgeting works as a commentary on the way Americans receive their election coverage versus what really goes into gaining those votes.

Another interesting aspect of the game is the lack of a third-party. Even as an outside annoyance, the presence of a third-party in Election 2004 is not inconceivable. According to Lunagames CEO Richard Hazenberg, the developers had originally intended to include multiple parties, but felt it over-extended the game.

"Early game designs had multiple parties," Hazenberg said. "But this really made the game too complex and made it almost impossible to fit all the information into the small [screen] of the handset."

Still, the exclusion of multiple or even a third party indicates the game developers feel the third parties are more window dressing than actually important aspect of the election. Then again, some Americans don't think third parties are useful either.

Americans care about the issues. Especially issues that catch the candidate in an act of stupidity.
Screenshot courtesy Lunagames. Copyright 2004 Lunagames.

As an outside look at American politics, Election 2004 seems to boil down to a commentary on the American people more than the whole campaign process. Someone playing Election 2004 might get the impression that Americans are more concerned with skeletons in the closet than we are real issues, and even on the real issues we just want a simple blurb, not a complex plan. But the game also seems to say that Americans simply ignore the overriding complexity of a campaign.

And while Hazenberg insists that the game's goal is fun; it takes a hard look at how the candidates often run their campaigns.

"The game is mainly aimed at being challenging and fun," he said. "What you can make out of the game-play is that spending money on advertisement and running a dirty campaign helps you win elections."

But this combination of intense play and sharp humor has led some to praise of Election 2004.

"Mostly the gamers and reviewers have noted that they like the combination of in-depth strategy game-play with the extra twist of humor the game brings."

Yet the some reviews of the game have pointed out one critical flaw: the depth and complexity of the game can be tiresome. As the game progresses, the humor of sex-scandals and cheap answers begins to wear thin.

However boredom and frustration might be one of the most ironically truthful elements of the game. Much like the current political election, Election 2004 may leave some feeling worn out and bored by the end after a stream of focused media spots and scandals that have little to do with the issues. And after the votes are tallied, receiving a single picture of your candidate in the White House may feel anticlimactic.

And maybe that's just Lunagames' way of betting on life imitating art.