Magic Lantern games has just released their presidential campaign game, Frontrunner. There’s a story about it in USA Today, and more information at their website. I wonder how people are going to like pitting Kerry and Bush against each other – fictionally…?
A few months back I noted the use of the Howard Dean campaign game. If you’re interested in political games you should read my summary post on the Bin Laden games and look up Gonzalo Frasca and Ian Bogost’s Watercooler Games weblog, check out Newsgaming and also Gonzalo’s articles about how games could, perhaps, make real changes – Ideological Videogames/a>, Videogames of the Oppressed and Ephemeral Games.
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Norman
A sad aspect of gaming, for me at least, is the decline of face to face board gaming. It used to be reasonably easy to find people interested in replaying anything from Napoleon at Borodino to Paulus at Stalingrad; but opponents are no longer there. A few decades back, there were generally younger competitors around who frequently expressed surprise that an “ancient one” was involved, so I always assumed I’d be over the hill [or even under the turf] before a shortage of competitors arose.
How wrong I was. Those against whom I once might have played, now sit in front of computer screens, playing against a machine. University student ranks, which once supplied a seemingly never ending stream of competitors, now produce “competitors” whose sole opponent is a video screen.
Perhaps it’s a sign of age, but I can’t imagine becoming too excited about succeeding, when my opponent is nothing more than a complex set of interacting chips.