Happy bizarro week. Two small but key fixes:\n\n- Changed how the game tracks whether legislating has begun on January 3, 2025. Certain edge cases would lead to the game thinking legislating hadn\'t begun and cause things to go .\n- Fixed State of the Union race condition that could allow for the same SOTU window to fire two times in a row.

0.15 Update: Staff!

Hiya!

Lets cut to the chase: we just pushed our 0.15 update, and as regular updates go, its a biggie.

First and foremost, 0.15 introduces staff to Political Arena. Staff are arguably the most invisibly vital part of politics and so theyre going to be among the most visibly vital parts of Political Arena.

Staff will eventually be deployed across all of the games systems legislative, campaign, and more. For the time being (until our next update), staffs main purpose is to bolster your stats. Specifically, each of your five staffers is responsible for one of your five stats. If a staffer role is left empty, youll suffer a penalty.

Staff Roles

• Chief of Staff Discipline

  [/*]

• Legislative Director Intelligence

  [/*]

• District Director Empathy

  [/*]

• Communications Director Charisma

  [/*]

• Scheduler Stamina

  [/*]

The single biggest challenge facing your staff is your limited budget. Members of Congress are allotted a relatively small budget to hire staff, so youll need to be strategic about where you spend your resources. Do you double down on your policy focus and prioritize a top-tier Legislative Director or pay up for a strong Communications Director to counter your comparatively low charisma?

The system is designed so that, if youd like, you can simply focus on your staffs core skill bonuses and fill positions as they become vacant. However, managing a team is about more than just hiring the person with the most impressive rsum.

If you want to optimize your staff management, youll need to pay closer attention to who youre hiring.

Staffers, like Politicians, have their own personalities and skills each of which can impact (for better or worse) how efficiently your office runs.

Skills

Staffers have the same five skills as Politicians, and each skill affects how they perform in your office. Staffers with low stamina will fatigue faster and need vacations more often; staffers with high intelligence will grow their skills more quickly and so on.

Cohesion

Cohesion represents how smoothly your office is running. The higher your Discipline and your Chief of Staffs Discipline the higher your offices cohesion. Newly hired staffers suffer temporary performance penalties while onboarding and will temporarily reduce overall cohesion.

Energy

Staffers wear out over time and will need to be sent on vacation periodically. As staffers become fatigued, their performance and by extension your stats will suffer.

Morale

Staffer morale is influenced by a variety of factors, including their energy levels, your politicians skills, influence, and personality. A staff with high morale will perform above their baseline effectiveness, while low morale can significantly hamper your office.

Changelog

Staff Management System (New)

• Hire and manage your congressional staff recruit a Chief of Staff, Legislative Director, District Director, Communications Director, and Scheduler to boost your effectiveness

  [/*]

• Staff skills and effectiveness each staffer has unique skills that provide bonuses to your performance

  [/*]

• Morale system keep your staff happy to maintain productivity; low morale can lead to resignations

  [/*]

• Energy and fatigue staff grow tired over time; fatigued staffers are less effective

  [/*]

• Vacation system send exhausted staffers on vacation to restore energy and morale

  [/*]

• Staff cohesion new hires temporarily reduce cohesion while they get up to speed

  [/*]

• Candidate hiring pool browse applicants at different salary levels; pools refresh every two weeks

  [/*]

• Staff events random staff-related events that require decisions with meaningful consequences

  [/*]

Game Log (New)

• Activity log track favors, grudges, and other important events

  [/*]

• Favor and grudge icons visual indicators for relationship changes

  [/*]

User Interface

• Improved window management better handling of multiple open windows

  [/*]

• Encyclopedia improvements smoother navigation and scroll fixes

  [/*]

• Alert system improvements the Escape key now properly closes alerts

  [/*]

Quality of Life

• Character creator improvements clearer skill point allocation feedback

  [/*]

• Bill drafting improvements smoother drafting experience

  [/*]

• Various performance fixes

  [/*]

Political Arena has been in Early Access for one month. Yes, it was a long gestation, and our newborn is keeping us up at night, but when we gaze upon its tangled web of ambitions, outsized personalities, moral ambiguities and shifting alliances, we know it was worth it.\n

[u]Positive Signs[/u]

Wishlists are greatly outpacing wishlist conversions, meaning theres large numbers of players well beyond our initial community who are interested in what were building.

No fewer than one-third of our players are from outside the United States, confirming our longstanding belief that U.S. politics like English football, American basketball, vikings and samurai is one of those nation-specific subjects with international appeal. We suspect that percentage will only grow as the games scope expands. Put another way, its wild how many people in Brazil are interested in what is currently a U.S. legislative cycle sim.

[u]Upcoming Updates[/u]

Were not quite ready to unveil our first major update 0.2 but were polishing it as we speak, and weve already begun work on 0.3.

A couple notes about whats to come:

• Our first major update is going to be a lot of fun and its dimensionality will only grow as Political Arena itself grows. That said, I think its subject might surprise people a little bit: its a prime example of how what matters in the world of politics doesnt always sync with what you see on the news.

  [/*]

• Our next few updates well, most of them, really will greatly increase Political Arenas \"gaminess. Right now, the game is really just a legislative cycle sim with some RPG flavor. However 0.2 and 0.3 will be centered around features that enhance and deepen the simulation in a way that incorporates engrossing game mechanics.

  [/*]

[u]Smaller updates[/u]

Our hope for smaller updates (0.21, 0.22, etc) is to include things like customization options, quality of life updates and even some slightly expanded game mechanics and/or events. And of course bug fixes.

[u]Merch[/u]

Weve ordered our Kickstarter physical rewards merchandise! Im personally partial to Goodboy McFluffleface modeled after my dog Charlie. Backers should be getting contacted soon about shipping addresses.

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/41345362/5e96a37e8a9b52fe0b5785d44ed0f5ee9e651db9.png\"][/img]

[u]Beta Testers[/u]

Though our public beta completed with the launch of Early Access, we are continuing our closed beta and are restructuring how updates will be delivered to testers. If youre a beta tester, well email you with instructions on how to gain access to our future beta versions.\n

Beta testing is currently closed, though well be sure to let you know if that changes!

Small fix introducing logic to sanitize save file names to ensure they\'re valid for both Windows and macOS. Players were reporting crashes due to save file names with invalid characters.

Gday! I just pushed our latest update.\n

[u]Gameplay updates[/u]

Ironman/Steam Achievements added.

Point tracking added to character creator. Cannot enable achievements going over point

allotment.

\nVote window post-vote recap now features a party breakdown

\nCommittee windows now show a breakdown of the issues under the committees jurisdiction.

Autosave system implemented.

Escape and enter functionality for alert windows

\n[u]Patches[/u]

Further improvements to vote window tracking to address vote discontinuity issues.

Major performance fixes to loading: times reduced by ~10x (if youre curious, every saved entity was scanning a thousands-long list of assembly definitions, rather than caching them for easier reference) .\n

[u]More on Achievements[/u]

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/41345362/0df46465eadc74fad75160f86d02d5d6e5e48b10.png\"][/img]

I love a dumb pun and also playing for the lulz so I am more than a little excited to have Steam Achievements enabled for Political Arena. We werent originally planning to add achievements this early, but our first major feature rollout will be a lot more interesting if you dont max out your politicians skills (more on that rollout in the days and weeks to come) . IMO, the only real way to encourage that behavior is through ironman and achievementsso, here we are!

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/41345362/25634df6dbd817a4afc5adde608fdbc56607bf83.png\"][/img]

\nThere are only a handful of achievements right now theyre more meant to signify the types of achievements you can expect going forward: a mix of straightforward firsts (write a bill, pass a bill, etc), specific game events (Joosing) andanarchy (cast the deciding vote against your own bill).

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/41345362/88b6b0a632dd16720badec225c61f74917aa5f13.png\"][/img]

What kind of achievements would you like to see? Let us know in the comments, in our Discord channel or on our socials!

Political Arena Unstable 0.12 Notes

- Ironman/Steam Achievements added

- Point tracking added to character creator. Cannot enable achievements going over point allotment.\n

- Committee windows now show a breakdown of the issues under the committees jurisdiction.\n

- Vote window post-vote recap now features a party breakdown\n

Further improvements to vote window tracking to address vote discontinuity issues.\n

- Major performance fixes to loading: times reduced by ~10x.\n

- Performance fixes to save/load system\n

- Autosave system implemented.

Political Arena creator Eliot Nelson here.

Its been a week since Political Arena launched into Early Access and I wanted to take a moment from fixing bugs and building out the next updates to say \"thank you\" and...wow.

Wow...Seriously, Wow

Were stunned by the level of interest and support for our simulated political universe. Given how quiet our launch was and the very early state of the game, we were not expecting this level of interest.

I can\'t tell you how much this means to me and I promise to work as hard as I can to reward your early investment in our vision with a genre-defining game about the world\'s most important subject.

Political Sim Fest

Steams Political Sim Fest launched yesterday. Of the more than 600 games participating in the promotion, were the 10th most popular as of this post going live.

Whats arguably mostremarkable is that every game ahead of us is far more built out and established. Moreover, while theres a ton of fun stuff to do in Political Arena, it is very much in its least sexy state Legislative cycle simulator for a single term of Congress doesnt necessarily scream curb value. For decades I dreamed of a video game that captured the scope, depth and feel of U.S. politics on the ground -- it seems like I wasn\'t the only one.

Thank You

To all of you who\'ve put your faith in this game so early, we promise we\'ll work as hard as we can to reward your commitment with a game that will only grow more fun, immersive and community driven.

Having weird vote issues? Give this a try.

To switch to the unstable branch, right click on Political Arena in your Steam library, select \"Betas\" and choose \"unstable\" from the dropdown. No password required.

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/41345362/d9419820af9a5f47a741806ba32aa55311b89aec.png\"][/img]

• Updated tracking of UI votes and UI vote queue. Previously a shared \"CurrentVote\" reference may have been improperly transitioned across votes, leading to tracking issues and passed votes being listed as failed, etc.

  [/*]

• Fixed Event Window issue. The game\'s event queue was being dequeued twice when closing the vote window, potentially leading to race conditions

  [/*]

• Capped the number of AI-generated votes per week. Committees and chambers now For most votes, the AI now only schedules them for AFTER their body\'s last vote on the calendar.

  [list]

• Quality of life: too many votes can get repetitive.

  [/*]

• With too many votes, the value of getting your bill a vote loses its cache / no reason to spend PC to get a vote. \n

  [/*]

[u]PROBLEM SOLVERS CAUCUS....ACTIVATE[/u]

Created an unstable branch for people to try out experimental fixes and features. To access it, right click Political Arena in your library, bring up the properties window, go to betas and select unstable. No password required. Currently there is nothing there as of this update going live. Will likely be mostly used to see if fixes work for players having issues.

The bug form now accepts feedback and suggestions. Submissions are fed directly into the devs management software and Slack, so they will be seen!

Some votes werent being registered as the player cast them, owing to improper referencing of the players pre-calculated automated vote.

Improved how the vote window interacts with the games underlying architecture. Some players were having bizarre vote results (failing 80-20 in the Senate with the filibuster at 60, etc). This likely resulted in the system processing a previous vote while the ui was handling a new one.

\nVotes will be less clustered. NPC schedulers will now (usually) only schedule votes for after the last scheduled vote in their calendar.

Tightened senate vote result logic in the vote window. In some situations a bill would be said to be filibustered once it got to 41 nay votes (on default settings) but that prevented it from being declared outright rejected with 51+votes.

Tightened up how the game manages window states. Some players were unable to reopen certain windows and some windows werent closing. All window state logic is now funneled through a single handler.

You can no longer get around the max/min number of Republicans/Democrats by sliding above or below the handles in the game settings section.

Political Arena has launched in Early Access!

Our first release is all about the people, power and politics that drive Congress and the legislative process. Play as any senator or representative for a term of Congress and navigate a world of backroom dealing, down-to-the-wire votes, White House power jockeying and more.

If youve purchased a copy, please consider giving us a positive review. Wed never expect mindless enthusiasm, but even if you think the game shows promise and want to say so, itd mean a lot.

Weve also launched [u]the first[/u] in a series of videos detailing Political Arenas features. The first video, appropriately enough, takes a look at [u]the politicians of Political Arena[/u] .

Already the game is filled with countless things to do, and no two playthroughs are remotely the same\n

try to legislate as an aisle-crossing maverick when your majority leader is hyperpartisan and vengeful

strategically decide where to allocate your limited staff budget and reap the skill boosts that a good staffer brings (or the penalties that a bad one does)...

see what happens with no filibuster

engage in strategic brinksmanship and try to wring every last concession out of the other party during budget negotiations before the government shuts down. And if the government shuts down? Try to cut the best deal you can before public opinion turns against you. Just dont say anything dumb in the press.

If youre interested in supporting Political Arenas continued development, please consider giving it

This has been a long time coming. Many of you with good reason thought the game was dead. After our developer had to part ways with us several years back, we were forced to consolodate our focus into development, leaving us very little time for audience work.

We intend to grow Political Arena into a fully simulated political world, complete with legislating, campaigning, special interests, the press and more. Check out our roadmap on the store page for more info.

As both a journalist and gamer, I couldnt be more excited to begin this next part of the Poltiical Arena journey and to have you along for it.

If you wish to follow Political Arenas ongoing development, follow us on social media ([u]Discord[/u] | [u]X/Twitter[/u] | [u]Instagram[/u] | [u]Bluesky[/u] | [u]YouTube[/u] ).

\nOnward!

~Eliot\n

Politicos

Political Arena will be enteringhttps://store.steampowered.com/app/1670920/Political_Arena/\"" style="color:#bb86fc;text-decoration:none;"> [u]Steam Early Access[/u] on September 2nd!!!

In the meantime, [u]https://store.steampowered.com/app/1670920/Political_Arena/\"" style="color:#bb86fc;text-decoration:none;">Wishlist us on Steam [/u], watch our release trailer and subscribe to our socials ([u]Discord [/u] | [u]X/Twitter [/u] | [u]Instagram [/u] | [u]Bluesky [/u] | [u]YouTube [/u])!

What\'s in Early Access?

Our first Early Access release is all about the people, power and politics that drive Congress and the legislative process.

Customize your own Representative or Senator and navigate a vibrant, drama-filled -- sometimes hilarious, sometimes maddening but always engrossing -- Washington.

Already the game is filled with countless things to do, and no two playthroughs are remotely the same

try to legislate as an aisle-crossing maverick when your majority leader is hyperpartisan and vengeful.

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/41345362/f5356373aadeca2965cc98d7d3e806a3cc0f1091.gif\"][/img]

strategically decide where allocate your limited staff budget and reap the skill boosts that a good staffer brings (or the penalties that a bad one does).

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/41345362/424efadb8d84df59fd3d0f6993c9bc6dbb282b25.gif\"][/img]

see what happens with no filibuster.

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/41345362/43b0c0b9771277b7f5587ba92a4d3d2b31ec75cd.gif\"][/img]

engage in strategic brinksmanship and try to wring every last concession out of the other party during budget negotiations before the government shuts down. And if the government shuts down? Try to cut the best deal you can before public opinion turns against you. Just dont say anything dumb in the press.

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/41345362/f637d65c9d4f8dd20766bdf107452ade80fd5a78.png\"][/img]

Its up to you!

Were eternally grateful for your support and patience: we couldnt have gotten here without you.

Onward!

Eliot

Happy 2024, everyone! We just released our second beta update and are heartened by our testers excited and constructive feedback.

Our current development focus continues to be on implementing legislative mechanics and interfaces. Specifically, were fine-tuning the budget process, which will inform the rest of our legislative architecture the federal budget process is the one bit of legislating that Congress must undertake in any given year (in theory). The federal budget may not spring to mind when you think of politics more exciting bits, but at the ground level -- where Political Arena lives -- its rife with drama. It incorporates many of Political Arenas most exciting and immersive features and mechanics: issues and policy, special interests, the media, negotiations, personalities and their impact on AI behavior, and more.


On that note, were altering our feature roadmap. We had originally planned for our first Early Access release to be a mile long and an inch deep by featuring a little bit of everything that is, lightly simulated campaigning and legislating. Instead, weve decided to have early versions focus solely on legislating. Our reasoning is twofold:

1. The legislative process hasnt been thoroughly developed in video games, and we think its important to let that part cook for longer so we can get more player feedback.

2. Ultimately, politics boils down to legislating and policy. Special interests typically dont choose their agenda based on politicians, they choose their politicians based on agendas. This is also how Political Arenas underlying architecture is structured, so by building out legislative mechanics first, well be able to more seamlessly and quickly produce and scale everything else.

More soon!

First, an apology. Weve been lousy about our updates. Were a small team and our chief goal is to get you Political Arena ASAP so you start enjoying this game. The long hours are paying off: We're excited to announce that were beginning beta testing!


Earlier today we shared the first preview of Political Arena with our several hundred beta testers. It's a brief preview, as our goal is to get some initial feedback on the games scope, tone and direction and to better organize our feature roadmap. The feedback thus far has been amazing. Not only are our testers jazzed by what they're seeing -- and clearly they share our vision of what the game can be --but they're offering really constructive feedback and Political Arena will be much better for it.

We took a real body blow last year when two developers left our production partner for new opportunities. However we reorganized and are making better time than ever. Were even growing: We recently welcomed Danny Aguilar , a talented UI/UX artist and designer, to the Political Arena team. Danny is tasked with making Political Arena real and fun. You could say hes, well you could say hes putting the, um sauce back in sausage making?

sorry.


As always, we want to encourage you to join our Discord . These updates require more forethought and planning, and therefore cannot be as frequent while we are in go-go-go development mode. But Discord is casual enough to allow me to pop in and chat about Political Arenas development and what my dog is up to. With a robust community of over 500 members, our Discord server is a great place to learn more about the game and chat politics.

Until next time!

-Eliot

We've had some great conversations on Discord with the Political Arena community the past few months, providing production updates, answering Qs about the game, talking politics and what games we're playing.

We're on Discord, and you should be, too! Click here to join the Political Arena conversation .

We made the paper of record!

[T]hink SimCity meets The Oregon Trail with a little Grand Theft Auto thrown in...

...Nelson wants to educate the masses about the ins and outs of how their government really works. And entertain them, too...

...a scrappy team of game designers, marketers and grizzled industry veterans. They puzzled through how the gameplay should work, poring over storyboards and seeking input from hard-core political junkies and strategy-game fans.

With Political Arena's development underway, we're pleased to present to you our first development diary. We'll be releasing these regularly to update you on our production and to highlight game features.

[h2]If you haven't already, please wishlist us on Steam. [/h2]

Politics is the accumulation and exercise of power, and politicians amass power in a multitude of ways: Sometimes its luring canvassers to your campaign with free Dominos; sometimes its begging a regional car dealership magnate for money in their living room; and other times its giving the speakers nephew an internship in your office because the kid lives in your district.

Political Arena is a game about American power, so its only appropriate that for our inaugural dev diary, we discuss

*screams in Nina Simone*

Specifically, were going to provide a brief overview of how power is represented in Political Arena. It all boils down to three currencies: Money, Political Capital and Fame. How much a player focuses on each currency will depend on their own goals and circumstances. All three currencies play off one another, and no playthrough will have the player completely ignoring any single one.

MONEY

POLITICAL CAPITAL

FAME

One Last Thing...

When we set out to make Political Arena, we knew there would be a lot of interest in the first truly comprehensive and authentic political sim, however we were blown away by just how much excitement there has been.

Most amazingly, we were highlighted on NPRs national flagship program, All Things Considered . You can also listen to the segment that aired .

How the game unfolds from there is up to the player and of course, the voters that make up the game's simulated political world. But players don't need to be top-tier gamers or political junkies to dive right in. Now, if you want to dive in and be a sort of Machiavellian operator and be a Nancy Pelosi or Mitch McConnell, you absolutely can,[game creator Eliot Nelson] said. But if you're not familiar with politics, if you're not familiar video games, the game will very much hold your hand.

Political Arena creator Eliot Nelson appeared on Cheddar to discuss the game .

MarketWatch called us a political version of SimCity.
Having politicos help craft the process does have its advantages, though. Theres a knowledge of the playbook that is sometimes used to get out of scandals. And there are plenty of those. The games artificial intelligence forces the player to deal with unexpected road blocks. For example, a political ally has said something stupid; how do you react? The game offers a realm of possibilities for someone wanting to forge a traditional path, re-run old campaigns or go completely outside-the-box.

Political Arena earned the something worthy of your attention spot in Axios highly curated gaming newsletter (not bad considering we were listed above news about Animal Crossing!).

We also nabbed a small shoutout in Playbook , Washington's most read email tips sheet.

Technically, everything that happens in Political Arena is fake news, but the buzz surrounding the game has been anything but. We were absolutely bowled over by the level of excitement surrounding our public unveiling of this first-ever top-to-bottom political sandbox. Heres our first look back at some of the

The Washington Post took a close look at Political Arena:

As you climb up the political ladder, there will be lobbyists knocking on your door, pundits to win over and business leaders to appease while you pass legislation or campaign for your next elected office.

In a video game market saturated by zombies, death matches and post-apocalyptic hell-scapes, it would be a tall order to offer something more cut-throat. Enter Political Arena, where, rather than chasing kill streaks and loot boxes (although, given the subject, those features might arrive in later updates), users are immersed into the world of US politics

President Biden may be ordering copies for the White House.

Players can schedule media appearances, wheel and deal with political power brokers, and plot their career paths however they choose. From lionhearted liberals to maverick conservatives to bombastic radicals, the game promises a unique experience for every player based on their own in-universe choices...theres no question that the mystique and, yes, circus-like atmosphere of American politics has created a very real audience primed for this type of entertainment.

If the problem with US politics is that people treat it like a game, could the answer beturning US politics into an actual game? Thats the theory behind Political Arena, a strategy video game under development by former HuffPost reporter Eliot Nelson, which he hopes will take that impulse to treat it like a game to try and beat the other side, and actually turn into something constructive. He pauses. We hope.