Democracy 2 first screens

[cliffski]

I'm currently working on a sequel to my first big successful game -> Democracy (www.democracygame.com)
Democracy 2 will be in the same spirit as the original. It's a complex simulation game where you are the elected leader of a country, and you have to manage the day to day aspects of government such as setting taxes, passing laws, and generally keeping enough of the voters happy to re-elect you next time. The game continues as long as you can carry on winning over the electorate.

In the original game, the countries you played were all rough approximations of real countries. In Democracy 2, you will be playing in a theoretical 'virtual country', and you will have the option to tweak a lot of the settings at the game start to play the country you want, such as a mainly religious, conservative country with huge wealth, or a poverty stricken country in huge debt etc.

There is no release date yet, its' done when it's done.
first screens:

http://www.positech.co.uk/democracy2/marketing/devscreen1.jpg
http://www.positech.co.uk/democracy2/marketing/devscreen2.jpg
http://www.positech.co.uk/democracy2/marketing/devscreen3.jpg

[MacMan45]

I really did like Democracy, so If you had Democracy 2 complete and ready to sell, what features do you think would be in it to entice me?

What big features are you planning, or is more of Democracy 1 with interesting scenarios to build a good nation from?

[cliffski]

Firstly it will look way nicer. Secondly, there will be government ministers, who watch over each department. they have certain levels of experience, competence and loyalty, plus popularity, so there is a slight people-management aspect to the game that is new.
Also, some GUI changes mean I can include a more complex core simulation, and at the really low-level code side of things, the game is much more accurate and realistic, because you no longer have a voter who is a farmer a motorist and a patriot. He will be 88% a farmer, 54.3% a motorist, and 22.67% a patriot. In other words, you have real hardcore members of groups, and then 'borderline' members of groups. This changes the game a lot, because you can woo the 'casual drinkers' or the 'slightly liberal voters', whilst accepting that the real hardcore in each group will stick to their guns.

Plus there is all sorts of new GUI stuff planned to give you a more accurate look at the inner workings of the game.

[datxcod]

Looks great, are you using your own GUI system ? . I don't know but I have the feeling that coding a game like democracy would be a nightmare, it looks simple on the surface but I suspect that there's enough AI code to make someone go nuts. :)

[cliffski]

you would be correct in these assumptions :D

[Agent 4125]

Will we be able to enact the death penalty for software piracy? ;)

[MrPhil]

Looking good! I liked playing democracy. What I'd like to see is more policies or maybe 'options' within policies to enact. Several games I played got to the point where I had all the policies wanted and nothing left to do :(

I'm amazed at your productivity level! How you do you focus on your priorities so well!

[vjvj]

Cool! I purchased Democracy 1 and liked it a lot; looking forward to the sequel.

[cliffski]

I'm amazed at your productivity level! How you do you focus on your priorities so well!

Actually I'm pretty lazy and easily distracted, but my library and tools are good, so when I do get around to coding, I get lots done pretty quickly.

[MrPhil]

Actually I'm pretty lazy and easily distracted, but my library and tools are good, so when I do get around to coding, I get lots done pretty quickly.

Heh heh, I need a better library and tools then!

[andrew]

Have you thought of doing a "UK -> US" port?

Certain concepts in there like "Trade unionist", "Motorist", and "Minister" either don't make sense or sound strange to an American audience.... you could convert GBP to USD, etc etc

- andrew

[cliffski]

Because so many Americans got confused by the '£' in Kudos, I will have to have a button in Democracy 2 that you hit if you are American, and it will change everything to be US-centric.