President Elect - a 1981 Apple II Simulation Game
President Elect is a 1981 game written by Nelson Hernandez Sr and published by SSI. The game allows one or two players to play as various historical or fictional presidential candidates in any year from 1960 to 1984. By default the game used historical values to determine the state of the electorate (for example, the inflation and unemployment rates, or whether the US was at peace or war), but the player could also create their own scenario and simulate it. Hernandez was only 24 when he wrote President Elect, and he went on to write a sequel in 1987, President Elect ’88. This game sold 45,000 units, which in 1988 was considered pretty good sales for a computer game. Hernandez eventually left software behind, going on to become a financial analyst. The game has a lot of the famous names from politics from that era built-in, with names ranging from Jesse Helms to Geraldine Ferraro, and there are more in the 1988 edition of the game. The game was frustratingly accurate in the 1980s, correctly predicting Reagan’s landslide victory in 1984. In the game, the incumbent has a painfully large advantage, and even a wrecked economy and an incompetent incumbent usually isn’t enough to lose them the election. I spent many hours in 1984 trying to come up with some scenario where the US would recover from Reaganism, but I was never able to find one. In the manual for the 1988 edition, Hernandez notes that his game “predicted a smashing Reagan landslide in 1984, almost any way you stacked the deck again him” The campaign begins at Labor Day of election year, and runs week by week. Each week you decide how much your campaign will spend on national ad campaigns, regional campaigns, and individual state campaigns. You’ll also decide which states to visit and how often; schedule too many stops, and your candidate will become fatigued. The game also simulates debates, asking your candidates questions based on topics of political interest in 1980, and asking you as the player to allocate your candidate’s time between explaining your position, criticizing your opponent, playing for time, and so on. One detail that I love is that the current color symbolism of the two major American parties - blue for Democrat and red for Republican - really only stabilized in the US in the 2000 election. President elect uses the opposite scheme, which looks funny to us nowadays, with red representing the democrats. Is the game worth playing today? Perhaps not - It’s really more an Excel spreadsheet with an electoral map than a proper game. If you want to try it out, I do suggest the 1988 edition is a better place to start, as it has a bit more graphical polish and is generally faster-moving. I’d say a much better use of your time would be instead of playing this game, make sure you’re registered to vote, and help vote the US out of the current endless whirling nightmare of incompetence and racism we’re currently mired in. Thanks for watching!
President Elect is a 1981 game written by Nelson Hernandez Sr and published by SSI. The game allows one or two players to play as various historical or fictional presidential candidates in any year from 1960 to 1984. By default the game used historical values to determine the state of the electorate (for example, the inflation and unemployment rates, or whether the US was at peace or war), but the player could also create their own scenario and simulate it. Hernandez was only 24 when he wrote President Elect, and he went on to write a sequel in 1987, President Elect ’88. This game sold 45,000 units, which in 1988 was considered pretty good sales for a computer game. Hernandez eventually left software behind, going on to become a financial analyst. The game has a lot of the famous names from politics from that era built-in, with names ranging from Jesse Helms to Geraldine Ferraro, and there are more in the 1988 edition of the game. The game was frustratingly accurate in the 1980s, correctly predicting Reagan’s landslide victory in 1984. In the game, the incumbent has a painfully large advantage, and even a wrecked economy and an incompetent incumbent usually isn’t enough to lose them the election. I spent many hours in 1984 trying to come up with some scenario where the US would recover from Reaganism, but I was never able to find one. In the manual for the 1988 edition, Hernandez notes that his game “predicted a smashing Reagan landslide in 1984, almost any way you stacked the deck again him” The campaign begins at Labor Day of election year, and runs week by week. Each week you decide how much your campaign will spend on national ad campaigns, regional campaigns, and individual state campaigns. You’ll also decide which states to visit and how often; schedule too many stops, and your candidate will become fatigued. The game also simulates debates, asking your candidates questions based on topics of political interest in 1980, and asking you as the player to allocate your candidate’s time between explaining your position, criticizing your opponent, playing for time, and so on. One detail that I love is that the current color symbolism of the two major American parties - blue for Democrat and red for Republican - really only stabilized in the US in the 2000 election. President elect uses the opposite scheme, which looks funny to us nowadays, with red representing the democrats. Is the game worth playing today? Perhaps not - It’s really more an Excel spreadsheet with an electoral map than a proper game. If you want to try it out, I do suggest the 1988 edition is a better place to start, as it has a bit more graphical polish and is generally faster-moving. I’d say a much better use of your time would be instead of playing this game, make sure you’re registered to vote, and help vote the US out of the current endless whirling nightmare of incompetence and racism we’re currently mired in. Thanks for watching!