STATESMANStatesman - A Political Life
Start on the bus. End in the motorcade, or in a cell.
You start with nothing: no office, no money, no car. Forty years later you might be President. You might be in prison. You might be dead, with your daughter inheriting your name and every enemy you ever made.
Activist → councillor → mayor → MP → minister → Vice-President → President
Every minister in this game has a memo they'd rather the President never read. Today, one of them is yours.
Most political games hand you the country on day one. This one makes you earn every desk on the way up, and every car.
The front page
A whole political life, one week at a time.
Each week you plan a diary of 21 blocks: casework, campaigning, meetings, a day job while you still need one. Then the week ends, and the country answers. Decisions land on your desk. The papers print what you did. People you crossed remember it.
Every rung of the ladder is a different job, with its own rules, its own enemies and its own ways to fall. A councillor tenders ward projects. A mayor runs a city of some 300 public buildings with a budget that carries its deficits into next year. A minister fights Cabinet for a bill. A President chooses the front row at the Independence Day parade, and the whole country reads it.
Nothing is scripted to happen to you. The game works out 34 pressures every week from your own record, and when trouble arrives, it tells you why. Then it is your move.
The ladder
Every rung is a different game.
Start as an activist with a cause and a phone. Each step up changes what you do all week, who you answer to, and what can bring you down.
The councillor
The job is part-time, so you keep your day job. You get a ward fund and 62 kinds of project to spend it on.
You also choose who gets each contract: the best bid, your cousin's firm, or a ghost project that never breaks ground. Whatever you choose, the auditor comes once a year.
The mayor
To win the mayoralty you work the whip count, colleague by colleague. Each one wants something: a portfolio, a committee chair, a borehole in their ward, cash. Then the vote is a secret ballot, and people lie.
You win, and you get the mayoral residence, a car, a driver and a security detail. You have four months to keep every promise, or the no-confidence motion writes itself.
The MP
The whips keep a book on you. Every rebellion is a black mark, and enough of them cost you the whip.
Your constituency fund pays for projects, and the voters compare it with the MP next door. Ask a hard question at Question Time and watch a weak minister drown.
The minister
You get a ministry with three targets, a budget, a permanent secretary who has outlasted four ministers, and four lobbies that act if you ignore them: the union, the suppliers, the church and traditional leaders, and the donors. You also get a driver at the door, and you give up your paid board seats.
- Cabinet buries your memo. Accept it, ask to see the President privately, or leak it.
- Cabinet rules against you. Defend the decision in public, resign on principle, or brief against it off the record, and hand someone a secret.
- Your bill reaches second reading. Make the technical case, speak to the country, or take the fight to the opposition.
- The whips' count comes up three short. Buy the waverers' regions, meet your own rebels halfway, or pull the bill.
- You skip Parliament with a ministerial order. It takes effect the same day. Six weeks later, the people who lost by it take you to the High Court.
- Word comes a week early: the reshuffle is coming. Ask for a meeting at State House, brief the papers on your record, or keep your head down and hope.
The Vice-President
An official residence, an armoured motorcade, your own protection unit. You can't be sacked, and that's the problem: the President hears about every regional tour.
The race for the top
About 2,400 delegates at congress. Kingmakers name their price. Envelopes work, and they're a crime. Then a running mate, a runoff and the Constitutional Court.
The President
The red box, five gauges and the blocs that keep you in power: the army, the security chiefs, the party, Parliament. Crises play out one day at a time.
Out of office
A pension, and a successor who decides how to treat you. Or the prison years. Or an heir who takes up your name and your unfinished business.
The trappings of power
The motorcade comes with a receipt.
Office gives you things. The game counts every one of them, and so does everyone watching.
State House
The state pays your household in full. Run its budget by the rules, or lavishly. Lavish leaves a trail.
The Presidential Guard
A regiment, a motorcade, outriders. Accept it, scale it down, or refuse it and be easier to reach.
The discretionary fund
Two million a year. Donate it, give it to the party, or take it. Taking it is theft. It's right there.
Your garage
Fifteen models, from a used saloon to an armoured convoy. Opponents can burn them. Hijackers can take them.
Your property
Thirty-one kinds of home, plot, farm and business. Offshore investments stay hidden, and that makes them a secret.
Your licences
A television station, a charter airline, a mining claim. Apply properly, go through a minister, or pay a "fee".
Exposure · 82
You live well above what people expect of someone in your position, and people talk.
Six weeks in arrears and the bank repossesses. A big gap between salary and lifestyle brings an unexplained wealth order. And when you leave office, the residence, the guards and the car go with it.
Cause and effect
Everything that happens to you, you caused.
The game recalculates 34 pressures every week, from ward neglect and broken promises to grudges and exposure. When trouble arrives, the card tells you why.
People remember too. Keep a promise and a rival might become an ally. Break one and they'll bring it up at congress, when you need their vote.
A protest outside your office
You knew, and you did nothing. Now there's a crowd at the door and a reporter from The Clarion.
Screenshots
From the bus to State House.
Twenty moments from real careers, in order. Click any of them for the full size.
Free demo
Play your first five years, free.
Start from nothing and play one full electoral cycle: about six years of a political life, ending when the voters give their verdict on your first term.
- The full game's systems, from the first plan to the second general election
- Stand for the council, run for mayor, build a machine or a scandal
- Export your career at the end, and carry on from the same week in the full game
- A free download for Windows, from itch.io
Who this is for
The patient and the curious.
You've read The Power Broker twice. You think House of Cards was too tidy. You want to know what it really costs to keep the motorcade.
Who this isn't for
Anyone in a hurry.
Anyone who wants to win in an afternoon.
Questions
Before you stand.
Where can I get Statesman - A Political Life?
On itch.io. The full game is $9.99, or pay more if you like, and the demo is free. Go to the itch.io page.
What platforms is it on?
Windows, as a download from itch.io. The free demo is a Windows download too.
Do I need to be online?
No. Once you have it, the game runs offline, with no account and no server. Your careers are saved on your own machine, and you can export them to a file.
Is the country real?
No. Every country, every character and every career is generated from a seed. Share a seed and a friend gets the exact same country. You can play the Liberation Republic, or the Commonwealth Republic with English-style names.
How long is a career?
Long, if you survive. A full career from activist upward can run for decades of game time, and no two run the same way. When you die, you can carry on as your heir.
Can I keep my demo career?
Yes. Export it from the demo's last screen, import it into the full game, and carry on from the same week with everything you built and everyone you crossed.
Is the game finished?
Statesman is in alpha and still growing. The whole ladder, from activist to President and beyond, is playable now.
Statesman - A Political Life