BALLOT BOX
Run for council. Survive the scandals. Win the country.
What it is
A life simulator about a political career. You are twenty-two, you have strong opinions, and you are handing out leaflets in the rain. Forty years later you could be Prime Minister, or still on the council arguing about a pothole. One screen, a feed of what happened, and one button. A whole career takes about fifteen minutes.
You join one of three parties (Lantern, Compass or Oak) and climb the ladder: councillor, mayor, Member of Parliament, minister, party leader, Prime Minister. Every rung is an election you can lose.
Corran Homes wants forty flats on the old bus depot. Their man at the ward fete mentions they’d like to help with your re-election leaflets, and slides an envelope of $1,500 across the tombola table.
- Take the $1,500
- Refuse it and log it
- Demand twelve affordable flats
— one event, of more than three hundred
How it works
- Election night. Polls in the run-up, a campaign you shape, then a count you watch come in. Every gamble shows its odds before you take it, and they are honest.
- Parliament votes. Bills pass or fail MP by MP. Put it to a vote, water it down to bring the rebels back, or shelve it before the marginals notice.
- Scandals. The envelope you took in your first term can come back in your fourth. Apologise, spin it, or ride it out.
- A real model, told as prose. Five voter groups, polls that can be wrong, seats that swing. You read your approval in how people treat you; the numbers come out at the end.
- Sixteen endings, from Statesman to Never elected. Every run has a seed, so you can hand somebody the exact career you just played.
A fictional country
The country in Ballot Box is invented, and so is everything in it: the parties, the cities, the politicians, the newspapers. No real politician, party, country or election appears in the game, and none is referenced. Any resemblance to a real person or party is unintended. The game takes no side in any real election and is not affiliated with any government or political organisation.
What it does not do
No ads. No in-app purchases. No timers or energy. No accounts, no analytics, no tracking, and no networking code at all — it works in aeroplane mode. Your career is one small file on your own phone. See the privacy policy, which is short because there is nothing to describe.
Get it
Coming to iPhone first, with Android to follow. Write to vibalyze@zohomail.eu if you want to be on the TestFlight.