Hello. I'm Tayya. I'm 19, a Swede and a resident of Daily Kos Elections.
Like many of my peers, I am a gamer. However, I do not play World of Warcraft, Call of Duty or most other AAA titles, with a few exceptions. Instead, I am dedicated to President Forever, an accurate, nerdy, flexible and fun election simulator game, and its offshoots. President Forever 2016 is the latest in the series, its website being found at http://270soft.com. The game is updated regularly (currently paused to focus on the Australian game up to the Aussie elections this September) and includes a scenario editor.
So what is a diary about a game doing on DKE? Am I doing commercials? No. I am not in any way working for or affiliated with 270soft. I'm just trying to showcase some work that I'm proud of and that you guys might be interested in, find ideas and inspiration, and perhaps even start a small community around it all. I'll explain more beyond the squiggle...
It all started on the alternatehistory.com forums. Those are how I found Daily Kos Elections, via US Election Atlas, as well as where I began to explore my election nerdiness. I don't remember the details, but that is also where I found and learned to enjoy President Forever (PF for short), eventually buying the scenario editor for the older game, the 2008 version (PF2008 for short), which wasn't included like it is in the 2016 version (PF2016 for short).
A couple of scenarios are included in both of the releases, but the most fun is found when you have access to a large variety of scenarios. For the old version I have most of the Presidential elections since 1968, some Gubernatorial elections, fictional elections for the EU and the UK, simulations of Austria and the Netherlands, fictional future and what-if scenarios and more... the boundaries are almost limitless (except for sticking to an Electoral College system).
Unfortunately, most fan-made scenarios were and are unpolished, which severely hurt how much I could enjoy them. There were spelling mistakes, outdated issue positions, unrealistic percentages and pixelated candidate pictures. Quickly learning the editor, I started working on a few scenarios, the one I published (and a relatively successful one at that!) being a fictional 1996 scenario for PF2008 with Ross Perot as the incumbent, based of a timeline written by author MaskedPickle on the Alternate History forums.
Candidate selection for A Giant Sucking Sound, featuring the Democratic frontrunners.
Now, with the 2016 edition released, the amount of scenarios available on the new format is unfortunately very low. This is partly because the editor is not yet finished, being unable to edit the map as well as scripted events. I released the first user-made scenario, the special election for South Carolina's 1st District this year, and a few more have come since then including my soon-to-be-updated President 2000 conversion/update from the 2008 platform. (No more self-promotion this time, promise.) But more is possible to do with the tool.
Democratic primaries, A Giant Sucking Sound scenario, featuring Evan Bayh as the player.
We at Daily Kos Elections are united in our nerdiness when it comes to elections. Therefore, I turn to you as a possible forum for discussion, feedback and ideas, hopefully stimulating more of us to pour creativity into this veritable electionista Christmas.
I'm making this diary as a test, to see how many would be interested in a place at this site for the aforementioned matter. I won't waste more space if no one bothers, obviously, but no one can succeed if they don't ever try.
Feel free to share your best results, your scenario ideas, as well as any and all questions that you might be having. Included is a poll for some scenario ideas that I've been having and that I'm considering working on.
Thanks for bothering and best regards!