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StateOS: The Political Sandbox

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StateOS: The Political Sandbox

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The political sandbox where every world is generated and each unique career creates a different story. Run for office several countries, win voters door by door, form governments and pass laws while parties split and regions realign. Or build your own world in the scenario editor.

$9.99

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Post Launch 0.3 Fixes and Changes

Nov 12

Campaigns and Difficulty

Primary rivals campaign properly. Rivals in a party primary used to plan like long shots and all worked the same few counties. They now campaign as real contenders and move on from places they've worn out.
Rivals can campaign across the whole district, as you can. Interviews across a whole district were worth far too much, and are now sized to the voters actually on the ballot.
Rival candidates now can do more actions depending on the difficulty, with hardest having the most actions available.
Presidential primaries. Rivals give national interviews too, and start working Super Tuesday states weeks ahead instead of only the next state to vote.
Easy rivals start a little stronger, but they still gain more slowly and Easy still has no worn places.
Automatic hours no longer repeat the same places week after week.
Fixed the voter counts could not be read message that blanked the standings, the map and the voter groups after a primary night. It happened when the other parties' nominees joined your ballot, and it also let a player sit at 99% of the vote. Nominees who join the ballot now start with their voters straight away.

Advertising

A state used to be one huge market, so a House race paid for statewide TV that reached mostly people outside the district. Saves in progress are redrawn at the next day, and running ads move to the new markets.
Digital, mail and print were counted as if they covered the whole market, so a rival spending less could hold most of the air. The share and the map colors now follow what each campaign spends on the race's voters, and the dollar figures count only that money.
The New ad money step shows real numbers. Its points and share now come from the same forecast as the review step, so digital and mail read correctly before you commit.

Election Night

Primaries are called during the night. A state's primary is called once a candidate's lead is safe, the way general-election states are, instead of waiting for 100% of the vote.
Delegates show as leading until they're settled. The results bar no longer counts delegates as won while the votes are still coming in.
Super Tuesday states report properly. Each state starts counting when its polls close, so the East comes in first and California later. Before, every state finished at exactly 02:00.
Called places on the 2D map no longer show as still counting.
A county called early keeps its % reporting next to Declared until it is fully counted.
Runoffs keep the first round's voters. A first-round leader could fall from 40% to 4% in the runoff.
Fixed a minor-party nominee polling 100% in the general when they reached the ballot before the major nominees.
Bundestag election night opens much faster, and no longer fails with "Election night could not open" on slower machines.

Fixes

Fixed a game that stops advancing with close fiscal period: CHECK constraint failed after drafting next year's budget and then leaving office. Saves already stuck will advance again.
U.S. place names are capitalized. Hamilton township is now Hamilton Township, and the same goes for boroughs, villages and cities.
The map on the race and headquarters setup pages no longer shows election-night results when you hover a place. It shows the place and its population.
Australia:
- You can stand for the Senate and for your state's Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council.
- Hare-Clark and Senate counts give seats in line with the vote. Parties now stand enough candidates, and preferences follow how close parties' views are.
- Seats are called during the night as they're counted, not all at once at the end.
- Losing preselection no longer leaves the advance button stuck on a filing day you can't use.
France:
- You can hire any role during a campaign, and replace someone in a full role.
- Travel inside one town takes half an hour, not 3 hours.

Governing

Question time: winning your exchanges raises your approval, in opposition too. Opposition members are no longer judged on the government's record.
Governors, premiers and state legislators are judged on their own state's record, not the national government's.
Political capital only counts in a legislature where you hold office. A council leader can no longer swing a vote in Parliament.
Minimum wage: a very high minimum wage now costs jobs and growth, and each country's slider has a sensible maximum.
A Councilor's Bills screen now says why there's no Write a bill button.

StateOS: The Political Sandbox

Game looks off

my games UI and color grading looks different from the screen shots posted on the official game page. idk if its just my PC but any help would be much appreciated.

basilmasket

1 hour ago

General Discussions

0.3 Is Released

Nov 8

0.3 Released!

I am slightly late to this. I've been busy working on and improving 0.3 which has been in development since August.

I've made approximately 30 updates to 0.3 since November 3rd. Making sure everything is working well enough for release. I wouldn't want everyone to find a broken, buggy, game on launch. I've worked my hardest to make sure within the time I had that launch will be the best it can be.

Keep in mind that it is an early access release, including at a lower price than the final, eventual price of 24.99$. However, the game won't release until the content, and the gameplay experience have been improved to a satisfactory amount.

The game is far from complete, or done, and I expect a lot of extra work ahead.

0.3 is the biggest update StateOS has had. It brings five new playable countries and six experimental ones, a rebuilt election campaign, a new election night, deeper government, and a new interface across the whole game. There's also a tutorial for your first game.

I will soon begin working on 0.4, although probably not much at first. It may be a while. I plan to release 0.4 on March 19th. I will be splitting my time between improving 0.3, based on feedback while also working on 0.4 slowly. A beta as usual will come for 0.4 and I will announce more details when I get there.

New countries

0.2 had the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany. 0.3 adds five more you can play from start to finish:

Canada: federal and provincial elections, real ridings in most provinces, and campaigns played in three-day turns during the writ period. Provincial parties now have their own news and follow the federal swing.
France: two-round elections, real constituency maps, runoffs where knocked-out voters move to the finalists, and Article 49.3.
Japan: constituency and proportional seats, with the path to Prime Minister run through your party.
Australia: preferential voting, with seats painted and called after preferences are counted on election night.

Slovenia: the National Assembly elected in its real electoral units, with real maps.

Six more countries are playable as experimental national campaigns: Spain, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland and Portugal. They are rougher than the main countries, and we'd like your feedback on them.

Spain: provinces have several real places to campaign in, and only your home region runs a regional government, so the days move quickly.
Italy: the general, regional and municipal elections are all on the calendar.

Another eleven countries, from Argentina to Turkey, can be previewed on the country page, marked "Not playable yet".

Election campaigns, rebuilt

The campaign was the part of StateOS needed to improve the most. It's been rebuilt from the ground up.

The campaign board. Your staff are units on the map, each with their own hours. Click a unit, then right-click to move it. You can see your rivals' units too if you choose.
Every vote counts. The game keeps a record of voters for each race, so the work you do in a place moves real voters there, and the count reads them. That covers mayors and ward councils, limited-vote races like Spain's Senate, independent lists, and the US presidential race state by state.
Fronts. Set goals for each part of the map: persuade, turn out your voters, or register new ones.
Staff actions. Every staffer picks an action with its own hours, forecast and result.
Canvassing. Knocking doors yourself, or leading a canvass with your team, each count in full. A canvass you lead reaches your own doors plus your team's.
Advertising. Buy ads in real media markets. Type any weekly budget.
Fundraising. Your money comes from people and groups who back you: your own supporters, donors and national groups, each with their own interests.
Endorsements, debates and rallies each have their own tab and their own decisions.
Attacks must name something real from a rival's record or positions.
Worn places. On Normal and Hard, doing the same thing in the same place again and again pays less for a while. The place tells you before you act, and results show the full value beside the cut one. There's no wear on Easy, or in races with only one place to campaign.
Incumbency. A sitting member builds a personal vote with time served and popularity, so a popular member can turn a seat into a stronghold. A successor from the same party keeps part of it.
Nominations favor candidates people know and like. A popular party leader starts ahead.
Name recognition grows from the voters you actually reach.
Polls start a set time before each race and land within normal polling error of the result.
Automatic hours spend your unused time where it wins the most votes.
Difficulty: Easy, Normal and Hard.
US primaries are held on each state's real date, with real runoff gaps and the 2024 delegate rules. You can enter the presidential race from any state.

Election night

A new election night screen, with a rebuilt 3D map
Click a state, district or county to open the level below it, right on the map
Results follow each state's poll closing time, on midterm and off-year nights too
Exit polls at poll close, compared with the count as it comes in
"Why this result" for any race
Candidates shown as cards in their party's color
Races between two candidates of the same party say so ("Dem vs Dem")
Parliament charts: benches for Westminster chambers, an arch for the rest
Two-round elections that move eliminated voters by who they're closest to, and pacts that pool votes and share seats
Germany's Bundestag seats split among the Länder by each Land's second votes, as the 2023 law sets out
Primary nights are read one ballot at a time, with your own race first
A setting to skip popups for by-elections and special elections you aren't running in

Results and the wiki

Every primary has its own page, with its own map and each party's results in their own section
A presidential nomination shows each state's real result, counted in delegates, with the nominee marked
Statewide offices added in the scenario editor (State Treasurer, State Auditor and so on) have proper titles, their own election night tab and their place in the government tab
Independents show their own ideology, and party members show their own wing

Government

Forming a government. An upgraded formation screen shows who holds each ministry, the program each partner brings, and the terms of the deal. Investitures, confidence votes and censure motions follow each country's rules.
The budget. An updated draft system next year's budget, make deals to pass it, and deal with supply. Income tax brackets and shapes, with clear reasons when the budget can't take a change.
The law of the land. See every law in force, and draft bills with their effects shown up front.
Vote reasons. Every member's vote comes with the reason behind it.
Question time. A weekly sitting on the issues voters care about most right now. A leader can take two subjects, and a good or bad session moves the polls.
Election laws. Adopt or repeal ranked-choice voting by state or national law.
Metrics. Track how your government is doing against the start of its term and also the full lifetime like before.
Parliamentary calendars. Sessions, recesses and by-elections.
State cabinets are drawn from the state's own people.
Term limits follow each office's rules, including Virginia's ban on governors serving two terms in a row.

Your career

Party leader is a starting position in twelve parliamentary countries.
The rise to leader runs through named people in your party who decide whether you move up.
A career record: your rank and record on the dashboard, and your reputation and offices under Career.
Carry on after it ends. Your politician can retire, resign or die, and you can carry on as a colleague.
A year in review at the end of each year.

Parties

Regional parties have been updated and are tied to their homelands (Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Quebec, Bavaria, Corsica) or can spread from where they started.
Parties can decline, fold, merge or split. Their supporters move to the parties their members join.
Party wings and factions have real members, drawn by each wing's size.
Major party news gets stories of its own.

Hometowns

Pick your state, county, district and hometown when you start. Your hometown has its own council and mayor races, and its own local measures.

A new interface

A new look for the whole game, with 34 themes, each in light and dark
New game setup as pages, starting from the map
A redesigned dashboard that leads with your office and shows what you can do
One advance button that names where it goes next, with one day, one week, next month, next year, your next vote or the next vote under its menu
Every grayed-out control tells you why, and every button says what it costs
A glossary: one set of terms, defined where they're used and in the wiki
Type a value into any slider
Redesigned Elections and Government tabs

First-time tutorial

I have added a full tutorial that goes through everything you'd need while navigating and playing the game. I figured this would be an attempt at trying to make sure people do not get confused using the UI, but it is a step among many to fix the issues that exist within the UI.

Scenario editor

Every tab uses one list-and-inspector layout
An upgraded policy editor
People who enter later, with debut dates and their own races
Slate sitting politicians for future races, down to the seat or Senate class
A general election can take its candidates from the primary before it, in any country
Committees shown one chamber at a time, with Clear all and party labels
Party leaders and chamber floor leaders
Mistakes in a person's history are named and point to that person
Long candidate lists no longer freeze the editor
Bulk delete, and a fast seat roster for big legislatures

Steam Workshop

Publish scenarios to the Workshop and update them in place
Each scenario appears once in your library, at its newest version
If publishing fails, the game says why and at which step

Performance

Much smaller saves during long campaigns
Faster days in big races, including German campaigns
Faster save loading
Faster maps, including whole-country layer switches

StateOS: The Political Sandbox

62 people found this review helpful

Not Recommended

2.0 hrs on record

Posted: November 11

Product refunded

Early Access Review

I don't necessarily mind the AI development, but as other reviews noted it is very obvious. The game description should include an AI disclosure and be transparent.

My negative review is because of the poorly designed user interface and shallow depth that this game has so far. It takes the tedious aspects of The Political Process and magnifies them without giving an easy way to automate parts if you want to play the game at a faster pace. It's the same problem of having to click through menus to do the most basic of things each week, and then needing to repeat those actions again week over week with no clear QoL, but multiplied 100x.

I do genuinely appreciate the desire to make every part of the game feel in-depth and detailed, and I can absolutely see it becoming immersive and fun to play if time is taken to improve the QoL and UI design. There are interesting concepts here and customization options that are more promising than The Political Process, like custom parties and the sheer breadth of nations available to play. But as it is now, the interface is so tedious I can't recommend it.

The election gameplay loop was so tedious because of how many menus and clicks it took to consistently do something as simple as campaign in a district. Each time you want to take an action to campaign or organize, you have to click the specific district you want to take that action in, click the menu, then pick how many hours you want to spend doing that. That's fine if you are only doing that once or defining an action, but imagine doing that 10-20 times each week over a 19 week campaign for mayor. Now imagine that for a presidential one with dozens of turns. There's too much micromanagement that exists without proper options for automation or optimization.

If deep simulation means being having to dictate the hours of every volunteer and every campaign staffer in your team, even down to knowing every individual campaign donor, then there needs to be options and design that allow you to interact with these systems quickly so you can actually cycle through 20-50 weeks of clicking without having to delegate it to the AI or needing to stare at the same screens and do the same 100 clicks each time you click next turn. Local elections don't even have any map, so you're stuck clicking tabs on the right that don't convey useful information like district population.

Even in office, I felt the interaction flow to be clunky and awkward. Every time there is a vote on a bill, you have to watch the full vote screen (with an obnoxious TV-style opening "intro" every time) if you actually want to vote on the bill yourself. Why is there no way to just click a vote yes/no on a bill in the main menu? Why does whipping votes have to occur in a separate menu? What point is there in the relation system if it's so hard to properly interact with other politicians besides having to navigate to specific menus to find each person?

Before expanding the systems in this game, I really hope some time can be taken to actually look at how the menus and flows are designed, so that it doesn't just become a slog to click to repeat the same actions over and over in a game where actions are taken and repeated so often.

channel9

31 people found this review helpful
52 people found this review funny

Recommended

0.5 hrs on record

Posted: November 10

Early Access Review

Managed my country so poorly I turned Texas blue. Oh wait.

Gimli

21 people found this review helpful
1 person found this review funny

Recommended

20.1 hrs on record

Posted: November 9

Early Access Review

I have about 120 hours in this game's demo.
I love that the game's demo is the full game and the only difference is that it doesnt have steam workshop support and will just have about 20 countries instead of all of the countries that the paid version will have.
This game has ways it can be improved but overall this is exactly what i want in a political sandbox.

YahooCar

248 products in account

StateOS Roadmap and General News

Oct 23

StateOS Roadmap and General News

Hello everyone, I have returned from my temporary break for the last few weeks, besides a few bug fixes I have been trying to save my energy and to return to the project with a fresh perspective.

If you are a recent player of the game, thank you very much for your support of the project.

I am currently working on and addressing these features which will be coming along in 0.4.

0.4 Features

Scenario Editor UI / UX overhaul

I have been working on and planning this for a long time now. It has been quite overwhelming but that is the price I pay for giving you such a detailed editor. Frankly, the UI and UX is terrible for it and it needs serious improvement. Which you will see once I do get it done.

A Governing Overhaul

I've been working on this for over a month now. It is not public and is far from complete. A massive overhaul to governing; in particular targeting government metrics, and AI voting behavior.

Fully Integrating Lower Level Maps

This is a data problem because of party popularity calculations which use census data. The ward maps for the UK, the lower level maps for Germany, and the county subdivision or precinct level for the United States.

The Yet Again Final Election Campaign System

The final, final election campaign system with a complete UI / UX upgrade yet again. I have also been working and testing this for a few weeks. A short general explanation is that I have reduced tedium yet again for the election campaign system. I am striking a balance between realism and a election campaign system that acts as if it is a war game.

You can expect a lot of action with volunteers, media, and more. As I push the game more towards strategic elections instead of spamming 1 button 100 times everyday.

Yet Another UI Overhaul

I've gathered enough information and data to see why the UI can be confusing and hard to navigate for players including other UIs that are clearly unfinished. I am working on these changes to make sure the UI looks better but also easier to understand and navigate.

General Notes

0.4 will include a few new countries that exist in the 0.3 Beta which for you demo players, you can play mind you.

0.3 is roughly bug free at this point and is slated for release on November 19th. 0.3 adds these new countries to the game, which will all get their own posts on Steam shortly.

France, Canada, Japan, Australia, and Slovenia as the main countries. Along with experimental countries like Latvia, Italy, and Portugal as a few examples. As a reminder, these are experimental, they do not work yet like they should and are not fully finished.

StateOS: The Political Sandbox

Workshop Item

Cheb's American Parties

Cheb

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Workshop Item

Cheb's Brasilian Parties + some tweaks!

Yuri Gagarin

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Workshop Item

Cheb's Canadian Parties

Cheb

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Workshop Item

Cheb's Aussie Parties

Cheb

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Workshop Item

Green Party of the United States

charliecroker01

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Imagine

imagine selling blatant AI made games for 10 euros

Average Ligurian

6 hours ago

General Discussions

Generative A.I. usage in development?

This is a question for the dev (or if anyone else knows with certainty I guess), I wanted to know if generative A.I. usage was used in development and if so, how so. Thanks!

Bot Pup QT

9 hours ago

General Discussions

Bug

I am running for city council in Canada and when I looked at the info for the people I am running against, it turned out half of them are incumbent city council members. That doesn't seem right. Also, there should probably be fewer people running for city council when there's an incumbent, with lots of people running when there is no incumbent....

BlueWaveGaming

Nov 12 @ 10:04pm

General Discussions

Confusing

Put a tutorial mode that guides you through a few areas of the game. This is ridiculously confusing to navigate. I couldn't even get the world to build. It seems like a deep game that's going to be plagued by bad execution.

LedLoaf

Nov 6 @ 2:55pm

General Discussions

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