Election Occult

Hey! Here's a little game I made based on this meme for the Ludum Dare 55 Competition:

It is ironic and not a political statement whatsoever. I don’t know where the original meme came from and do not associate with the message it portrays at face value. I do however think it would be funny to imagine the absurd universe in which someone did magically summon voters to commit voter fraud. Thus, Election Occult.

It's slightly unfinished as I ran short on time due to a busy weekend schedule - however, I should update it a bit over the next few days to fully realize my vision.

Premise:

You are a candidate for next presidential election of the United States of Shrimgus! What your opponent (and the rest of the populace) doesn't know is that you have some tricks up your sleeve. Use your dark magic to summon voters to magically vote for your cause. Be careful however - unchecked voters you create will multiply, increasing the suspicion of the general population! Be sure to allocate your voters to your media campaign - pushing ads to the public will convert the non-believers to your cause. Reach 210 electoral votes and avoid a full-blown conspiracy to win the day!

Controls:

Spacebar - Hold to summon more Voters

Left Click - Allocate your Voters

Mouse Hover - See state details

1, 2, 3 - Assign Voters to Media Campaign Roles

UI & Gameplay Explanation:

I meant to implement a tutorial but ran out of time - please read the following to get an idea of what to expect!

The basic interface of the game looks like the above! Summoned voters will appear at the bottom of the screen - you can send them to any state of your choosing by hovering and clicking on their destination. At the top of the map, the number of days remaining until the election can be seen. This functions as a countdown - you must keep the suspicion meter (at the southwest of the map) in check and gain enough electoral votes by election day in order to win!

The right side of the interface features all of the information you need to help you on your journey. At the top, you can see the number of electoral votes you currently have. Beneath this shows the total number of electoral votes, or when hovering over a state, the number of electoral votes that state has to offer.

When hovering over a state, you can also see the total population, the number of unallocated summoned voters, and the number of converted, real voters. The meter at the top also represents the percentage of voters to your cause per state- summoned voters and converted voters both count towards this total. On the map, increases voters are indicated by one of three pop-ups:

• Blue Pop-ups: your unassigned summoned voters have grown by this amount in this state
• Green Pop-ups: your campaign converted this many permanent voters to your cause in this state
• Red Pop-ups: your unassigned summoned voters have grown by this amount in this state - and the total is now over 100. You should focus your efforts on controlling these states in order to avoid suspicion.

Suspicion:

You may be wondering how suspicion points are calculated - hopefully this explanation will help! Suspicion points are accumulated every time the summoned voters in a state multiply. On every update, one new voter will be summoned for every two summoned voters in a state. Thus, this number can get out of hand quickly if not managed properly. Luckily, pressing 1, 2, and 3 will allocate your summoned voters to work your ad campaigns for a specific state. Ad Campaigns convert the base population into converted voters - these are permanent votes to your cause and do not multiply. Additionally, whenever voters are converted, points are subtracted from the suspicion meter equivalent to the number of voters converted. To succeed, you have to grow your media campaigns in each state by allocating your summoned voters to counteract the suspicion created via summoned voter multiplication. You can see information about media campaigns on a per state basis on the right when hovering over each state.

Strategy Tips:

My recommendation for success is to approach this like an actual politician. Focusing your efforts in just one state will only net you so many electoral votes. Furthermore, focusing your efforts in too many states can cause suspicion to get out of hand quickly if you aren’t paying attention - plus, you might not get enough votes to win! Therefore, you should manage your votes in a couple states at a time - you can always expand the reach of your campaign as you go!

UPDATE 4/15 Added a Title Screen and actually balanced the game - it is winnable but will take some strategy! Enjoy.

UPDATE 4/16 Added a tutorial and some tips to the description. Hopefully this should help with the lack of tutorial!