How it works

Write-ups of the systems inside Political Life, by the people building them. These are closer to design notes than marketing — which rules we settled on, why, and how each decision bends the way the game gets played.

They're in reading order, but start anywhere.

• Why the lifespan has no barPolitical Life shows you neither your remaining years nor a health value. What players do differently once the number is gone — and what we gave up to get there.
• Assembling bills instead of writing themA target, a means and a funding source snap together into thousands of bills. How 140-odd parts replace a hand-written bill list without flattening the trade-offs.
• The Red File — the record that doesn't clearEvery backroom action leaves an entry. Why evidence strength and exposure risk are tracked separately, and why the statute of limitations running out doesn't end it.
• The grilling — the player writes the questionsWe didn't author a hearing question bank. The player's own Red File, sorted by evidence strength, is the question sheet.
• Keeping events from becoming one-shot quizzesMacro, network and personal events schedule each other. Conditions read the player's past, and ignoring a popup is handled as a choice.
• What it costs to have no win conditionReaching the top isn't an ending. How five axes score a life into an epitaph and an obituary — and what we added so a game without a goal doesn't just drift.