Positech has released a demo of its just released political sim, Democracy. You can find the demo at any major gaming site.

A friend was unimpressed by the demo’s apparent focus on current hot-button issues (stem-cell research and gay marriage) since he was more interested in a general government sim. “Those issues have always followed us through the decades,” he said sarcastically in reference to the “fad” topics.

Whether this concern for timeliness is carried over into the final product remains to be seen, but too strong a presence of the present was one of my criticisms of The Political Machine when I reviewed it. An emphasis on letting the players run their country/campaign in the here and now sacrifices the chance for the player to run their country/campaign into the past or future. Running abortion ads against Teddy Roosevelt just feels wrong, and having to revisit the running sores of this political moment time and time again has to get old fast.

Still, it’s great to have a political game that tries to move beyond the “win the election” part of politics. The election is the easy part, after all. Running a country that can talk back to you at any time is where all the work is. I’ll post my comments on the final version once I get my hands on it.