Why make a PC version of Mr. President? There are no titles in GMT’s catalog for which the answer is more obvious. Mr. President: The American Presidency 2000-2020 is Gene’s magnum opus, a wide-ranging, deeply researched labor of love. It models the enormous responsibilities the President must assume when he – or she! – takes the oath of office, and captures Gene’s regard for the presidency as an institution. It is also a monster game: a table hog with a laborious setup (especially for the scenarios, as opposed to the sandbox start) and a huge range of procedures and tables that give the player the tools to tackle the threats and take advantage of the opportunities that confront their very own Presidency.

So, when Jonathan Pan, co-founder and CEO of Exia Labs, approached me to gauge my interest in working with Exia on games about policy and strategy in the modern era, Mr. President came to mind as an ideal project: a chance for Exia to bring its top-tier game engineering talent to bear on a title that was ambitious but already design complete, and directly in line with both Jon’s personal interests and Exia’s strategy. And players excited to experience Gene’s remarkable roller coaster of military, diplomatic, economic, and legislative challenges – but without needing to occupy a large table for days on end, and with modern user-experience patterns to save time on rules lookup, table calculations, and procedure resolution – are in for a great ride.

But we know there are pitfalls with translating a game like Mr. President to the PC screen. Part of what’s compelling about Mr. President, and other open-ended sandbox simulation style games, is that by reading the rules and pushing the counters, the player gains a deeper understanding of the choices the game offers and how to play towards and around them. A system that automates everything and simply presents the player with results fails in two ways: it denies the player a moment to imagine what’s happening, and it forgoes an opportunity to understand what impacted the chance of success.

To that end, we’re not going to be adopting a lot of video-game tropes for Mr. President. There won’t be any 3D tank models, and the Speaker’s gavel won’t appear and animate during the Legislative Phase. We want players to feel like they are playing the tabletop version of Mr. President, but with digital assistance. An info display that stops you having to look away from the crisis card you’re facing over at your Chief of Staff’s domestic rating to determine the right DRM; a reminder that your Homeland Security superstar has an ability you can use; automatic strength calculations when setting up and resolving wars – these conveniences will let players play smoothly, letting players survey the board state and focus on figuring out how to keep terrorists, rogue states, and rival powers at bay while creating maneuvering room to pass signature legislation and pursue their agenda.

For Mr. President to succeed in the crowded and competitive PC gaming market, we’ll need your help – please add Mr. President to your Steam wishlist (you’ll need to create a Steam account, if you don’t already have one). This won’t cost you anything, and it will help promote the game and show it to Steam’s wider audience. Maybe you already own Mr. President in paper and wish you could put it on the table more often, or maybe you were intrigued by its promise but scared off by its heft, or maybe you share our conviction that Gene’s optimistic vision of America and its presidency is worth the sweat and toil it will take to bring it to a wider audience. Or: maybe you’re just looking for a playable, challenging, and incredibly fun game about being POTUS. No matter what, I hope you’ll be part of the community we want to build around Mr. President, and, as Gene says, enjoy the game!

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