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Water Cooler Games served as the web's primary forum for "videogames with an agenda" — coverage of the uses of video games in advertising, politics, education, and other everyday activities, outside the sphere of entertainment.

The site was maintained at watercoolergames.org from 2003-2009, where it was edited by myself and Gonzalo Frasca. It is now archived here in full.

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El Presidente

by Gonzalo Frasca November 28, 2003

categories: Political Games

I haven't played the game but I guess we can hardly describe it as a political game. It seems to be more in the tradition of Tropico (genre gringo loco looking at South America with contempt), but I could be wrong. Of course, this is not the first political simulation around (of course, there's the Mac classic Hidden Agenda, which was way more respectful than Tropico and I also remember a Spanish ZX Spectrum election simulation called Objetivo La Moncloa).

Anyway, this is a Java cell phone game called El Presidente. The game interface is through cards and deals with Colombian politics.

Comments (4)

It's the card game "President" which is also known by the name "Asshole" among many others. (Rules at http://www.pagat.com/climbing/asshole.html )

This is a discard game, and you are ranked in the order you have discarded your hand.

From Pagat site:

"The first player who is out of cards is awarded the highest social rank - for Americans this is President - the next is Vice-President, then Citizen and so on down. The last player to be left with any cards is known as the Beggar, Scum, Asshole or by various terms of abuse."

The tie-in to Columbian politics is, from what I can tell, effectively non-existant. Instead, the various social ranks are related to Latino stereotypes. "El Presidente" is highest and "el burro" is lowest. I can't bear to think of some of the other ranks that may exist.

I managed to avoid Tropico for similar reasons, despite the fact I've heard the mechanics were good.

Why can't we play a game set in Columbia where you are a peasant activist organizing in communities under assault by government, right-wing paramilitaries, and "narco-terrorists" (aka left-wing guerrilas)? The expansion pack: adds the US Marine force that showed up (in unknown numbers) last February. It's one of several FPS games I'd like to do; First-Person Survivors.

isaac on November 30, 2003 4:48 AM

Wow. Talk about totally missing the point of a game :P I guess you were one of those kids that actually went to class in school. It's a version of President but with a approach. I really like what they did with the ranks as apposed to just "Second Asshole". Good look and feel to the game. I'f I had 6 cellphones I'd buy six copies - Good time killer or even just for the fun of it.

Wonder when they'll bring out a multiplayer version of it...?

MadTurki on May 19, 2004 8:22 PM

I played the cellphone version of it and there's no point to it.

I think what we need is not a "Time Killer" but a "Time waste" :P

Multipayer ????? Tooo much time waste

It needs a lot of working on Level Design. And they do not have the refund policy.

Zambo on August 14, 2004 9:46 PM

how do you do a better level design on a card game? :P Refund policies are up to the distributor not the developer

MadTurki on September 30, 2004 9:25 PM

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