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HTML5 game - playable in web browsers on PC, Mac, and Linux. Downloadable via the itch.​io app.
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American Election

by Greg Buchanan

Drama , Political
2019

Web Site

About the Story

A dark political nightmare game about Abigail Thoreau, a campaign assistant working to elect her candidate.

In this hour-long cyoa game (composed of eleven chapters), you make choices both political and personal as you face the final days of an alternate-universe 2016 and the mistakes of your past, your ex-girlfriend, and your relationship with your father.


Game Details

Off-Site Reviews

Rock Paper Shotgun
This was supposed to be a brief news post, but once I got started I had to see it through. This is apt. Abigail’s path through this story can take different side streets, but heads in the same general direction. It crosses abuse, heartbreak, death, power, youtube radicalisation, and a lot of introspection. Though it follows the rise of a fictionalised tangerine mega-baby to the seat of American political power, it tells a deeply personal story that’s not really about him at all. And it knows you’re not going into this as blind as Abigail is. [...] There are acres of emotional and social subtext fit into this condensed story, and it hits far too many levels of uncomfortable reality to be taken lightly.
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Game Curator
“American Election” might be one of the most important indie games that you can experience this year. Dive into a thought-provoking game with intense dialogues as well as cleverly chosen iconography and background music. In the end, it shows that politics should neverever be left out of video games, as we might learn and think more about our world as we would do without playing them.
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The Indie Game Website
How do you make an interactive fiction where your sole mechanic is choice, that is also in itself a musing on the illusion of choice? Well, Greg Buchanan and a whole host of other creatives (Adam Coburn, Seb Peters, Matt Nichols, Cherie Davidson, Anthony Gambino, Tanya DePass & Gary Kings, to be exact) have managed to tackle just that in an hours worth of gameplay. American Election, playable free at itch.io, is a haunting, emotional and immersive experience for this reason, and you really don’t want to miss it.
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Meristation
The most striking moments of the plot are those that seem smaller and insignificant in the face of the enormity of the historical moment we live. What does Abigail say to Truman before one of his speeches? What do you face on your ex-girlfriend's Facebook page? How did he behave when a stranger appeared in the middle of the road in his youth? What do you say to your father before leaving home? The protagonist, her vision of the world and her own life takes some of the best moments of this experience. Also notable are the scenarios of greatest tension, where we will feel in your skin thanks to the power of prose and small tricks such as the tremble in phrases or the change of music, effects that are effectively used to add drama with few resources.
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MOE (Jefferson Toal)
At the heart of American Election is a self-perpetuating cycle of trauma. Whether or not the choices it gives you tangibly affect the outcome is beside the point- each choice makes you complicit in its unfolding and the inevitableness of it all creates a sense of helplessness entirely in keeping with the story. If a generation from now someone asks me what it was like watching the rise of Trump’s America, I might just show them this.
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Page Update History

v.10: 14-Sep-2019 06:05 - Greg Buchanan (Current Version) - Edit Page - Normal View
Changed description
v.9: 13-Jan-2020 04:29 - Greg Buchanan
Changed version number, external review links
v.8: 28-Sep-2019 16:47 - Greg Buchanan
Changed external review links
v.7: 14-Sep-2019 16:01 - Greg Buchanan
Changed author
  v.6: 14-Sep-2019 06:05 - Greg Buchanan
Changed external review links
v.5: 12-Sep-2019 07:24 - Greg Buchanan
Changed external review links
v.4: 09-Sep-2019 18:00 - Greg Buchanan
Changed description
v.3: 09-Sep-2019 17:59 - Greg Buchanan
Changed description
v.2: 09-Sep-2019 17:56 - Greg Buchanan
Changed download links
v.1: 09-Sep-2019 17:54 - Greg Buchanan
Created page