Description
Gerrymandering Master 2 is a single-player political strategy simulation game developed by Redistrict Interactive and released in 2023. The game is a sequel to the 2020 title Gerrymandering Master and expands upon its predecessor’s focus on the manipulation of electoral district boundaries. The game is set in a fictional representative democracy where the player assumes the role of a political party strategist. The primary objective is to redraw the boundaries of legislative districts to maximize the player’s party’s seat count in an election, regardless of the overall popular vote. The game models real-world redistricting principles, including contiguity, population equality, and the Voting Rights Act, but allows the player to exploit loopholes and legal ambiguities. The game features a procedurally generated map of a state with a population of 10 million, divided into counties, cities, and precincts. Each precinct has a demographic composition and a partisan lean, represented by a percentage of support for two major parties (Blue and Red). The player can access historical election data and demographic reports. The game includes a scoring system that evaluates the player’s map on metrics such as partisan bias, competitiveness, and compactness. A higher score indicates a more effective gerrymander, but the game also imposes a “legal challenge” mechanic where an independent commission reviews the map for extreme violations. The game has three difficulty levels: Local, State, and Federal. The Federal level introduces additional constraints such as racial gerrymandering prohibitions and court-ordered redistricting plans. The game includes a sandbox mode with no legal constraints and a campaign mode with a narrative involving a competitive election cycle.
Instructions
The player controls the game using a mouse and keyboard. The primary interface is a top-down map of the state. The player selects precincts by clicking on them. To create a district, the player holds the left mouse button and drags to draw a contiguous shape across adjacent precincts. The game highlights the selected precincts in the player’s party color. The player can zoom in and out using the mouse scroll wheel. The right mouse button deselects a precinct. The keyboard keys 1 through 9 assign a district number to the selected group. The game displays a real-time population counter for the selected district, ensuring it stays within the required 5% deviation from the ideal district population. The player can toggle a layer showing partisan lean by pressing the P key. The demographic layer is toggled with the D key. The compactness score is shown in the upper right corner, updated as the player draws. The player can save a map by pressing Ctrl+S and load a previous map with Ctrl+L. The game provides a “Simulate Election” button that runs a vote simulation based on the drawn districts, showing the resulting seat count. The player can undo the last action with Ctrl+Z. The game’s controls are designed to allow rapid drawing and adjustment of district boundaries, with a focus on precision and speed. The player must balance the need for safe seats with the risk of creating a map that is too obviously manipulated, as the game’s legal challenge system will reject maps with a partisan bias score above a certain threshold.
Categories
Strategy
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