Contact: Jeff Kiok

Politizens is a political simulation game with a unique emphasis on macro-level (top-down) decision making. Utilizing formal knowledge of political science and economics, we've designed a simulation with an emphasis on a minimalist philosophy that permits user-creation of content and politics. Players take the role of a citizen in one of many fictional nations, and most strive to become legislators and leaders of their societies. At the heart of the game will be the "organizations" founded by players. Organizations will be dynamic institutions, and the game will not require organizations to conform to any preset types. This means organizations may range the gambit from official political parties to secret terrorist cells -- it will be up to the players to sort out what the "true" goals of an organization are. Politizens is a persistent online world, and is mostly text-based.

In order to satisfy our minimalist philosophy, a flexible database structure will need to be created to manage large volumes of data. The game expands on the principles of online social networking to connect players in a fun and realistic political universe, heavily using on-site forums, which will need to be designed or incorporated from available open-source substitutes. Politizens also makes heavy use of web-mapping, similar to Google Maps. From a technical viewpoint, our goal is to maintain a low-impact website in terms of use of graphics, while maintaining an elegant simplicity of aesthetics.

Please contact Jeffrey Kiok @ jeff@politizens.com for more information about the project, technical, financial or otherwise. We have a full design document, and are not only interested in working with skilled programmers for the duration of your senior project, but also in creating a long-term partnership.