PocketElect is a solitaire game I am working on in my spare time.  I should have a copy of it up on the web within the next week or two.  It will be an Open Source, Print and Play game, however, there will also be a PC game that will be available for it as well.  If you have access to a printer, you'll need to print out a tally sheet, some cards and either have spare change lying around for money or poker chips if you'd like that instead.

As the name implies (for those of you who follow these things), PocketElect is based on some of the mechanics available in PocketCiv.  I like to think of it as a combination of PocketCiv, 3M's Mr. President and a little bit of Ticket To Ride.  This is basically a resource management/set making game at it's most basic level.

You have a hand of cards that you are dealt at the beginning of the week that you can use to advertize, campaign, fundraise.  There is also the notion of black marks on your reputation and of course, lots and lots of cash.  Once you allocate what you want to spend, cards are drawn to determine the events of the week which may affect you positively or negatively.  These events include scandals, endorsements, news events and deals from private interest groups who offer to give you a lot of money in exchange for your public stance on a position (and a little of your integrity).  If there are any cards left in your regional piles or your national pile, you can tally them up provided a state agrees with your stance on an issue.  If you spend cards in a region, you can use Local Issues (i.e. Wild Cards), but you must distribute all your votes to completely fill up support for a state.  If you spend your cards advertizing nationally, you cannot use Local Issues or Wild Cards, but you can add to issues you stand for as you see fit.  As in 3M's Mr. President, each state has a built in edge and if you are trying to woo states that do not usually vote your party, you also have to commit cross over votes in an attempt to move them to your column.  Cards from the piles are then thrown back into the main deck.  If there are cards left over, you can place one in the Election Night pile.  Reshuffle and start over.

This goes for nine rounds.  On the final round, you grab that batch of cards you've been saving for Election Night and distribute them to shore up any weaknesses you have.  After that happens, you still get to do a couple draws to see if your invisible opponent stole any votes from your states.  Once that's all squared away, it's simply a matter of tallying the states region by region to see if you hit the magical number of 270 to win the White House.

I'm hoping to try out different strategies for different candidates.... i.e., take every deal you can and get lots of money versus campaign locally, campaign nationally, try to contest swing states.  I'm hoping the game /has/ strategy as it feels a bit more random that PocketCiv at the moment.  The beauty of PocketCiv is that you have different advances you can try to achieve to shape your Empire - and a map that dictates different tactics and complications.  There is no Advances mechanic in PocketElect - there's only so many ways to skewer your opponent and manage the press.  However, with a range of candidates and potentially different issues/maps from history, this game may be able to stand on its own; provided it gets done.