Comments for Clout: The Game

Technically we're really only worried about them attacking South Korea and Japan. Their weapons technology isn't exactly modern.

I'm not sure people would feel very strongly about this one way or another. I try to pick binary bills that will get people to fight strongly for/against them.

I made those players' old characters into an admin character of sorts to help me run the game after they died.

Some of what you can/can't do definitely needs some work. I just threw it in so you guys could get to using it. It'll be improved a lot in the not too distant near future.

I'll be adding a couple new options to the bill filter soon.

You can't introduce any of those bills for a country whose relations are too low. You can view relations on the world page.

Hm... That seems to have been in error. The socialist part of the US opposes foreign aid. I'll fix it.

The SPIDERS are EVERYwhere. THEY just don't want us to know...

I assumed he had meant the more general term of annexation rather than the voluntary process of inclusion into the US. My point was mostly that the US doesn't go to war to annex land, so that won't be an option in-game.

If you lose your character for any reason you will lose the items you have. Make sure to tag the item to a deposit box if you're wearing it, and store it in one if you're not. If you're having some kind of issues with your safe deposit boxes, let me know. Some people couldn't see them due to a bug, though I thought I got everyone.

Somebody played Form Research Committee on your bill. This usually helps the bill at end of day towards passing, but will sometimes hinder it.

This hasn't really happened historically, so no.

Aside from safe deposit boxes, that's probably what will happen, unless players strongly dissent.

Conference committee can remove poison pill.

I now understand what you're saying. I'm currently speaking with someone from Kongregate via email and it seems I can have him add people by kongregate username so they can access The Lobby normally. I'll have him do this with your username and send you a message when it's done.

As the note with the link states, due to how kongregate works with unreleased games you have to log out, visit the link, then log in when prompted (or with the header if the prompt doesn't come up. I dunno why it doesn't sometimes). I'm trying to get a hold of someone at kong to change this so it's not so ridiculous.

The presumption is that your constituents secretly support that view. Obviously it's a bit of a joke. Though, do consider that congresspersons tend to be WAY more polarized and partisan than presidential and gubernatorial candidates.

special event surrounding a couple people asking to be killed off

this is correct

I posted the link in a sticky in the general post. You have to log out of kongregate, follow the link, then log in. Also, be aware that the game isn't exactly playable yet. It's just an HTML realtime chat after you get done with character creation, but it'll start to be playable in the next couple days/weeks.

The Speaker Of The House automatically wins reelection (IRL the Speaker can be anyone, not just a member of congress).

i guess we'll see

What bills get challenged at all depends on the bill itself and the constitution. It's not generated, it's something I put in ahead of time. Any major bill that can be challenged will be challenged (as in real life). The supreme court decides on the case mostly based on their affiliation, but they aren't purely partisan and the AG can swing things quite a bit. Whether the AG chooses to intervene or not depends on the affiliation of the AG and the bill in question.

You can already do this by passing the congressional security/martial law bills. While in effect, they offer protection of 1 and 3 levels, respectively, to everyone in the game. If you mean something on a personal level, nothing is currently implemented as I don't want cash to be too powerful. I may add something in the future, but it may also be scandalous (bribing the police or somesuch).

I think it was Cersei. But the game could be lying I guess.

Conference committee can remove poison pill, though your fellow congresspersons have to vote to help you out. If you don't have CC, try asking for one on your bill in team/party chat.

But you did it FOR FREEDOM

GDP growth and population growth are not part of the formulas directly. Eventually they'll tank the nation if left negative for a number of weeks.

This is much less effective than it used to be since I changed how intricate coverups work.

It's a sign of things to come.

Banning something out of fuzzy feel good intentions isn't exactly in-line with the constitution, and it being struck down has nothing to do with immorality.

I just checked and appeal to emotion is strong for outlawing it... so i'm not sure what you mean.

Game balance.

Probably due to lack of such games in general.

This is commonly listed as the #1 thing that people hate about these types of games... so I don't think that'd be a good idea. The reward is that you get to advance quicker as you'll be using more energy/stress.

I'm sure they're used to it.

Thanks for letting me know!

I only did that cocaine to help the children of America!

They are a visual representation of the player's clout tier and party.

nope. That stays the same. The only thing multiplied is the effect the bill has on the nation.

Thanks for letting me know! Some of these display problems are super weird.

The constitution of the united states is set up such that the federal government doing much of anything is potentially unconstitutional. Obviously lifting bans of things and removing taxes can't be subject to a challenge. As such, the challenge system favors the libertarian party somewhat... but that's kind of how the constitution is written.

I personally find it kind of amusing how much foreign/military aid we throw at both Israel, Palestine and a good bit of the middle east. At some point it just kind of feels like we're fighting ourselves.

you done got item'd

Congress can't directly dictate trade between nations. That makes no sense. Also, the feature is not implemented yet. You're just seeing a preview of the interface.

This is not correct. Any bill that could potentially run afoul of the constitution is subject to a constitutional challenge.

Never strong/weak, does high random damage that can be negative.

Two of those are already planned.

That bill is pretty old and I probably need to go back and update it to take into account new abilities and such.

It doesn't reduce taxes. In fact, an ability text of that ability references exactly why it doesn't apply in that situation.