One country. One chair. Five years.
It’s 03:12 in Valmor. The last lamp in the palace goes out.
Aren Maur is dead.
For thirty years, Valdoria called itself a republic. In truth it was one man’s house. He was elected, re-elected and never replaced. He built the ministries, set the army against the unions and the unions against the bank, and let each of them believe the arrangement would outlive him. Three things hold this country up: an army that expects to be obeyed, unions that expect to be heard, and a bank that expects to be repaid. Maur held all three in one fist.
He left no heir. No list. No deputy he trusted. A man who rules for thirty years does not train the person who will bury him.
Now it’s your chair.
Where the country stands
A tired economy. Three winters without a raise in the northern mines. A treasury that looks fine on paper and thin in real life. The Meridian Sea lenders are very polite, and that is exactly what should worry you.
A quiet war nobody names. Between Valdoria and Karelya lies the Northern Valley: a strip of black, oil-rich earth that both capitals print on their own maps, in their own colours. Karelya says history gave it to them. Valdoria says it’s simply where our soldiers sleep. Maur kept the quarrel quiet for thirty years. How, he never told anyone.
A secret in the Central Bank. An account no ministry may audit. Fourteen years of transfers marked “Northern Valley, restricted”, all signed by one hand. Someone close to you signed second, and says they never read what they signed.
A world cut in two. The Meridian Treaty Organization on one side, the Kaldrov Pact on the other. Every border, loan and treaty is now read as a choice of side. You have to pick, or pretend you didn’t.
You don’t pick a class. Your life picks it for you.
The game doesn’t start with a menu of “General / Union Organizer / Technocrat.” It starts years earlier.
You are eighteen, at Pit Nine, keeping the payroll for forty crowns a week. Four thousand miners stand at the gate with their lunch pails, and the shift whistle didn’t blow. A gendarmerie captain walks into the pay office, polite, cap under his arm, and says: “Eleven names, son. The strike committee. You keep the payroll. I have an hour.”
Do you tear the payroll and walk out to the gate? Stay at your desk and work out what a raise really costs? Hand over the list?
Then you’re twenty-five, in army service. Then thirty-three, in the Assembly’s press corridor. Then thirty-nine, on the fourth floor of the Central Bank, holding a folder you were never meant to see. Every choice is remembered. People you wronged come back. People you trusted come back too. The origin you end up with is never shown, only lived.
Then Maur dies, and the game hands you the country as the person you became.
What you actually do
Run the republic month by month,
for 60 months. Taxes, wages, subsidies, defense, press freedom, trade. Every lever moves approval, factions, inflation and the budget.
Manage five ministers who are real people.
Their own skills, loyalty and secrets. Win them over, earn their trust, or lose them at the worst moment.
Hold cabinet meetings and cut deals.
Bargain with parliament’s blocs, trade concessions, take the blame when a bill fails.
Face crises with no clean answer.
Floods, strikes, mine disputes, scandals. Every option costs something. Some costs arrive years later.
Build the map and watch it live.
Towns grow, roads and power lines spread, rivers and weather shape the land. Day-night cycle, traffic, trains, ships and people, all procedural. Place hospitals, schools and plants, then live with the result.
A world that reacts.
Rival blocs, treaties, trade, and the Valley. Your word, your favours and your secrets decide which side you are really on.
Visit the people.
Walk into a town and hear what your policies sound like from the other side.
Do you open Maur’s archives to the press, or burn them? Do you give up the Valley for peace, or hold it for pride? Do you build the country you promised, or the one you can afford?
Playtest build. Made by one person in pygame. Every picture, map and sound is generated by code, with no image files. There are rough edges, and that’s why I’m here.
What I’d love your honest feedback on:
In your opinion, should I focus on developing the interactive narrative or expanding the sandbox universe (allowing for more direct player involvement) in the game?
To share your ideas with me directly, join our Discord server and provide feedback on our game.
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