Hi All,
I was looking to find an accessible election simulation and came across Election Manager. It is largely accessible, though by no means the most intuitive interface to use. The premise is simple. You are running a presidential campaign and you can play with computer opponents or play with friends. It is a turn-based game where you strategize how best to fund-raise, place ads, poll, set up campaign offices, etc, as well as decide what kinds of ads to buy (Internet vs. television/pro-party vs. party bashing your opponents), poll types, and how much to spend on these different activities. Random events also happen to sway voters' views e.g. a security threat at an airport makes people want to increase defense spending. The triggered events help or hurt you based on your platform on 15 different issues that you set prior to the campaign beginning. You also have a VP candidate you can control later in the game. You can choose to represent one of many different political parties, and you have different scenarios that you may set up, such as a populist billionaire, a three-party system, and so forth.
I reached out to the developer, a fellow from an independent and small game studio, and he seemed interested in making accessibility improvements to the game, though it may take time as this isn't his primary means of income. :) Although I use VoiceOver, I am not a techie and may not be the best person to make concrete suggestions on accessibility implementations. I have never developed a game so there may be things I can't clearly explain. I'm able to identify quirks e.g. an inability to select my candidate's home state because even when you use the picker, there's no way (as far as I can see) to finalize the selection. If I remember correctly, the game costs $3.99 and I'm not about to ask either this community or the developer to eat the cost, so if anyone is seriously interested in collaborating to make this game more accessible, let me know and I'll gift it to you myself. Maybe we can then take one collective list of things that can be worked on to him. He mentioned wanting to beta test, but I don't know when that will happen. In any case, if you're interested, please send me your Apple ID (where I should send the gift) as well as your name, why you're interested, and (for fun), the name of your favorite game. Who knows? Maybe I'll find something fun to play out of this, too! Thank you for your time.
Best Regards,
Tiffany Kim