People. Power. Politics.

Governance, the all-new political simulator about people, parties, and the networks that make them possible.

Available to wishlist on Steam soon.

The Game Edition of Governance is available to wishlist on Steam from early

650 constituencies.

7994 parliamentary wards.

192 demographic groups.

48,000,000 voters ready to change Britain.

How will you win them over?

The power of networks

How many handshakes are you from power?

Compared to other political simulators, Governance puts the emphasis on making friends to further the goals that you have. You have to get on to get far… or build up enough dirt to bully your way into the halls of power!

Meet people for lunch, nudge them on a policy you’re working on, and when you’re chairman of the party, reward them by looking the other way at the odd affair – play the Westminster game the way it’s meant to be.

Learn more

fully featured simulation

It’s not just the politicians.

Designed by journalist and arts critic Byron Lewis, Governance aims to be a fully featured nation-state simulator that simulates everything from government to industry, media organisations to think tanks, and political parties to factions vying for power.

Each organisation has the ability to rise and fall, directly impact your campaigns and government, donate money (legally and illegally…) and spread its influence around the game’s world. It’s up to you to take them up on it.

Governance also includes a simulated stock exchange (the GTSE), corporate simulation, and an emergent economic system that takes into account both real-world data and the impact of socioeconomic factors at a ward level.

Built for strategists.

Address campaign concerns, build new strategies for dealing with complex issues, and battle-test your policy platform. Governance’s foundations of real-world data makes it an engaging serious game designed perfect for simulation and political research.

Our upcoming Tool Edition of Governance offers users even more detailed census data, deeper economic simulation and individualised support for your project and its needs.

We also offer assistance in building custom scenarios – even entirely new governances – for you and your project.

Get in touch for more information on what we can offer your team.

dynamic voter simulation

Can you fix broken politics?

With political distrust at an all time high, it is up to you to fix it.

Win over voters, build coalitions, and ultimately keep your seat in the next election. Will you be able to lead an all-new party to victory or will your government collapse in a landslide? It’s all in your hands.

With dynamic simulation of over 150 voting groups, built from real-world data, you have the ability to simulate making a real difference.

OUR REAL LIFE MODEL

The latest prediction from Governance!

Our data set can be used to predict real life election!

Using our historical trends analysis and demographic mapping, combined with real-life polling aggregates, we can make predictions based on

12_e48e7a-14>	Vote % 12_df55a7-23>	Seats 12_b2d581-ae>
Con. 12_187f34-47>	3 12_ff15e1-4b>	2 12_5d7536-55>
Lab. 12_9f63b9-b6>	2 12_61e1e7-f2>	2 12_7d74c2-68>
LD 12_f1c1b6-19>	2 12_22836d-b0>	2 12_fa833a-ab>
Ref. 12_b4b559-60>	2 12_8a2785-7e>	2 12_e4ce38-10>
SNP 12_d86080-79>	2 12_e43836-ab>	2 12_993068-34>
12_a431be-96>	12_e549ff-e7>	12_58fe01-63>

beliefs

What do you really believe?

Rather than using the simplified left-right ideology structure, Governance pioneers the use of Beliefs in-engine that are separate from the broad strokes and accurately reflects policy positions. Any simulated entities – from unions to newspapers to groups in society – are able to not only have beliefs, but also their own separate belief on policies.

Our belief system factors historical infleunce, schools of thought and a multivariate political scoring system that takes into account so much more than just the economic or social axis. Governance can also simulate the new development and spread of new political thought – including ones developed naturally from policy, or ones pushed by individuals.

modding support

Have it your way.

Governance also pioneers a flexible and easy-to-understand scenario format. From day one, Steam Workshop support will be available and integrated for all Game Edition players wishing to create their own storylines, events, characters and political parties*.

We also have the ability to build scenarios just for you and your team. Whether you’re modelling the impact of local council decisions, or want a storyline to help with your communications training, we can make it happen with our own bespoke services. Get in touch to find out more.

Governance in the classroom.

Governance gives you the perfect tools as an educator to build political scenarios, guide your students through the importance of economic management and the realities of political life in an engaging, emergent format.

We also offer assistance in bespoke political modelling and training, ensuring you can create the best materials for your learners.

Get in touch for more about our plans for Classroom Edition.

Contact us today

frequently asked questions

We will currently offer PC and Linux builds. The official target is Windows 10 for PC and Flatpak for Linux. Despite being a Mac user through and through, I am still waiting on the developer certification process to complete. Once through, I will be targeted macOS Sequoia and Tahoe only.

I would love to support some weirder platforms. The core engine is portable JavaScript that theoretically will run in any just-in-time environment. I do love the tradition of porting games to the most random platforms.

The Game version of Governance will not contain real-life political parties or organisations due to the potential to libel real people or organisations. Of course, the fictional parties in game will follow the same observable trends facing real-life politics in the UK where possible.

All names are generated at random when a simulation begins; any similarity to any persons, living, dead is purely coincidental.

No. The focus on this game is on accurate political and social network simulation.

I would love to have more countries available to players and users than just the UK.

The most natural choice I feel is Ireland, given that their census apparatus is broadly similar and they have the exciting challenge of a presidential system and differently parliamentary procedure in the Oireachtas. They also benefit from having open data down to a granular level, which is the approach I’ve taken so far.

If you are an organisation looking to fund us developing a simulation of a country or region in particular, get in touch at commercial@playgovernance.com.

No. The data used in the game could be not reasonably used to identify a person. As well as the ONS’s fuzzing of Output Area data to avoid identification, we have fuzzed reporting on demographic groups where we felt it could be used to identify someone.

This has been quite the experience! I have built the Governance UK Dataset from scratch using the 2021 England & Wales census, 2021 NI census and 2022 Scottish census data. Until working on this I had no idea just how much legroom one needed to do to get this altogether in one file.

The Game version of Governance currently combines England, Wales and Scottish census ‘Output Areas’ into Westminster Parliamentary Wards (as of the 2023 Boundary Commission review), with some fuzzing required for Northern Ireland’s different systems. Information on demographic groups is largely derived from the England & Wales census, with electoral support and belief distribution handled based on the British Election Study’s 2019-2024 series of questionairres. All of the data we used was compiled Open Government Licenced sources. The 1% microdata sample but it wasn’t particularly useful for our needs.

We want to add more historical data into our system for non-Game users.

There is scope for even more granular support for other users of Governance – get in touch to see what we can offer.

There are issues that need to be worked out. England & Wales ask less specific religious questions than the Scottish and Northern Irish census. The data on LGBT citizens for NI and Scotland is not as complex as the questions used in the E&W census.

The UK dataset in the Game version is not all the data we have on hand. The Tool version of Governance contains further detailed information that can be used in simulating advertising campaigns, successes with policy and campaign simulation.

The Game Edition’s End User Licence Agreement does place restrictions on non-personal use. If you are writing or reviewing the game, or using it for a column, that should be fine. However, using it for more detailed or protracted modelling or simulation will require a Commercial licence.

The UK dataset in the Game version is not all the data we have on hand. We are working on a Tool version of Governance that contains further detailed information that can be used in simulating advertising campaigns, successes with policy and campaign simulation – if this is for you or your team, get in touch at commercial@playgovernance.com.