Nation States

No, this isn't a tirade on the follies of Nationalism (that will come later on). This is just a few paragraphs on a fun little game for political anoraks like myself. NationStates by Max Barry an author with a quite interesting back-catalogue of fictional consumerist dystopia's and satires of Corporate America. Nationstates is one of those web browser games that seemed to have spread like fungus in the undergrowth of the Internet.

This one however is different, Its completely free to access all its functions, no members only area's, its a time consuming as you want it to be, theres absolutely no need to grind -unless you derive some sort of sick sexual thrill from it, but hey whatever floats your boat- unless you get really into the "role playing" aspects of Executive government, and coupled with that it lets you partake in pure escapism, you can quite easily construct the nation of your dreams or nightmares with relatively little time and effort by selecting one of several "proposals" by your advisers all of which are comically over exaggerated. And all of it is easily repairable should you change your mind.

If you get bored of domestic politics you can even get into the realm of international relations as Nationstates has its own UN analogue the World Assembly where nations can bicker endlessly about non events and waste time and money calling each other names (just like the real UN). And as well as having a very active forum many regions (where your nation is located) support there own mini forums to facilitate greater discussion and socialisation.

So there's a brief review/shout out to what I feel is a fun little game for those interested in the fun little world of politics.