Re-Election Campaign is a Choose Your Own Adventure-style work of Interactive Fiction. You are Jesse Jordan, the mayor of Cougar Valley, Washington. You have been mayor for the last four years and you’re planning on being mayor for the next four and for a long time after that.
But first, can you win reelection? Getting more votes than your friend Bob shouldn’t be a problem. But what about Marie Eckles, the wealthy reform candidate who keeps highlighting what a terrible mayor you’ve been? Do you do what you have to do to raise the money to out-advertise her? Or do you just challenge her to a duel? Or do you do something that is potentially even worse to secure your victory?
I don’t want to spoil the game but Re-Election Campaign has so many options and so many different outcomes that its one that you really do have to play over and over again to get the full story. You can either play this quickly for fun (and I enjoyed seeing what would happen whenever I made an obviously bad decision) or you can do a deep dive and discover just how crazy things can get when politics and power are concerned. I really enjoyed discovering a new aspect of the story every time that I played. It takes more than a few run-throughs to really discover who Jesse Jordan really is. Nothing is what it initially seems and I actually was taken by surprise when the truth was eventually revealed. Well-written and frequently very funny, Re-Election Campaign is one of the best IF games that I’ve played in a while.