Career Mode (game mode)

Career Mode is a second game built inside the same application as the presidency game. The player controls a single person, starting in a chosen year between 1990 and 2025, and plays that person month by month for as long as the career lasts. The player may be a governor, a state legislator, a member of the US House, a US senator, the President, or a private citizen holding no office. Every month, the game world moves forward, whatever the player did is judged, and the player's recognition and favourability move as a result. The player can run for any office whose filing window is open, and winning the presidency hands the career over to the presidency game.

The mode is in beta: the notice on the start screen states that it is new, unbalanced, and has only been lightly played so far, and that fixes will continue to change it while it is being played. It continues to change as players report problems on the game's Discord server.

Starting a career

The start screen offers a choice of pace, a Historical or Sandbox world, a template, a type of start, a starting year, and a state, described in full at Career starts. Choosing Continue opens the presidency game's character screen with a career sheet added to it, covering age, education, the player's job, their household, their health, and their savings. This sheet decides the player's monthly budget of action points, and also builds the character's profile for the presidency game, so a career that wins the White House already arrives with a valid president. The player's party is Democrat or Republican; independents cannot be played. A set of office dials, chosen once at the start, switch on once the player reaches the relevant desk.

The hub

The Political Scene is the home screen for a citizen or a candidate, and an officeholder can also reach it from their desk. It holds the month's diary and its Take the Month button, the day's newspapers, one-line items about named politicians in the player's state, an overview of the White House, Congress, the courts and every state's governor, an overview of the player's own state, the player's own races and the state's political scene, the player's own standing and record, and the operation board described at The board.

Standing and the month

The player's public standing is tracked as recognition and favourability for every voter the player might meet, described at Recognition and favourability. Recognition rises when the player is in front of people and fades slowly over time; favourability only moves in response to what the player actually says and does. Each month gives the player a budget of action points, based on their age, their job, any caregiving duties, and their health. The board is where these points are spent, on doorstep visits, congregations and associations, press bookings, party rooms, and fundraising. Activities can also break into events, which the player then responds to, and the month closes with a debrief reporting what moved and by how much.

Offices and races

Anyone belonging to a major party can file to run for any office whose filing window is open, including a primary challenge to their own party's sitting incumbent, and no candidacy is ever refused. The Seat Book lists every seat on the horizon, its current holder, the field of candidates so far, and the way to enter a race. A candidate's strength in a primary combines how well known and how well liked they are among their own party's voters in the relevant state or district. A general election is counted one group of voters at a time, according to how each group sees the candidates and how the seat usually leans; see Races and primaries. Campaigning works by moving how the voters see the candidate. The presidency itself runs through primary contests, a nominating convention, the choice of a running mate, and a general-election campaign.

The presidency

Winning the White House turns the career into the presidency game, with a fresh four-year term, the running mate seated as Vice President, and the office dials chosen back at the start of the career. Any seat the player previously held is resigned, and the operation board no longer runs while the player is President. However the presidency ends, its ending offers a Continue option that returns the player to the wider game world as a former President.

Endings

Career Mode has no score and no fixed finish line. A career ends when an officeholder's standing collapses and they are run out of office or recalled, when a candidate's own standing collapses, when a private citizen has burned every bridge with their party or a national figure has been disgraced, when the player receives a long prison sentence, or when an older character who is out of office dies. A President's endings are handled by the presidency game instead. Every ending offers an epilogue summarising the years spent in public life and a generated Wikipedia-style page describing the career.

Access

Career Mode requires a premium account; a free account is shown an upgrade prompt instead. A career started on a free account stops after twelve months. The mode has its own written guide, linked from the start screen, and a debug menu at the bottom of the hub and of every desk.