ClarkClan Craziness: Review—The Presidential Game

It is a race to the most powerful job in the world: The President of the United States.

The Presidential is a game that pits two teams, The Democrats and The Republicans, to see who will win the Presidency. Along the way teams battle it out to win 270 Electoral votes and thus win the Presidency.

The Presidential Game
www.thepresidentialgame.com
Ages 11+
2+ Players
$35.00
Game Includes: Game board, Score pad, 3 blue dice, 3 red dice, 80 Politics cards, 40 write your own Politics cards, 150 Republican votes, 150 Democrat votes, Electoral WebMap Calculator web code

ClarkClan Experiences

This game worked very well in our family. The whole family played together which includes mom and dad, Sarah, 16, Ben, 11, and Rebekah 10. The age range for this game is 11+. What we discovered is that this age range is spot on. Rebekah liked the game, but would lose interest and did not grasp the strategy concepts required to win the game.She wanted to pick states based on what state she liked, not on how many votes they garnered. Ben and Sarah on the other hand picked up on the strategies involved in campaigning.

The game begins by teams choosing whether they want to be Democrat or Republican. Before the game begins, teams determine how many weeks there is until the election. A full game is 30 weeks, which takes an hour or more to play. Our family usually chose to play 20 weeks so the game did not last quite as long. On each turn, you can choose to either campaign or fundraise. To campaign, you must identify which three states you would like to campaign in before you roll. There are four states in which to fundraise. To fundraise, you must say which state you want to fundraise in before the roll of the dice.

Politics Cards added an element of fun to the game. These cards offer either rewards or penalties to the teams. They were written in a cute style which prompted a lot of teasing among our family. Ben would gleefully tell Dad he lost a state because he (Dad) forgot who won the Super Bowl, even though it was his home team.

The game comes with a paper scorecard to record each teams votes. Electoral votes would be added or subtracted on this scorecard. Instead of the scorecard, we choose to use the interactive WebMap to keep track of who was associated with each state. Since things can change quickly, this interactive map was very useful. It also kept track of what week we were on.

US Geography skills are also strengthened while playing this game. We found that the more we played the game, the better the kids became at knowing where the states were located.

Recommendation

I would recommend this game for Jr. High and above. It is a group game that requires participation between players. While there is strategy involved, luck also plays a part with the rolling of the dice. This would be a good game for a civics class to learn how the election process works.