Jennifer Government: NationStates
NationStates is an browser game where you run your own country. It was made by an Australian man called Max Barry and the idea for it was from his book Jennifer Government. It came out on 13 November 2002.[2] There was a sequel, NationStates 2, but it is now closed.
| Owner | Max Barry |
|---|---|
| Created by | Max Barry |
| Revenue | Partially from advertising, and encouraged book sales |
| Website | nationstates.net |
| Alexa rank | 21,152 (July 2013[update])[1] |
| Commercial | Yes |
| Registration | Yes |
| Launched | 13 November 2002 |
| Current status | Active |
Gameplay
Beginning
In the beginning, you create your own country. On the first page, you choose your name, flag, motto, money and government type. On the next page, the answers decide the first rankings of your nation. At first, a country has a population of 5 million and rises every day.
Issues
Issues are the most important part of the game. In it, you have to choose an option to solve a problem in your country. Also, you can just click "dismiss" to ignore it. None are the right one, as each one has it's downsides.[3] After the 30 original issues, Max Barry realized that more were needed so he gave players with a population of over 500 million an option to send him their own issue ideas.[3]
Rankings
The way you choose the solutions to the issues changes your civil rights, political freedoms and economy rankings. The names of the rankings can be seen below:
| Rankings in NationStates | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Civil Rights | Outlawed | Unheard Of | Rare | Few | Some | Below Average | Average | Good | Very Good | Excellent | Superb | World Benchmark | Excessive | Widely Abused | Corrupted |
| Economy | Imploded | Basket Case | Fragile | Weak | Struggling | Developing | Fair | Reasonable | Good | Strong | Very Strong | Thriving | Powerhouse | All Consuming | Frightening |
| Political Freedoms | Outlawed | Unheard Of | Rare | Few | Some | Below Average | Average | Good | Very Good | Excellent | Superb | World Benchmark | Excessive | Widely Abused | Corrupted |
Based on these, each country is placed in one of 27 types, such as Inoffensive Centrist Democracy, Scandinavian Liberal Paradise and Corporate Police State.