Hello,

My brother got me this game, and I have to say it is incredibly fun and addictive, definitely worth the $7 purchase.  I've been playing it quite a bit since it was released yesterday, but I have noticed a few bugs and lacking gameplay features that I would like to see addressed:

First off, I often come across this problem where I can't scroll around the screen when moving my cursor to the edges.  At the same time this happens, the screen will slowly fidget to the side of one direction every few seconds, like it will slowly move a little to the left over and over on its own.

Another technical problem is that sometimes soon after I load a game, and EVERY time I attempt to load a game while already engaged in gameplay, the game will crash.  A minor inconvenience, but would like to see it fixed.

In-game, I've noticed a problem involving the special interest endorsements - whenever you have enough points available for one, the "Special Interest" button will glow, as it should.  However, once you've gotten all the endorsements for your party, it will STILL glow if you have the amount of clout listed for them on that screen.  This means that, say you're using a Democratic candidate and you've received all the endorsements linked to your party, and their final amount on the endorsement screen is listed as 22 clout points.  Then say that a Republican group is available at 30 points, while you have 24 that turn.  Given this scenario, the Special Interest group button will glow based on the logic that you can take a Democratic group's endorsement, despite the fact you've already gotten them all.  Although this seems like a minor problem, it becomes a very apparent and problematic one in longer games - if all of the endorsements are used between the two candidates, you will naturally rack up more and more influence points with nothing to use them on, which means that your Special Interest button will glow EVERY TURN for the rest of the game even when you have nothing to use it for.  And just for clarification, I would like to note that I have checked and know that this happens even when you can't afford to hire operatives, so I'm not being misled by that.  Frankly, I'd really like to see an overhaul in the endorsement system, or at least make endorsements much costlier in longer games.  As it stands now, any long game with two competent candidates will have them each receive their party's respective endorsements really early on, and then the gameplay feature becomes entirely negligible for the remainder of the game.  This also provides little incentive to want to choose any particular group, since you will likely receive all the other endorsements shortly after.  Sorry for the huge wall of text in this one, but it's a cool feature idea that I don't feel is being used to its fullest potential.

Another problem I seemed to have early on was that when I would hire a Fixer and send him to an enemy unit, he would just land on top of the unit without taking them out.  However, that was one of my first games, and I haven't encountered it since, so perhaps I was mistaken by something or there are certain units you can't take out that I wasn't aware of.  In any case, clarification would be nice.

In regards to multi-player, there REALLY should be LAN play.  I would love to play this game with my brother, but whenever we play turn-based games like this, it's irritating when we are forced to institute a turn time limit or are unable to save (although maybe you can save in online multi-player for this game, I haven't tried it yet).  Not to mention it's just nicer to be able to connect directly without having to go through an internet lobby, just in case there are connection problems.

Finally - I know these two sound really nitpicky, but for the sake of completion I may as well mention them - I happened to notice that when you're playing as a Democrat and have a Fixer at your disposal, the icon shows it sporting Republican red despite other expendable units' colors being that of the party you chose.  Also, one of the questions that O'Malley asks in the O'Malley Scenario mentions the ACLU, despite the game itself having a fictional equivalent called the National Civil Liberties Union (NCLU).

One more thing I'd like to note is that this is my first Political Machine game, but I've noticed other users mentioning that past games were similar, but with more candidates from the past and present, unlockables, and a single-player campaign mode.  I would love to see these features implemented into this one to increase replay value and the single player experience, and it seems silly to me that features like these would be removed in later editions of the game.

Anyway, sorry for all the complaining here, since I really do love the game and everything about it aside from these drawbacks.  Since it's being sold through Steam, I would love to see regularly scheduled updates to it with more candidates and features added occasionally.  Thank you for making such an addictive strategy game for us political junkies!