Finally a Game Just for Adults: Fantasy Congress (Insert Larry Craig Joke Here…No Here…Yes There)

reason reader and blogger Sandy Smith points us to the new simulation game, Fantasy Congress. From a writeup at Escapist mag:

Andrew Lee says he came up with Fantasy Congress in college, after watching his roommate obsess over fantasy football, and he frames his description of Fantasy Congress in fantasy sports terms. "Think of Fantasy Congress just like fantasy football," he says, "but instead of being a general manager of a football team, here you are the guy in the background who's picking and choosing the members of Congress that you think are gonna do well when they reconvene. Say, for example, you choose a number of members of Congress. … It's exactly [like] fantasy football, except the metrics aren't touchdowns and interceptions."

Fantasy sports make use of preexisting statistics to determine how good a player is. Politics don't score that way, so Lee's team had to figure that out as they went along. "When we first started, we [used] legislation," he says. "Our users told us legislation is really boring. I can't tell when a piece of legislation is gonna be passed, but I can tell you, however, I can see when I read a piece of news - say, for example, right now with Senator Larry Craig from Idaho. He's in some trouble in terms of his bathroom incident. His scandal that's going on, I can see that. I'd like to be able to score points … based off that. So we created a category for news mention. And in addition to that, you can actually see votes as they occur on C-SPAN. So people were interested in seeing votes."

More, including stories of players calling their congresshacks to improve their ratings and the greatest bio-line I've ever read ("Joe Blancato is an Associate Editor at The Escapist. His Fantasy Congress team, Team Wide Stance, is currently in fourth place in a 15-person league."), here.

Offical Fantasy Congress site here.

Me, I'm holding out for the Violent Fantasy Congress game.