About 195-0

You pick five people, give each one of five cabinet jobs, and run a short simulation that decides how much of the map you conquer. The game maxes out at 195 — one point for every nation on Earth — and almost never gets there.

Each person comes from a category and a country. Categories range from politicians to pop stars, dictators to dancers. The job you give them matters more than how famous they are, and the score comes from the strange team you assembled, not from making a serious cabinet.

It is a bad idea on purpose. The point is to laugh at an absurd government, not to model one. You do not need a rulebook, you do not need to know politics, and a first attempt takes a few minutes.

The short loop is the design. Five rounds, one decision at a time, then a result that tells you how badly your appointments fit. It is easier to start again than to find the perfect team, so most players try a handful of odd lineups and keep the one that scores best.

The names come from real public figures, and they are there for the game. A pop star can be your Propaganda Minister; a wrestler can run your treasury. The pairing is a joke, not a forecast.

Nothing in 195-0 is a statement about how any real person would govern, and no one is endorsed or predicted. The game is fiction about the teams you make up.