eyalgolan/statecraft-israel

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The cinematic trailer (1:23, with sound), made with AI video tools and AI music (ElevenLabs Music) from our concept art; it is not in-game footage.

A turn-based grand-strategy game about governing Israel. You are the prime minister on 15 May 1948. The ministers are the real ones, the map is real, and every historical fact comes with a source.

Concept art (AI-generated): the look we are building toward, set in 1936, before the game's 1948 start. It is not the current build, and it shows things the game does not have. Real screenshots of today's build are below.

You sit in the prime minister's chair from the founding of the state. Each turn you:

• appoint and replace real ministers such as David Ben-Gurion, Eliezer Kaplan and Moshe Sharett, inside a real coalition;
• divide a tiny budget between security, immigrant absorption, the ma'abarot transit camps and austerity;
• manage security on a five-level escalation ladder, from routine threats to full war;
• face real decisions at their real dates, such as the First Truce, the Altalena affair and the Bernadotte assassination, and see why each outcome happened in the "Why?" panel.

A deterministic C# simulation runs underneath. The same choices always give the same result, and a saved game is the seed plus the list of commands. Unity draws a real terrain map of the country built from elevation and climate data.

The game design of record is now docs/GDD.md (12 October 2026): monthly turns in which you build and defend Israel from 1948 to 1951 with units, cities and construction, and choose your ministers. The list above is the game you can play today. The new design is not playable yet; the build plan brings it in phases.

Real gameplay, build 0.1.0, 2026-10-13, commit f93fd5e.

Real screenshots from build 0.1.0 (M3), 2026-10-13. Taken at commit f93fd5e. The start screen's painting is AI-generated.

It is an early, honest prototype.

What works now (M3, 1948–1951):

• Turns from 15 May 1948 to the end of 1951.
• The start screen.
• The 1948 map: towns, villages and Bedouin camps, railways and roads, and the 1949 armistice zones and lines from each agreement's date.
• The 1948 brigades, 101 Squadron and the first navy ships as tokens at their sourced positions. They take no orders yet.
• The Cabinet with appointments.
• The Budget screen.
• The Defence screen with the escalation ladder and reserve call-up.
• Sourced historical events from the 1948 war through the 1951 foreign-currency crisis, most with an archival photograph.
• The "Why?" panel.
• Autosave and load.
• The browser (WebGL) build.

What is missing:

• The art in the concept image above. Settlements and trees are still placeholder art.
• Everything new in the GDD: one month per turn, units you train and command, cities with housing and jobs, construction, combat and the three objectives.
• Diplomacy.
• Anything after 1951.
• A hosted build you can play with one click.

The live tracker is #374. The plan behind it is the GDD v0.1 build plan. The roadmap sets no dates.

flowchart LR
  V["Visual v1"]:::done --> P0["0 · Decisions"]:::now
  P0 --> P1["1 · Vertical slice"]:::now
  P1 --> P2["2 · Monthly turns"]:::next
  P2 --> P3["3 · Cities"]:::next
  P3 --> P4["4 · Pioneers"]:::next
  P4 --> P5["5 · Units and combat"]:::next
  P5 --> P6["6 · Settlement control"]:::next
  P6 --> P7["7 · Full MVP"]:::next
  classDef done fill:#e3f1e8,stroke:#2f7d4f,color:#1c2430
  classDef now fill:#f8eedb,stroke:#b7791f,color:#1c2430
  classDef next fill:#eceff3,stroke:#8792a2,color:#1c2430

• Art: era-correct 3D settlements, vegetation and units, toward the concept image.
• Release (M4): a historian review and a hosted browser build.
• Platforms: desktop builds and Steam (#54).
• Later eras: the Yishuv before 1948, and the years after 1956, are paused until the MVP is done (#49 to #53).

There is no hosted build yet; one is planned for M4. To run it locally:

1. Install the tools in docs/dev-setup.md: .NET 10, Unity 6000.3.25f1 with Web Build Support, and uv.
2. Run uv run tools/build_sim_for_unity.py.
3. Build the web version. The command is in docs/dev-setup.md.
4. Run python3 -m http.server 8000 --directory unity/Builds/Web-disabled, then open http://localhost:8000/.

The exact commands are in BUILDING.md.

First open in Unity. The game scene is Assets/Map.unity, and it opens automatically. If it doesn't (you see an empty "Untitled" scene), double-click Map in the Project window's Assets folder. Then press Play.

Troubleshooting: error CS0246 'PlayerPrefsBool' means the Unity-MCP package (com.ivanmurzak.unity.mcp) is missing its OpenUPM registry (https://package.openupm.com); restore Packages/manifest.json and Packages/packages-lock.json from git. If the Console shows compile errors from a package that isn't in our Packages/manifest.json, remove that package from your local manifest or update it. Unity can't run while there is any compile error. More in BUILDING.md.

• Every event, minister, date and number in content/ carries sources: with URLs and check dates. Wikipedia (English and Hebrew) is a primary cited source for many facts, which is why content/ is CC BY-SA 4.0.
• The model behind the game, and its framing, embed assumptions. It is not neutral, and this page says so.
• No quotes are invented. Text paraphrases its sources.
• The framing is Israeli. Contested narratives are not presented as parallel accounts.
• Events about war, terror and the Holocaust are tagged sensitive. They get a sensitivity review before any build is shared, and the build tools refuse to package until it is recorded. Historian review is planned for M4.
• Found an error? Use the historical error form. It asks for a source, because a claim without one can't be acted on. The full rules: docs/CONTENT_POLICY.md.

Help is very welcome:

• Programmers: Unity, C# and Python tools.
• Historians and history enthusiasts: sourcing and fact-checking.
• 3D artists.
• Game designers and writers.
• Translators.

Before you start:

• Read docs/dev-setup.md.
• Run the tests listed in CONTRIBUTING.md.
• Adding a historical event? Read docs/WRITING_EVENTS.md.
• Keep game rules in the sim, not in Unity.
• Working in Unity with an AI agent? Use the bundled Unity-MCP plugin in local Custom mode; the steps are in CONTRIBUTING.md.

Start with CONTRIBUTING.md. There's no CLA: contributions come in under the repo's licences.

Looking for a first task? Browse the good first issue and help wanted filters, or the open issues (the help wanted label marks tasks that are ready to pick: research, content, design, translation and tests).

You need Unity 6000.3.25f1 (6.3 LTS) with Web Build Support; the exact version is in unity/ProjectSettings/ProjectVersion.txt. Clone, run uv run tools/build_sim_for_unity.py, add unity/ in Unity Hub and open Assets/Map.unity. The batch build, the tests and the browser check are in BUILDING.md.

This project is built with heavy AI assistance, disclosed here using itch.io's categories:

• Code: written with AI coding agents and reviewed through tests and review gates.
• Graphics: the concept and promo images in promo/ are AI-generated, as is the start screen's painting, and the web page's tab icon was drawn with AI help. The game's terrain comes from real elevation data. The portraits are public-domain, CC0 or CC BY 4.0 photographs (credited in NOTICE), and the event cards use archival photographs; on some cards an Illustration switch plays a short, silent AI-generated loop, and a few historical orders show a short AI-generated clip at End Turn, both labelled as such.
• Text: event and content text was drafted with AI, and every fact is checked against the cited source.
• Sound: no AI sound. The start screen can play the original 1948 recording of Ben-Gurion reading the Declaration (Israel State Archives).

Nothing is generated live while you play.

• Code: MIT.
• Original art, docs and data: CC BY 4.0.
• Game content text (content/, which paraphrases its sources, many from Wikipedia): CC BY-SA 4.0.
• AI-generated images: marked CC0, with no rights claimed.
• Third-party material: fonts, public-domain, CC0 and CC BY 4.0 portraits, the archival event photographs, Ben-Gurion's 1948 recording, and the Unity engine and packages are under their own terms.

Details are in LICENSING.md; attributions are in NOTICE and THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md, and every image's source is in ASSETS.yaml.

Questions and ideas go in Discussions; bugs and historical errors go in the issue tracker. Report security problems privately (SECURITY.md). CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md applies everywhere.

Created by Eyal Golan. Source credits live with each fact in content/, the portrait credits are in content/people.yaml, and third-party credits are in THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md.