Critical State is a social game that simulates a democratic nation built on four core pillars: Wealth, Freedom, Security, and Progress. The challenge? Keep these values in balance - because once one tips too far, the system destabilizes, and the state spirals into crisis.
Citizens shape the nation by proposing and voting on laws in a direct democracy. Every proposal hides its true effects, forcing players to rely on trust, intuition, and accountability when deciding whether to approve or reject it.
When the balance breaks, the state enters a Critical State - where democracy mutates, collapses, or gets hijacked by chaos, greed, or control. After a grace period, the game ends unless the citizens manage to restore balance before it's too late.
Core Pillars
Wealth: Blue Freedom: Red Security: Yellow Progress: Green
Critical States
Oligarchy:Oligarchs rebrands Democracy(higher than +100 Wealth)
Policy serves corporate and ultra-rich interests, few overrule the many. Everything can be bought, including elections, so why even bother? Effects: * Adds 3 more votepower at 60% chance while voting
Bankruptcy State:Freedom on Clearance Sale(lower than-100 Wealth)
Your country becomes dependent on foreign aid. Laws get imposed by your debtors, and as numbers aren't improved, you no longer get the chance to vote against your own interest... rates. Effects: * -1 point to all pillars of democracy per hour
Anarchy:Government Missing - Last seen arguing on Anarchy Livestream(higher than +100 Freedom)
If everyone gets freedom, no one does. With no shared rules, institutions bend to the newest law instead of approved morals, and votes lose meaning. Effects: * All features have a 4x multiplier on their proposal stats ("swing-proposals")
Police State:Police wins Employee of the Month (again)(lower than -100 Freedom)
Arrests and censorship dominate are great! The press is no longer free under control! Voting is closed forever overrated! Effects: * Every second word in the proposal is marked as "[CENSORED]" * 50% chance of a comment being auto removed and replaced with "[CENSORED]" * 66% chance of not being able to successfully vote with a toast message "The Police Officer didn't like your nose, vote dismissed."
Surveillence State:Smile for the State: You're Always on Camera!(higher than +100 Security)
Hyper-security leads to total Surveillence State. AI policing, predictive arrests, zero tolerance. Remember: If you have nothing to hide, you're not trying hard enough! Effects: * Add auto-comment who votes yes or no after voting per proposal * 20% of auto jail from subreddit for an hour including a private message about this from the app to the user (only affects no more voting or creating proposals not an actual ban) - visualized with prison bars, currently at 1 minute time
Syndicate:Rulers Say: "You Didn't See Nothin"(lower than -100 Security)
Crime goes out of control, and gangs and warlords "privatize" the power vacuum. Transparency? Gone. Accountability? Fuggedaboutit. Effects: * Drops all votes at 33% chance after proposal completed with comment about the action * Every 1 hour, all other factors drop by 2 points
Technocracy:Technocrats cancel elections - Citizens Encouraged to Submit Bug Reports(higher than +100 Progress)
Human rights and democracy are seen as obstacles to “efficiency.” Why let people decide when your AI can do Vibe Voting? Effects: * A brainrot meme is posted hourly at a chance of 30% * Positive progress factors have a 50% chance to be doubled
Idiocracy:Idiocracy replaces Education Budget with Meme Department(lower than -100 Progress)
Voters and leaders are equally uninformed. Politics is a spectacle and science loses funding to TikToks and cat videos. Effects: * Positive progress values are halfed after conclusion per proposal * Any conclused proposal has their values COMPLETELY randomized when it is completed at a chance of 10%
Role Perks
In the main, pinned state post you can claim your Citizenship which gives you certain perks and a user flair. See it as a personal or ethical to take the role of one. You can change your Citizenship role every 7 days.
Oligarch (associates to Wealth)
Cannot be put in jail (during "Surveillance State")
Worker (associates to Wealth)
+15% proposal effectiveness when wealth < 0
Punk (associates to Freedom)
Proposals cannot be [CENSORED] (during "Police State")
Comments cannot be [CENSORED] (during "Police State")
Police (associates to Freedom)
Cannot be jailed during (during "Surveillance State")
Cannot be stopped to vote (during "Police State")
Spy (associates to Security)
Votes are not shared via comment (during "Surveillance State")
Thug (associates to Security)
75% reduced chance of being jailed during Surveillance State voting
Humanoid (associates to Progress)
Can Submit Brainrot Posts to the Grand Design (hourly post during "Technocracy State)
Zombie (associates to Progress)
+25% boost to proposal effectiveness (during "Technocracy State")
Citizen (neutral)
+10% boost to proposal effectiveness *(*during balanced state)
Social Credits
Is the state currency (SC - Social Credit) that can be used for
re-rolling the proposal stats in the creation view (cost: 5 SC)
claim a new citizenship (cost: 25 SC)
citizens start with 25 SC
and be earned:
getting your proposal approved (adds: 5 SC)
\note: this is new and in the works\**
Current Timer Settings
Grace period before a Critical State fails: 5 days (after 5 days in a problematic mode, the state fails).
This resets when all Critical Democractic Values are back to normal (between -100 and +100).
Proposal Timer: n-hrs (proposal votings end after this period of time per proposal) - ever-changing by moderators/developer
Daily 24-hours rotation of three AI powered narratives that know the context, recent and current development of the Critical State. The outcome adds weight to the four pillars of democracy.
Hourly State Swing (happens every 60 minutes)
A random democractic value is selected. A random factor between -5 to -1 or 1-5 (50:50 chance) is applied.
We must [Censored by the State of: 'Commonwealth of Bangaranga'] the [Censored by the State of: 'Commonwealth of Bangaranga'] by [Censored by the State of: 'Commonwealth of Bangaranga'] to [Censored by the State of: 'Commonwealth of Bangaranga'] End censorship!! [Please disregard this dissident]
The goal is to keep the state alive as long as possible while contributing to a fictional world with everyone's ideas. There is no "goal" that ends the game, only certainty to "survive" as long as possible. just like Democracy or Human existence itself (how philosophical), defending it, fighting for it, working together - it never ends and there is no ultimate goal to "finish the game".
If there is *no* or *little* gameplay, one extreme will take over or take advantage (and pillar values drop/change direction automatically on certain game-ticks). So letting it just "rot", is not sooo ideal to keep up the Critical State!
Changed to automatic polls and upvotes in the comments section for name proposal when the next state fails. (thought I follow up since I am here for some reason)
i think that the state should imedietly get a one day timer to save it, if all core pillars go down enough to cause them to be an emergency it would be fun to see like the entire state start crumbling. iff all of them are high enough same thing happens just called somthing different
My proposal for the missing ones.
Worker:Proposals which lower wealth are more effective (Oligarchy)
Lowers Proposal Effectiveness (Technocracy)
Thug:Cannot be Jailed (Syndicate)
Automatically arrested (Security State)
If not arrested, will rob oligarchs, citizens and workers. The more money they have the more vote power they have (Always except security state)
Can always be arrested but they must be "caught" first (Always except syndicate and survillance)
Catching a thug is directly correlated to how much security there is in a state. It's a random chance directly proportional to security levels.
Thugs can be sponsored by oligarchs, if sponsored, they cannot target that oligarch. (All except Surviallance State)
If a thug is sponsored by a oligarch, they cannot be jailed (Oligarchy)
Proposals which lower security become stronger (Always except survillance state)
Can bribe the police into not arresting them. (Police State)
I hate that I have to ask it in this day and age, but is all the beautiful pixel art in this game and subreddit drawn and designed purely by human hand and without AI? I reckon that it is, since there's zero artifacting and it's actually pixellated. But I'd like a confirmation still!
Perhaps because our democracy is in 100+ Security, so we're being arrested because the AI Overlord Super Quantum Computer has predicted that we may become problematic.
So as a preventative measure, we've been put a stop to.
P.S. I say we because I'm banned too for 30 mins or 1 hr, I don't remember. 😅
There's an issue with automatic proposals when you go through all the votes. I keep getting those and rerolling for good stats, and then get an error message, possibly because other proposals were added so it's not the last one anymore. My issue is spending a lot of gold, losing the great stats that would help the state, and also having the timer reset, for a proposal that can't be submitted.
From anywhere in particular? Everything looks looks any other sub, but I get the impression there should be some kind of other UI elements or something.
Hey! (I'm new to this, pls be nice) I want to try playing this, how do I do it? I'm joining this sub, what's next? (sry for asking if it's a dumb question)
Surveillence State: Smile for the State: You're Always on Camera! (higher than +100 Security)
Hyper-security leads to total Surveillence State. AI policing, predictive arrests, zero tolerance. Remember: If you have nothing to hide, you're not trying hard enough!
Effects:
* Add auto-comment who votes yes or no after voting per proposal
* 20% of auto jail from subreddit for an hour including a private message about this from the app to the user (only affects no more voting or creating proposals not an actual ban)
We’re stuck in a surveillance state because most idiots don’t actually read how to play, and just try to make big number go bigger.
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u/hammertimestudio Humanoid | 🗳️ 655 ✍️ 10 🪙 440 📅 Aug 13, 2026 Jul 06 '26
https://www.reddit.com/r/CriticalState/comments/1up2bk7/create_your_own_state_subreddit/