Israeli Developer Launches Real-Time Knesset Election Simulator
Israeli developer Shahar Rosenfeld has launched "The Road to 61," a political campaign simulator for the 26th Knesset that integrates real-time polling data and AI-driven scenarios.
The Political Campaign Simulator
Israeli indie developer and computer science student Shahar Rosenfeld has built "The Road to 61", a web-based election simulator for the upcoming 26th Knesset. The platform allows users to select an active Israeli political party and manage a 10-week campaign based on real-time polling data.
To establish realistic starting conditions, Rosenfeld built an automated system that runs daily at 4:00 AM, scraping the latest polls from major Israeli polling agencies to calculate an updated weighted average.
Probability Engine and Media Dynamics
Players must make strategic decisions each round, such as organizing field operations, recruiting public figures to their party list, or conducting television interviews. The game's probability engine relies on a matrix of nearly 1,000 calibrated values reflecting real-world political dynamics.
Rosenfeld explained the complexity of the media simulation:
"An interview on one specific media channel will yield one effect, while an interview on another channel will result in a completely different outcome. We also implemented the critical election-day mechanism of vote-sharing and leakage between ideologically aligned parties."
To keep the scenarios relevant, Rosenfeld utilizes artificial intelligence to scan current political news and update the database of questions and events in real time.
Technical Stack and User Statistics
The game was built using pure JavaScript without external frameworks, hosted on Vercel with a Redis database. Rosenfeld developed the project in close collaboration with Anthropic's Claude AI assistant to accelerate feature deployment.
Since its launch, users have played over 40,000 campaigns. According to the developer, several political parties have reached out regarding the game's data. Currently, the most popular parties selected by players are "Likud" and "The Democrats." Only 23% of players who completed the campaign succeeded in becoming Prime Minister.
