The run-up to the general elections saw several players using podcasts, explainer videos and blogs to spread awareness among the voters. But with everything needing an on-the-go peg, you never know when you’ll need to know some breaking news about who your next leader will be.
Mx. Democracy
This year, the educational content wasn’t restricted to traditional new media content. We also saw the introduction of mobile games. Even the Election Commission of India (ECI) hopped on the bandwagon. They developed a game for Android OS called Mx. Democracy, in collaboration with National Institute of Design, Bengaluru (NID-B). The game touches on the voter registration process — types of voters and forms, enforcing model code of conduct, voter slip distribution, preparing the ballot, poll day preparations and polling process.
Mx. Democracy, an education game made by Election Commission of India and National Institute of Design, Bangalore
The first thing you have to do is create your avatar. You can select from one of three genders and customise the appearance. Once done, you can play the game. There are six levels in total. In each level, you have to collect scrolls of information. Once all scrolls are collected, you enter a sub-game, which quizzes your learning from the scrolls.
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I particularly enjoyed the quizzing technique used in the second level. It informs about form 6, 8a, 6a, 2, 2a, 8 and 7. In the quiz, you have to offer the right form, depending on the citizen’s enquiry.
But the way of sharing the information could have been more engaging. Instead of scrolls with textbook information, the developers could have used voice-overs and motion graphics. Having said that, it is a great attempt, because it will make you a more informed citizen.
In less than two hours, the game gives a comprehensive understanding of the voting process. After completing all the levels, you can re-read scrolls without playing the game, and can also run a simulation which shows the process in a polling booth on election day.
Mx. Democracy, an education game made by Election Commission of India and National Institute of Design, Bangalore
All in all, it’s a great first attempt by ECI and NID-B. Mx. Democracy is bug-free and offers quick learning for people of all ages. It would be nice to have regional languages in the game. As of now, it’s only in English. Surprisingly, it wasn’t promoted by ECI or any other State ministry. The 51MB game can be downloaded from PlayStore.
Molitics
After the votes are cumulated, there’s nothing more exciting — and infuriating — than watching the aftermath online. While Mx. Democracy is laid-back, Molitics is much more corporate-looking. An app created by Xeine Tech Private Limited, it claims to “ provide its user local and national political news, fast and accurate election results, real-time surveys and complete leader’s information and notifications of their activities.”
To enable this personalised experience, the procedure asks where your political interests lie, based on your geography. By nailing down where you live, your user experience shows your nearest party leaders and the news around them. The app is divided into five sections: news feed, local news, public issues, leader and profile.
For someone new to Indian politics and its complexities, or for someone who just wants an interface which cleans it up without the distracting annoyances of ads, Molitics has the user learning quite a lot. But my main concern here is how an app manages to aggregate and organise this news into the page, which is difficult to understand. Plus, much of the app’s content is in Hindi, so you’ll be scrolling for quite some time unless you’re Hindi-literate.
One can keep track of what certain entities are saying at a given time, through the local news and public issues sections. Public issues is an interesting feature. Set away from the flurry of Twitter, the section displays various multimedia content of speeches, debates and more. Set like Reddit, it offers the option to ‘upvote’ or ‘downvote’ content. Some, however, may not take a liking to the ‘upvote’ and ‘downvote’ features in the leader section.
An app like Molitics is sustainable for way past Counting Day; there’s a lot one can do to stay afloat of the news and have a more informed vote come next elections. But is that enough?
With only nine ratings so far, naturally, the app’s average rating is 4.6 on the Apple App Store; so try to take everything with a pinch of salt.
