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https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/56571db8-446b-444b-8db9-fce57dac53a7
The cinematic trailer (1:23, with sound), made with AI video tools from our concept art; it is not in-game footage.
Statecraft: Israel
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.
[!NOTE]
This is an independent open-source project. A commercial edition is planned. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Firaxis, 2K, the State of Israel or any person depicted. The game deals with war, terror and the Holocaust as historical events. Its framing is Israeli, every fact cites a source, and no quotes are invented. See Historical content.
What is this?
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.
What it looks like today
Real screenshots from build 0.1.0 (M3), 2026-10-10.
Is this any good?
It is an early, honest prototype.
What works now (M3, 1948–1951):
- Turns from 15 May 1948 to the end of 1951.
- 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.
- The "Why?" panel.
- Autosave and load.
- The browser (WebGL) build.
What is missing:
- The art in the concept image above. Settlements are still simple markers.
- Diplomacy.
- War mode.
- Anything after 1951.
- A hosted build you can play with one click.
Roadmap
- Visual v1 (next): shadows at map scale, a two-band tilt-shift, a stylised terrain shader, a graded sea, a cleaner hex grid and serif labels.
- M4: the full 1948–1956 slice, war mode for 1948 and Suez, the legacy report, a historian review and a hosted browser build.
- Art track: era-correct 3D settlements, vegetation and units, toward the concept image.
Play
There is no hosted build yet; one is planned for M4. To run it locally:
- Install the tools in docs/dev-setup.md: .NET 10, Unity 6000.3.25f1 with Web Build Support, and
uv.
- Run
tools/build_sim_for_unity.sh.
- Build the web version. The command is in docs/dev-setup.md.
- 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.
History, sources and accuracy
- 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.
Contributing
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:
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).
Build from source
You need Unity 6000.3.25f1 (6.3 LTS) with Web Build Support; the exact version is in unity/ProjectSettings/ProjectVersion.txt. Clone, run tools/build_sim_for_unity.sh, add unity/ in Unity Hub and open Assets/Map.unity. The batch build, the tests and the browser check are in BUILDING.md.
AI use
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. The game's terrain comes from real elevation data. The portraits are public-domain photographs.
- Text: event and content text was drafted with AI, and every fact is checked against the cited source.
- Sound: none yet.
Nothing is generated live while you play.
License
- 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 portraits 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.
Community and credits
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.
Statecraft: Israel 是一款回合制大战略游戏，你将从 1948 年 5 月 15 日起扮演总理，通过在 Unity 中渲染的确定性 C# 模拟，管理真实的部长、真实的联合政府，以及有出处可查的历史事件。