1904

1904
Election image for the redux version
Creators	Original: SilentCalCoolidge Redux: Verbluffen (Writer) Liquid Astro (Coder)
Genre	Historical
Candidates	Theodore Roosevelt (R-NY) (inc.) Alton B. Parker (D-NY) Eugene Debs (SPA-IN) Thomas E. Watson (P-GA) Austin Holcomb (Cont-GA)
IRL result	336 R 140 D

1904 was the thirtieth Presidential Election in American history, represented in Campaign Trail by two mods. The first, 1904, was authored by /u/SilentCalCoolidge, released in November 2022. Owing to a lackluster reception, a remake entitled Money Talks: 1904 was released in April 2023, considered broadly more historically accurate and fleshed-out, but unlike its predecessor, featuring only one side.

Gameplay of both

There are two playable candidates in the original mod: Theodore Roosevelt, the incumbent Republican who took office after William McKinley's assassination, and Alton Brooks Parker, a New York judge nominated by the Democrats. In the remake, only Parker is playable.

The gameplay of the original is most similar to the code-only 1900 mod by Yupperdoo, to the point of directly lifting questions that have no bearing on 1904 itself. The descriptions and questions are brief, and some parts outdated and anachronistic. The coding is rather static.

In the redux, more layers of dynamism are introduced. It is possible to end the campaign on the first question by rejecting the gold standard, and thus losing the Democratic nomination as Parker. In his place, William Randolph Hearst contests the election -- the result of which depends on the difficulty setting. The scenario tracks Parker's electrifying ascent to the Democratic nomination, his front-porch campaign conducted from Esopus, New York, and the late-breaking Cortelyou scandal. On Normal difficulty, it is not possible to win.

The player has the option to end the campaign one question early by choosing not to utilize the emergent scandal. Otherwise, the course of the campaign is fairly standard, with one civil rights-focused question that allows the player to throw several southern states to Thomas Watson, the Populist candidate.

Creations

1904 was announced around October 2022, and it later got two extra development updates, one posted on Halloween to showcase the extra Taft running mate option and the other posted in November 2022, to showcase a final version rough draft of the mod. The remake was announced in April 2023 and unlike the original version, it got no Reddit development updates.

Mod launches

1904 was released on Thanksgiving 2022. It garnered over 50 upvotes, with then mixed support. The remade version would be released in May 2023. It garnered over 120 upvotes, with unanimous support, much unlike the original version. It was added to the loader soon after and for a short time had a special black-orange color, but it was later changed back to being uncolored.

Receptions and legacies

It was quickly noted that the "Code 2" and margins of the original 1904 are reused from u/yupperdoo97's 1900 mod, which was kept from the loader owing to poor quality. Within the modding community, 1904 became something of a joke to exemplify bad writing; particularly, the laconic description of Henry G. Davis as "a figure from West Virginia who's willing to be on your ticket" became something of a joke. While the author has expressed some intention to revisit his work, nothing has come of it.

Money Talks: 1904 met with better reception from the community. It was praised for its unique banner and theme, attention to detail, breadth of historical research, and clever use of basic choose-your-own-adventure mechanics in the ability to immediately disqualify Parker from the first question. The mod authors expressed no desire to "complete" the scenario with a Roosevelt side, though this decision was met with some disagreement.