Leaders of The Resistance

Rebirth of a Classic

Hidden Agenda 2026 has been created by the original producer and co-developer of the classic 1988 political situation, Hidden Agenda, in which you play the role of Presidente in a fictional, post-revolutionary Central America country called Chimerica, after the fall of an unpopular dictator.

A forerunner to the Games for Change movement, enjoyed by players around the world, used to teach FBI, DEA, and CIA personnel about Latin American politics at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute, taught in universities, and used by the African National Congress to model post-apartheid South Africa. Hidden Agenda is a unique and breakthrough mix of game play, narrative, and simulation like nothing that had come before it.

Read more about the original Hidden Agenda here.

And you can play the original for free on the Internet Archive.

Critically Acclaimed

Hidden Agenda 1988 became an instant classic, a game unlike anything seen or experienced before.

While games like Balance of Power or even the board game Risk placed you into the role of someone elevating the power, prestige, or influence of your country, Hidden Agenda is unique in the unorthodox notion of “winning” built into the game play.

As envisioned by scenario designers Jim Gasperini and Eric Ehrmann and implemented by producer, co-designer/developer Ron Martinez, the game’s core mechanic is the player’s judgment and its consequences. The player’s decisions affect the nation’s stability and are judged by the various in-game characters and factions, such as the Popular Movement, the Church, the Military, and the United States or Cuba, depending on the alignment chosen. The game’s narrative structure ensures players face complex moral and political choices, and the “judgment” is an outcome of those choices within the game’s simulation, not an external, definitive judgment in a real-world encyclopedia. 

Read more about the original Hidden Agenda here.

And you can play the original for free on the Internet Archive.

2026 Edition: Contemporary America

Nearly forty years later, one of Hidden Agenda’s original creators, producer and co-designer/developer Ron Martinez, brings you Hidden Agenda 2026. This new edition is the result of Ron Martinez’s acute awareness of the limitations of the original–it’s core structure as an experience “on rails,” offering a rich but constrained set of authored branching choices that felt open-ended and capable of emergent circumstances but were not.

 In 2022, Ron began experimenting with storytelling and generative AI. He build Headcanon, and complex, richly imagined characters that functioned as improvisational actors who knew their role, their way of thinking and talking, their objectives. From this base of design research and development, Hidden Agenda 2026 was born.

Now, you play the role of a leader of The Resistance, working with allies to rescue democracy and even rationality after the fall of a “fictional” corrupt president-turned-dictator of contemporary America. America 2026 has itself become Chimerica.

As you begin playing, the world simulation is already in motion. You are a key player. Your decisions and actions will change the world of Hidden Agenda 2026. And maybe the real world, too.

As Hidden Agenda 2026 Opens…

A Corrupt President Turned Dictator Has Lost His Grip on Reality, But Not Power

He has already subverted the nation’s democratic institutions and seized the powers of a dictator, a tyrannical one at that is gone. Still, no one feels safe. He ordered troops into the nation’s cities to intimidate populations, sent masked, unidentifiable thugs to round up both legal and undocumented immigrants. He muzzled critics, using his vast economic and regulatory powers to have critics silenced, late night shows canceled, editorial policies corrupted.

Global Damage to The World Order

He also used his vast powers as the American president to damage generational alliances in Europe and elsewhere, threaten immediate neighbors, while turning a blind eye to the aggression of bloodthirsty dictators he admired Corrupt business dealings flourished, lining billionaire pockets as people lost basic rights, health care, and economic security at home.

A World of Personalities

Hidden Agenda 2026 is narrative simulation populated by a world of personalities, each with a perspective and world view, each talking to you in realtime voice conversation–casts of characters all acting and generating events, stories, proposals, original imagery, and audio unique to your simulation experience.

Your Role: A Nation Rebuilder

You were a leader of The Resistance, one of a network of resisters from all walks of life: activists, politicians, good cops, military personnel, commentators, comedians, farmworkers, influencers. Now that the president-turned-dictator is gone, you work with others to restore and rebuild the nation.

Make World-Changing Decisions

Your allies work with you, making Proposals you can affirm and then carrying out what you agree to do. And you’re not alone when making these decisions: you can appoint Advisors who will give their view on the best course of action, or on how to modify a proposal to reduce risk or be more effective.

Confront A Powerful Opposition

But there are Opponents, able to take counter-actions or to independently carry out their plan to undermine the now-fragile mechanisms of democracy and regain permanent control of the country.

Your Opponents

Your opponents are the former allies of the President-Turned-Dictator, his now deposed incompetent toady cabinet, his still-acting agency heads, business cronies, a feckless congress and Supreme Court once fully bent to the dictator’s will, an army of worshipful followers seemingly immune to reason or principle, corrupted high-tech oligarchs, and network of media outlets continuing to pump out his lies and propaganda 24/7 on tv, radio, podcast, and social media. Their actions appear as Events and each one changes your goal of rebuilding the nation.

RMake News, Generate Commentary

As you act upon the world, News and Commentary will appear, reflecting the world view of each commentator and the slant or standards of the each outlet. These will help you understand regime actions and what you might do in response.

Take Independent Actions

Finally, you can take completely independent actions, musing on what you might do outside of any proposal by an ally, in 1:1 conversation with the soul of this simulated world.

Grapple with Real World Events Injected into The Simulation Every Day

Hidden Agenda 2026 is designed as a living world that maps into the real world. We are confronted with seemingly incomprehensible events every day. New proposals and decisions, commentary, and news will appear almost every day, helping you to make sense of what’s happening in Hidden Agenda’s world, and in our world. 

Rebuild a Nation

And Write Your Own Tale of Resistance

In all of these ways, the world is changed and new proposals, events, news, commentary and media to deliver it is conjured as a result of your actions.

And maybe we can actually see how we can better change the world we live in, by increasing our understanding and trying out approaches to change the dizzying rise of autocracy in the deep simulation of Hidden Agenda 2026.

And in the process, Hidden Agenda 2026 will remember what you have done, and write the tale of your time in the Resistance and The Rebuilding.

A Breakthrough Narrative Simulation

Hidden Agenda 2026 is like nothing that has come before it: a fully generative experience, dynamically conjuring up stories in the form of events, proposals to act, commentary, powerful illustrations, and spoken audio.

The Content You Generate is Yours with CC+ Licensing

And what’s more, all this media created as a result of your actions is CC+ licensed and free to use in original or derivative form any way you want: use images in your art work, characters and events in your stories and books, create and sell merchandise, write or generate songs, and more. Make anything you use or create available commercially or for free. The choice is yours.

A Powerful Simulation Engine, Two+ Years in Development

The underlying Headcanon Engine has been in development for over two years, orchestrating powerful generative systems and media creation capabilities to create believable synthetic personalities alive in dynamic worlds with events and situations conjured by your actions.

1% For The Planet

A percentage point of every dollar spent on Hidden Agenda 2026 goes to organizations and projects engaged in climate action. Funds are used to purchase permanent carbon removal from promising early-stage technologies that are working to deliver over the next few years. Managed by Stripe, our payment processor.

Join The Resistance Today

Hidden Agenda 2026 is the first of many Headcanon sims to come, to entertain, inform, and delight. Join the Resistance and start generating a better world today!