LiveMillhaven, USADescriptive

Mayor of Nothing

About this game

Population 847 and dropping. You're the new mayor of a dying small town — fix infrastructure, attract businesses, manage the budget, and make the hard calls. Every decision has tradeoffs and the residents remember everything.

Opening scenario

First Day in Office

Population 847 and dropping. You just inherited a broke town, a leaky roof, and 847 opinions. Good luck.

Where you start

Your setup

[YOUR NAME] is sitting in the mayor's office on their first official day. The office is on the second floor of Millhaven Town Hall — a limestone building from 1923 with a clock tower that stopped working in 2019. The office is small: a wooden desk (scratched, one drawer stuck), two filing cabinets, a window overlooking Main Street, and a framed photo of every mayor since 1952 hanging crooked on the wall. There's a water stain on the ceiling tile above the desk.

It's Monday morning, late May. The weather is warm, overcast, with rain expected by afternoon. Dolores Hatchett, the town clerk, has left a manila folder on the desk labeled "URGENT — READ FIRST" containing three items: a notice that the water main on Elm Street has been flagged for failure (estimated repair: $85,000, money the town doesn't have), a letter from Pinnacle Development LLC expressing interest in "exploring opportunities in the Millhaven area," and a printout of last month's budget showing the town spent $14,000 more than it took in.

The previous mayor, Gerald Fisk, resigned four months ago citing "personal reasons" (widely understood to mean he couldn't handle it anymore). The town council appointed [YOUR NAME] after a special election where they ran unopposed. There was no transition briefing. There is no chief of staff. The town's one full-time administrative employee is Dolores, who has already made it clear she is not a personal assistant.

Outside the window, Main Street is quiet. Half the storefronts are dark. Earl Briggs is opening his hardware store across the street. A stray cat sits on the bench in front of the shuttered movie theater. The 6:15 freight train finished rattling through twenty minutes ago, and the town is settling into its Monday silence.