People around the world have been watching Hong Kong’s Occupy Central protest movement unfold, in the news and on social media. Now a local developer wants to offer a way to experience it firsthand, albeit virtually.
Fung Kam Keung of the Hong-Kong based app-development company, Awesapp released the “Yellow Umbrella” game on Tuesday. Named after the protest’s ubiquitous symbol of resistance, the game features protesters standing behind steel barricades and repelling violent attacks from police officers, triads, anti-Occupy protesters, and Chief Executive CY Leung himself.
Players use yellow ribbons to “buy” defensive tools—umbrellas, money, and gold blocks—to protect themselves from these attacks. One of these tools, the gold blocks, is a swipe at Leung, referencing the large sums of money he received in a now-infamous Australian real estate deal.
Keung told the South China Morning Post that the game is more than just a political satire. He says he created it to “wake the people up” and said he and his team “worked day and night for five days to finish the game” before Tuesday night’s talks between students and government officials.
The game is available for free in the GooglePlay store for Android apps, and the South China Morning Post says Apple is reviewing a version of the game for its iOS devices.