Responding to critics, Smuggle Truck, the game about illegal immigration has added a legal mode.
The game still hasn’t been approved for iTunes yet, but if and when it is in April, you’ll be able to access Legal Immigration mode via the game’s main menu.
How do you play? Well, you don’t. Not really. You get a screen with 20-year countdown.
When asked why two decades, Owlchemy Labs developer Alex Schwartz said:
“Well that’s the greater than 10 years it takes for someone to obtain a green card. Plus the multiple occurrences of ‘lost paperwork’ that are bound to happen during the process.”
“Smuggle Truck: Operation Immigration” has released a storm of controversy – and free publicity.
In it, players navigate through what looks like the U.S.-Mexican border. As the truck drives over cliffs, mountains and dead animals, immigrants fall off the truck bed. Scores are calculated by the number of immigrants helped into the U.S. Hundreds of news outlets have written about the game, many weighing in on whether it’s in bad taste or a wry commentary on the current US immigration policies.
From the press release released, it sounds like the game makers are keen to keep up that publicity spin cycle:
“Tilt your truck, catch newborn babies, drive over armadillos, and rocket your way over hills, through caverns, and over quicksand to save the people!”
Having gone through the frustrating, expensive, time-consuming green card process for a family member, the legal mode option gave me a good laugh.
Via Joystiq
Nicole Martinelli is a San Francisco freelance writer who heads up Cult of Mac Magazine, our weekly publication available on iTunes. You can find her on Twitter and Google+. If you’re doing something new, cool and Apple-related, email her.
6 responses to “Smuggle Truck Game Adds Legal Immigration Version”
A video of the gameplay could have made this perfect. But this game is kind of a satirical game to shoot at the immigrations office. lol
I love it.. Having gone through the process myself of immigrating my spouse and children to the US. Totally off topic (iDevice topic) but there are many of us who do things legally and we end up getting punished for those who do things illegally. Anyhow I love this APP !
wow this is some great criticism of the USA’s immigration politics….if this wouldn’t get approved I’d seriously concerned about freedom of opinion in the USA. And I hope Apple understands this.