smuggle truck
 

is it racist? i want to play!

It's an iPhone, iPad and web game that lets you smuggle immigrants across the border in a bounding purple truck. And it's upsetting people who've never played it.

Developer Owlchemy Labs calls Smuggle Truck "the premiere smuggling game on the App Store." Well, not counting others like Hyperspace Smuggler, which have nothing to do with immigration (intergalactic or otherwise) as far as I know.

Imagine an arcade-style game in which a jouncing slate truck races across side-scrolling cactus-punctuated hardpan. Stuffed in the back are "immigrants" that look a bit like matryoshka dolls. When the truck bounces (or leaps to clear huge pits, dead animals, and other obstacles) the immigrants kick into the air like flung tenpins. By speeding up or slowing down (the game employs rudimentary physics) you can "catch" them. If you miss, your score drops.

Owlchemy says the game "was inspired by the frustration our friends have experienced in trying to immigrate to the United States." The company believes the actual process of immigrating is "largely avoided" in the media and "especially [in] video games," and thus wanted to critique it with an "interactive satire."

Satire indeed. The video teaser includes the sort of rousing orchestral music you'd expect of a Michael Bay movie. Immigrants thrown into the air cry "Wheeeee!" and "Whooooa!" Catching flung babies appears to be worth extra points. Players are awarded green cards for saving immigrants' lives. If you just drive crazy (but save at least one life) you can win a reckless driving award. And levels end Mario-like, as your truck leaps past a flagpole on the other side of a checkpoint.


full story and demo video
http://www.pcworld.com/article/21897...t_l ooks.html

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh i want to save maria and her 5 children :)

who's going to play?

games is coming out soon

LOL, you know... if we weren't busy redistributing wealth via welfare and other government handouts we could just open the borders and allow anyone to immigrate granted they signed up to become a citizen and were issued some sort of ID for crime fighting / prevention.

Ironic isn't it? That income taxes are the primary reason we have to close our borders ...

wow..thats a very interesting opinion.

so cut welfare,food stamps and unuemployment...then open the borders and offer immigrants a welcome packet with a required form to become natrulized citizens and give them an ID card (Change the color of green card to say blue?)and everything will be ok?

how did you manage to come up with such a complex forumla to solve the immigration and welfare problems?

Very einstien like.:thumbsup

Haaha I'm not sure everything is going to be "ok" and there would certainly be a greater disparity in social / wealth classes but such is the cost of freedom. I believe the above is DEFINITELY much more inline with the intentions this country was founded with. Shit, this country was built on immigrants and continued to grow via immigrants for hundreds of years...

One additional piece that would need to be changed is minimum wage... that would need to go away. I know there are a lot of minimum wage supporters on this board but think of it from this perspective... Who is the government to deny anyone the right to work for a wage that is acceptable to both parties? I guarantee that if you open the borders according to the above there are tens of thousands of workers that would be more than happy to be able to live and work in the United States for pay that is less than the current minimum wage. We'd see a definite rise in available manufacturing / production jobs if it became equally as profitable to manufacture in the United States...

Anyway, now I'm rambling :P

wtf??

:offtopic