Sunday Times 2
Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement gets computer game makeover
View(s):HONG KONG, Oct 25 (AFP) – How do you defend yourself against scores of tear gas wielding police while manning the barricades at Hong Kong’s protest camps? Unleash the wrath of Chinese deity Guan Yu.
Mobile phone app designer Fung Kam-keung, CEO and founder of Awesapp Limited, holds a smartphone with one of his latest app game called "Yellow Umbrella". How do you defend yourself against scores of tear gas wielding police while manning the barricades at Hong Kong's protest camps? Unleash the wrath of Chinese deity Guan Yu (AFP)
That’s just one of the options available to players of a new smartphone game which has swiftly become a hit among gamers and protesters in the southern Chinese city.
“Yellow Umbrella” has been downloaded more than 40,000 times from Google Play’s store since its release on Monday,.
The game puts players on a protester barricade as it is charged by lines of police officers, triad thugs, angry locals and even the city’s leader Leung Chun-ying dressed as a wolf.
Incense sticks, stacks of money and durian fruit can all be placed in front of the attackers to slow them down.
And when things get really tough, protesters can call down Guan Yu — a popular Chinese deity prayed to for protection.
“They (the protesters) like Guan Yu very much because they want to resolve the problem but they don’t know how to do it. They don’t want to use violence, so they just ask the god to help,” the game’s creator Fung Kam-keung told AFP.
The game itself is filled with cultural references inspired by nearly a month of mass rallies and roadblocks calling for Beijing to rescind its insistence that Hong Kong’s next leader be vetted by a loyalist committee ahead of elections in 2017.
Yellow umbrellas and ribbons are used as defensive tools as student leader Joshua Wong, who has become something of a local celebrity and heart throb, cheers from the barricades.