In the summer of last year, a clan of Boston-based game makers got together to talk about immigration. It was the latest Boston Game Jam — ongoing marathon-coding weekends where creative types get together and churn out games against the clock.
[partner id=”wireduk”]Since the Jam’s debut in 2007, the themes have ranged from the moon to HTML5. This year’s big topic was immigration, emigration and cultural clashes.
“The idea was to rally support for our friend who was having major issues while trying to immigrate to the United States to come and develop games,” explains Alex Schwartz, “Chief Scientist” at Owlchemy Labs, and co-host of that weekend’s Boston Game Jam. “He had spent over a year trying to find a simple and legal method to come to the U.S. but found no visas that would support his endeavors.”
Most of the games created at the Jam, including Cultural Exchange, Immcognitio and Super Mega Immigration Office 2000 , were serious or tactful in nature. Office 2000 is like the world’s most boring adventure game, where logic puzzles are replaced with green cards, questions and mountains of paperwork.
Schwartz had a different take. “We felt that if we could do something that would spark some attention, we could do a better job of getting people to talk about the shoddy systems in place for legal immigration,” he says.
His game, made alongside Yilmaz Kiymaz and a handful of artists and musicians, was Smuggle Truck: Operation Immigration, where a bumpy pickup truck carried cartoony illegal immigrants across the Mexican border with the United States. As the dusty vehicle bounces over perilous leaps and hazardous dunes, the hapless men, women and newborn babies in the back of the truck are flung out, losing the player potential medals and achievements.
In 2011, the game certainly sparked the attention Schwartz was looking for. After he and Kiymaz formed Owlchemy Labs and announced their intentions to develop a fully fleshed-out version of Smuggle Truck for computers and smartphones, the Associated Press rounded up shocked politicians who condemned the game. Eva Millona, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrants & Refugee Advocacy Coalition, said, “Last year, 170 human beings died crossing the border. It’s disgraceful that anyone would try to make money out of this tragedy by making light of it in a game.”
Schwartz counters that Smuggle Truck isn’t just a funny game about a deadly serious topic: It’s a biting satire, designed to get people talking about the issue. To drive the point home, the game includes a “Legal Immigration” mode, where the player can sit in a waiting room for 19 years, attempting to get a green card.
‘We’ve definitely learned that satire is something that requires ample context.’ “We’ve definitely learned that satire is something that requires ample context and in an interactive medium like games, it requires you, in some cases, to experience it for yourself,” he says. “Subtlety is sometimes lost when viewed from afar.”
Satiating politicians and advocacy groups was one battle, but getting past Apple was an altogether different fight. The notoriously virtuous gatekeeper of iTunes had already denied or dropped apps that featured baby-shaking, seal-clubbing, boobs, bums and President Barack Obama. Despite the controversy received a few months before submission, the team was optimistic.
“As always, Apple makes the final call because it’s their own closed platform,” Owlchemy Labs wrote in a blog post in February. “However, we’re confident that our final presentation of the game will properly reflect the satire and that it will be judged as such.”
That confidence, the team later discovered, was misplaced. Apple rejected the game.
Reworked with fluffy bears replacing the immigrants, Smuggle Truck became Snuggle Truck and was accepted on the iTunes App Store. Image courtesy Owlchemy Labs“Contractually we’re not able to discuss the communications between Owlchemy and Apple,” clarifies Schwartz, “but we were notified that we’d been denied based on the content of the game.”
While some developers would have called it quits or ventured down an alternative avenue — the hugely controversial KG Dogfighting targeted the more lenient Android, and banned dress-lifting game Upskirt found a home on blackmarket store Cydia — Owlchemy went down a completely different route.
In the space of a week, the team stripped out all references to immigrants, green cards, Mexico and borders, replacing them with fluffy animals, fuzzy critters, zoos and a brand new name: Snuggle Truck . Apple didn’t hesitate in approving the new, now toothless game.
The iPhone and iPad app, which released last week, is still addictive, funny and well worth playing. Its bouncy physics make hectic speed runs hilarious as a single bungled landing can spill your entire cargo of animals onto the rocks. It takes a steady hand, a judicious use of the throttle and a good knowledge of the bumps and drops in the stage to secure the top medals, making it as instantly compulsive as top casual apps like Angry Birds .
But in the transition, its entire meaning has been stripped, muzzling the game’s sharp, satirical bite. The game no longer carries a message, other than one about Apple’s dictatorial censorship, or that, hey, animals are pretty sweet.
Snuggle Truck is the latest high-profile example of Apple’s attempt to sanitize iTunes. Snuggle Truck is yet another high-profile example where Apple attempts to stifle controversy on iTunes. Could the cute and cuddly game sound the death knell for daring apps and bold, if slightly uncomfortable, topics on the iPhone?
For one, making apps for iOS can be a gamble. “There is no way to receive any feedback on a game design before submitting it to Apple for review,” says Schwartz. You have to make, publish and upload your app before the Cupertino, California, company gives it thumbs up or thumbs down. A rejected app can be a lot of wasted time and money for a developer.
And while Schwartz believes developers will continues to address a wider scope of issues — “I don’t think games that push boundaries will become any less common,” he says — they might not be seen on the iPhone. “Whether Apple approves of those games will depend on what kind of landscape they’re trying to form for their App Store,” Schwartz adds.
Considering Apple’s discomfort with the controversial, it’s certainly not the kind of landscape where you’d spot a bouncy pickup truck full of illegal immigrants.
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