Sinosphere
Programmers Deploy Cellphone Game to Support Hong Kong Protests
By Austin Ramzy
November 3, 2014 4:31 am
Video of the Yellow Umbrella game, with pro-democracy protesters facing off against their opponents.
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Sinosphere, the China blog of The New York Times, delivers intimate, authoritative coverage of the planet's most populous nation and its relationship with the rest of the world. Drawing on timely, engaging dispatches from The Times’ distinguished team of China correspondents, this blog brings readers into the debates and discussions taking place inside a fast-changing country and details the cultural, economic and political developments shaping the lives of 1.3 billion people.
Hong Kong residents love their mobile phone games. Look around in any subway car and you’ll see passengers launching birds, constructing imaginary cities or battling zombies.
But the Occupy Central pro-democracy protests that have taken over key sites around the city for more than a month have driven new cellphone habits, too. These days, many Hong Kongers are as likely to be found poring over news about the protests roiling around them as they are to be immersed in a game.
Now, a Hong Kong-based mobile software company has created an app that allows people to indulge in both gaming and an interest in all things Occupy. The game, available as an Android app with an iOS version that has been submitted to Apple for review, features protesters facing off against thugs, police officers with tear gas and pepper spray, anti-Occupy demonstrators wearing blue ribbons and a character who resembles the city’s chief executive, Leung Chun-ying.
The goal of the game is to collect yellow ribbons, a symbol of the protest movement, and to deploy umbrellas (another protest symbol), durian fruit, birthday cakes and cash to ward off the forces opposed to the demonstrations. Mr. Leung, who sports wolf ears and a tail, a reference to one nickname for Hong Kong’s top official used by his critics, can be stopped only with bars of gold.
Awesapp, the year-old company that produced the game, is best known for mobile security software. Fung Kam Keung, Awesapp’s founder, said he and two graphic designers created the free app Yellow Umbrella to express their support for the protests.
“The students are fighting for the democracy, not only for themselves, but also the anti-Occupy people and even the police,” he said. “They should not be treated like this.”
In the week since the Android app was released, it has been downloaded about 80,000 times, far short of the eight million downloads Mr. Fung says the company’s iSafe security app has received. The Yellow Umbrella Android app is listed among the top free apps and top free games for Google Play in Hong Kong. The reviews are overwhelmingly positive, which may say as much about its politics as its gaming appeal.
“Simple but fun,” wrote one reviewer. “May democracy come to these people one day.”
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