Those terrible firebrands at the Tetris Company have publicly rebuked the US government for publishing a Tetris parody game that promotes the Trump administration's brutalising rhetoric about securing the border with Mexico. They've even hinted that they're prepared to sue over it.
The parody game in question is called Build the Wall, and sees you stacking bricks along "the Southern border" in order to repel invading zombies. Unlike in regular Tetris - yes, I've played the Trump game, I'm definitely going to hell now - you aren't trying to clear lines of blocks. Instead, blocks defeat wandering undead of the same colour.
The game appeared last week alongside a swathe of other Trumpist propaganda games, based on the likes of Snake and Flappy Bird. A few of these games include goofy reworkings of Sony, Nintendo and Xbox console logo screens. The three platform holders have yet to comment. But the Tetris Company? They're coming out swinging with a... gently worded appeal to human community.
"At Tetris we believe in the power of connection and bringing people together, not dividing them," reads an Instagram statement. "To our fans everywhere: we love you, and see you, and we're grateful to have you in our community."
There's a longer piece to write about how the White House parody games seek to co-opt gamer nostalgia while baiting lefties. I feel like those dynamics have been amply explored, at this stage, but it seems important to keep talking about them. Trump's apparatchiks clearly grasp that there are plenty of armchair fascists lurking among card-carrying gamers: in recent times, they've taken to promoting mass detention with Halo memes.
I'm trying to work out what my younger self would have said, if I'd interrupted him playing Tetris on his Nokia to point out that in several decades time, a straight-to-VHS edition of Palpatine would use his favourite block-merging puzzler to foment hysterical fantasies about Mexicans. I suspect my younger self would have said "get away from me, you creepy old man – you smell funny".
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/we-believe-in-the-power-of-connection-donald-trump-tetris-parody-game-rouses-the-mildly-worded-wrath-of-the-tetris-company
