Edmonton-based online developers have found a way to poke fun at Alberta’s former premier and controversy surrounding her time at the helm of the province with a new game.
Back in early August, Alberta’s Auditor General released a report stating former premier Alison Redford used public resources inappropriately – described perceptions of Redford and her office as having an ‘aura of power’ that shouldn’t be questioned.
Now, that line in the August 7 report has become the title of a new smartphone game from Edmonton developer Rocketfuel Games.
‘Aura of Power’ pokes fun at the spending controversy surrounding Redford – and it’s available for free from the Apple App Store, and Google Play.
Rocketfuel Games CEO Jason Suriano described the game as a countdown, with players navigating a character named Alison on a mission to get to the ‘Skypalace’, and avoiding obstacles including the press and icicles.
“The character is trying to collect diamonds along the way, and then the distance travelled is in taxpayer dollars burned,” Suriano said.
Suriano said he was inspired to create the game after reading online feedback following the release of the auditor general report.
“Just seeing hashtags like aura of power, skypalace, anything that was sort of related just sparked this idea,” Suriano said, calling the game a “next generation political cartoon”.
NDP MLA Deron Bilous laughed at the app, but said the subject matter leads back to a serious topic.
“I think this isn’t going away anytime soon, because I think Albertans are quite upset with the PC Party,” Bilous said.
Suriano said he doesn’t want to single out a specific party, or even a particular person, saying the game is simply meant to be fun – although he admitted there is no way to win the game.
“The funny thing is that you can’t actually get the character to the skypalace, because the skypalace never happened, it was never built.”
With files from Nicole Weisberg
