Toronto company creates Rob Ford video game
Posted June 25, 2013 8:58 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Six months ago, it was the Ikea Monkey that put Toronto on the viral map – with photos of the tiny Japanese macaque in a shearling coat captivating readers around the world.
But then May hit, and with it came allegations from both Gawker and the Toronto Star that Mayor Rob Ford had been caught on video smoking crack cocaine.
“We started making video games based on the news,” Toronto developer Ben McEvoy told CityNews.ca.
“People just really the like idea of playing the news. It’s something that people find funny and this mayor lends himself well to humourous situations.”
McEvoy’s partner at Extra! Extra! Games, Barnabas Wornoff, had already created a game based on the Ikea Monkey. Their next project, Stay Mayor, launched in the Google Play Store on June 6, when Extra! Extra! Games was about six weeks old.
“The whole model for us, with the Ikea Monkey and with Stay Mayor, is ‘can we do things based on the news and get them to market really quickly?’”
For McEvoy and Wornoff, the answer was yes.
The entire game came together in about two weeks as the pair focused on their jobs as digital producers and instructors at Seneca College.
“We had about 12 people who wanted to help out from the school. It’s a small group all working together,” McEvoy said.
Here’s how the game works: players move the mayor – he’s never named but bears an uncanny resemblance to Ford – around a football field covered with news cameras. Players have to avoid drug paraphernalia and also try to collect money. They can also throw footballs at reporters.
The game is an endless runner – similar to favourites such as Temple Run and Jet Pack Joyride – and players have three lives.
“It’s not the most beautiful game in the world and it’s not the most challenging at every level, but for something that took us two weeks to [create], we’re happy with the result,” McEvoy said.
“The feedback has been pretty positive, dependent on where you get it from. We sent it out to our friends who all loved it on the concept level and loved it from the design standpoint, and when it came to the gameplay, they paused and said it was pretty good,” he laughed.
While the tight turnaround was one challenge, McEvoy, and the other is funding.
“We’re not making money off this one, and to continue to do that will be a challenge. Whether we continue it as a labour of love or land on a better business model soon, that’s the question.”
Until then, he’s waiting for the next viral sensation to emerge out of the news.
