Larks ahoy for the Conservatives, who prepared for John Healey’s inaugural budget as chancellor by releasing their own video game, Super Kemi, allowing people to play as Kemi Badenoch “running, jumping and repealing her way through six worlds of red tape”.
The online game, an 8-bit-style platformer, sees Badenoch, trailed by high-profile shadow chancellor Andrew Griffiths and shadow business secretary Claire Coutinho, running through a series of levels and jumping on the heads of baddies before eventually taking on the end-of-game boss – Andy Burnham, who for some reason throws flaming pound signs while shouting “public control”.
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Video game fans will note that it not so much bears a remarkable resemblance to the very first Super Mario Bros game but matches it pretty much jump for jump – which might be bad news for the Conservatives, as Rats in a Sack hears it has come to the attention of Mario’s copyright holder, the notoriously litigious Nintendo.
Rats is told the Japanese giant is “aware” of the Tory Party’s tribute, which should worry both it and Matt Vickers, its deputy chairman who has perhaps unwisely lent his name to the game’s homepage in a bid, perhaps, for some street cred from committed retrogamers.
Nintendo is notoriously protective of its intellectual property, particularly the wildly popular Mario franchise, frequently issuing takedowns for unauthorised fan games, browser remakes and commercial parodies. It has repeatedly taken legal action against anyone replicating its games, going as far in 2013 as stopping people posting footage of Nintendo games on YouTube.
Super Kemi contains the same graphics, sound effects and gameplay as Super Mario Bros, albeit with considerably more politics than the original (“Thank you Kemi! We’re open for business again!” cries a shopkeeper, seemingly unaware the Tories are not actually in power), while grabbing a power-up sees Badenoch not growing in size like Mario but donning a hardhat.
Might the Tories soon be seeing Nintendo in court? If so, it’s likely to be Game Over for just one of them…
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