Yes, you read it right. There’s an actual game that lets you play as Anura Kumara Dissanayake, the leader of Sri Lanka’s National People’s Power (NPP) political party. Titled “Jumping AKD,” the mini-browser game lets players navigate as the NPP leader in a side-scrolling format. The mini-browser title follows a similar mechanic to Google Chrome’s dinosaur game with a little bit of Super Mario Bros.
As one would expect, the game itself is fairly straightforward. The goal is to hit a high score as you jump and dodge through different stages in a static caricature of Anura Kumara. Scoring points comes in two ways, one is to collect coins, or more accurately, coins shaped like NPP’s party symbol. The second way is to jump on oncoming figures that are basically moving symbols of Sri Lanka’s other political parties such as the United National Party, Samagi Jana Balawegaya. Either way, you would need to navigate through both in 30-second sprints in each stage.
Despite its amusing political theme, the developer behind Jumping AKD claims that the game is merely made for fun and isn’t representative of his own political opinions. Although the timing could raise a few questions, particularly in the current landscape where political debate appears to be loud and everywhere.
In any case, if it wasn’t obvious already, Jumping AKD isn’t going to win any game design awards nor is it going to bring any innovation into the foray. But what the game does offer is a fun time killer for anyone who enjoys the casual mini-game. If that means you get to live your super Mario fantasy in Anura Kumara form, you might find this more than a little amusing.
As of now, it’s not clear how long the game will remain online. But you can check it out for yourself right here. Since it’s browser-based the game will work both on mobile and desktop. Although, its dimensions don’t appear to be optimized for mobile.
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