The Trump administration have released some browser-based games in order to try and make themselves seem “hip” and “cool.” Once again showing their incompetence, one game has already been taken down due to a trademark violation. So, what happens when a bunch of Nazi paedophiles commission some video games?
Build The Wall
Originally there were five games on the White House website. I played the game while it was still there, but it was taken down after threats of legal action by the team behind Tetris. So what I write here is from memory and may not be up to date.
This game was weird. It was a Tetris clone and worked basically the same. Tetrominoes drop and you place them in the same way as you do with Tetris. Except the goal seemed to be to “build a wall” rather than to destroy lines as you do in the original Tetris. As you build the wall, immigrants come in from the right of the screen and crash into the wall.
The actual goal is unclear here, since when you reach the top with the tetrominoes, the game ends in a loss. So you can’t score by destroying lines, and you don’t win by reaching the top. If there is an actual win condition I couldn’t figure it out, and now I never will.
To add to the frustration, the controls were implemented very poorly. It felt clunky to rotate the tetrominoes, and getting them to drop quickly just didn’t seem to work.
Ultimately it was just an unplayable, poorly implemented, and racist game. The world has lost nothing of value after the White House chickened out and removed the game.
Flappy Bill
This is just a Flappy Bird clone with updated graphics. It’s easy to play, but also boring and uninteresting. For some reason you play a bald eagle carrying a “bill.” It’s not big, and it’s not beautiful, much like everything this administration touches.
Rio Run
This is just a Snake clone if it was racist. In this game you play an immigration officer, presumably an ICE agent, catching immigrants and dressing them in prison clothes. This is a disgustingly tone deaf game, considering the way that ICE have terrorised US citizens during the current administration, going so far as to kidnap legal migrants and even American citizens for supposedly breaking immigration laws.
Supply Line
In this game you ensure that children only eat healthy food by removing junk foods from the supply lines. As food goes by on a conveyer belt, you click the foods you want to remove. If you click a healthy food, you lose points. If you let any junk food through, the boxer with ice cream hands punches you in the face!
The background for this game is very odd to me, mentioning seed oil and beef tallows, and bearing a US flag with not enough stars. The mood is very dark and depressing, and doesn’t fit the tone you’d expect a game like this to have. It’s almost like the graphics were created with an LLM that doesn’t understand context.
This is an odd game for the White House to push in light of the fact that they don’t want school children to have food. It’s got a weird atmosphere, boring gameplay, and just plain weird.
Trump Savings Tycoon
In this game you have a net and can catch various items to increase your child’s fortune. Again there are flags with not enough stars in the background, and a Reflecting Pool that looks way too clean for Trump’s handling of the place. And like the others, it gets very boring very fast.
I’m not sure what the message is here. The Trump administration is doing the opposite of enriching America’s children. Their policies are actually widening the wealth gap while the oligarchs use their power to enrich themselves.
Conclusion
Honestly, there isn’t much to say about these games. Most are competently implemented, but they are extremely boring to play for more than around 30 seconds. They are clearly propaganda, aiming to encourage racism and make people believe the administration is helping the country. In that, I think they fail. But then again, I’m not the target audience. I’m actually not sure who is.
