In october 2013 the spying scandal boiled over. The very fact that the NSA was or is surveilling Angela Merkel‘s cellphone gathered immense attention in media - not only in Germany. "Spying between friends, that's just not done," said the credulous chancellor Angela Merkel being in the naive belief that something like this couldn't happen to her. This damaged the German American friendship, because the United States lost a part of their reliability. Not least because Barack Obama knew about the NSA spying on Angela for already a long period and even approved it.
These news and also the current privacy debates made us to deal with that issue as a game. We asked the question to ourselves why Barack Obama could be interested in personal information about Angela Merkel? We didn't want to use the moral pointing finger but tell the truth behind the spying in a satirical way. The logical answer was that he has to be in love with her. And if you are in love you want to know as much as possible about your love interest, don't you?
So this is what has actually happened:
Barack sits in his rocket, flying through outer space and tries to collect as much information as possible. Everywhere he found out something the landscape is already colored in rainbow Prism colors. This does not apply for Germany. Just the place where his beloved Angela lives. Too bad. He thinks about how he could win her heart and comes to the conclusion he just has to get to know her even better. For that shy Barack brings her some harmless presents. Via remote control he sends his little spy eye friends that are like cameras on a journey through Angela‘s office. The presents he made to Angela are like hiding spots to his little helpers. As soon as activated they spy on Angela and find out what she has written on her paper or take a look at her neckline, for example.
If Barack succeeds in surveilling he can finally make Angela the perfect present to win her heart.
If his all-seeing helpers are discovered by her she gets really upset and gives Barack the boot. Unloved Barack. Sad Barack.
Game mechanics:
The user slips into the role of Barack and controls the eyes. By clicking somewhere the eyes will walk to that point as a crowd. When they pass a present one of them is absorbed by it thus invisible for Angela. The difficulty consists in not walking into Angela‘s field of view who is looking through her office from left to right all the time.
If all eyes are hidden successfully in the presents, they finally can be activated by clicking on them. As feedback every eye takes a photo of the object it has examined and sends it to Barack‘s rocket. All-knowing Barack. Happy Barack.
