New Video Game Lets You Play As The Suez Canal Bulldozer

It’s been five days, and there’s already a video game that lets you try to bulldoze the Suez Canal ship.

Efforts so far to shift Evergreen’s 400m-long Ever Given from the international shipping lane have been relatively futile. While recent attempts saw it move a few inches, there are still concerns about delays and traffic jams, with vessels rerouting all the way around Africa in lieu of quick passage.

It’s been one of the biggest online talking points of the past week, with the plight of the container ship already rife with memes, whether it’s comparing it to COVID-19 anxiety or photoshopping Godzilla and Kong fighting on top of it. Now, there’s even a game based on its struggle.

The aptly-titled Suez Canal Bulldozer was released on itch.io by game designer Eric Wilder. It’s not a particularly complex game, evoking the sound and aesthetic of classic Pokémon titles rather than today’s high-spec releases. Give it a go here.

The aim of the game is simple: you’re a small bulldozer tasked with moving a boulder to free the Ever Given. There are five buttons: the four direction arrows and J for ‘action’.

No matter what you do, you’ll accomplish nothing. Take a run up? Nothing. A unique combination of all the buttons separately or at once? Nada, you’ll always be greeted with the following message: ‘It’s super stuck.’

The objective is insurmountable, which is probably the point. Still didn’t stop me spending 10 minutes trying, though. Wilder told Kotaku, ‘I just thought the futility of the meme was hilarious. Had to spin that into a game.’

But even amid the memes and now this game, there are serious concerns in play, whether it’s with the cost to the global economy or livestock in possible danger of starvation if the situation doesn’t improve soon. With some water now running underneath the ship, officials hope it’ll be moved later this week.

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