A Spanish student has turned the misadventures of the country’s less than scrupulous political elite into a board game called Corruptopolis, where the aim is to lie and cheat your way to the gold-paved roads of “Corrupt City.”
Bribes, embezzlement, tax fraud and corruption of every flavor has become a regular staple of Spanish life, with ¡Ya basta! – ‘Enough is enough!” – becoming a rallying cry for many.
For 22-year-old Marina Belda, the best way to teach her compatriots about dirty dealing politicians in Spain was to make it fun. The result was the board game “Corruptopolis,” or “Corrupt City.”
To get ahead, players working in teams answer questions about major corruption scandals to have rocked Spain over the years, taking on the roles of figures involved. The scandals include a real life criminal investigation named after the Nintendo game Pokémon. Operation Pokémon, ironically, was a police operation launched to stamp out corruption among Spain’s political ranks.
But in Corruptopolis, rather than stopping dirty politicians in their tracks, you join their ranks to “discover for yourself” their “patterns of behavior.”
“Various ironic situations will lead you down the path of corruption, where you’ll have to show just how deft you are in such affairs,” a YouTube ad for the game says.
For those who prove themselves deft dirty dealers, they’ll
successfully make their way back to Corrupt City.
The Local reported that Belda was inspired to create the game by
near-weekly corruption cases hitting the Spanish headlines.
She is now using the crowdfunding website Verkami to legitimately
scrape together the funds need to begin a limited run of
Corruptopolis. So far, she’s raised over €1,300 ($1,600) of her
€6,500 target.
The game could not come around at a more opportune time. Last
week, Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy apologized to the country over a
series of corruption scandals that have rocked his ruling
People's Party.
"I apologize in the name of the People’s Party to all Spaniards for having appointed people to positions who weren't worthy of them and who seem to have taken advantage of them," Reuters cited Rajoy as telling Spain's Senate.
His apology came on the same day that former Interior Minister and People’s Party general secretary Angel Acebes in the High Court over allegations his part had run a slush fund.
According to Berlin-based Transparency International, Spain was ranked 40th out of 177 countries in its most recent corruption perceptions ranking. Spain’s fall in the rankings over the previous year was greater than every other country on the list, with the exception of war-torn Syria.