“The government is watching your every move.”

It’s a statement reserved for YouTube comment sections and people wearing tin foil hats, up until the world discovered that’s exactly what America does. In Australia it seems we like to be a little more subtle with our internal spying. Or at least I think we are, because that’s the only explanation for the release of Run That Town.

It’s a new game brought to us by er…The Australian Bureau of Statistics. Take a moment for that to sink in.

To become the Grand Poobah of *insert any Australian town here* you just throw in the postcode and then the data from the last census takes over. You then decide whether a Theme Park in the middle of Mosman is a good idea based on the reaction of the people that live there. Proposals get sent your way and it’s up to you whether to approve or reject them. Then the town either loves you or believes you to be the next Ghadafi. And that is pretty much the basis of the game.

Maybe politicians got sick of the shit storm that surrounds them, threw a spat and went “OK then you do it … ha, not so easy is it”. What’s hilarious is that they’ve crapped this one up too. Unless your secret dream is to bring chaos theory to the forefront of Glebe, then the game is so pointless that it makes politics seem as complex as a midday movie special.

It soon becomes clear that like the game’s vibrant cartoon graphics, all attempts to pass Run That Town as a little bit of fun are exactly that.

A little bit of fun.

Sure, I need to know that the majority of Mona Vale’s population is over 65, and I definitely want Shaun Micallef to tell me that Casinos and Bundaberg don’t mix. But I’m not necessarily going to get a kick out of those things for longer than it takes to burn toast on a level 3 setting. So if you take into consideration the quality of your toaster and how much you enjoy answering multiple-choice questions when you’ve already been given the answer, you’ll pretty much be able to determine your care factor for this game.

To be fair the game is free, but you know the old saying – if it’s free, you’re the product. Assuming the politicians are indeed getting lazy and want us to make their decisions for them now,  their apathy has sunk right into the essence of Run That Town.

It’s available now from the Apple App Store.