Al Qaeda sympathizers in Mali have created a browser game where an Al Qaeda fighter pilot engages in air-to-air combat against French jets.
Dug up from forums for militant Islamic extremists and published by the Middle East Media Research Institute, "Muslim Mali"-the name according to the MEMRI translation-is essentially a basic Shmup akin to "Space Invaders" Players control the silhouette of a fighter jet marked with an Al Qaeda logo tasked with shooting down silhouettes of planes with French flags with missle. The French planes shoot back, but two missiles cancel each other out. French planes are killed in two shots, but the player gets ten lives. When the player inevitably gets shot down, the game says; "Congratulations, you've been martyred."
According to the MEMRI report, the game was created by two extremists, Ta'ir Al-Nawras 07, and Ghareeb Fi Al-Hayat. Al-Nawras has offered to teach other forum-goers how to make their own awful games using Construct 2 design tools.
From a critical perspective, the game is terrible. The movement controls are loose, the hit detection is poor and there's no real hook or incentive to keep playing the game. Of course, the game wasn't created to show off Al Qaeda's amazing game design chops.
French fighters have been attacking Al Qaeda-occupied areas of North Africa, including Mali, since 2012. The terrorist group has had little to no success defending areas targetted by air strikes. For the beaten militia, the game serves as simple wish fulfillment, no matter how shallow.
The funny thing is, no matter how good you are at this game, the terrorists can't win. I didn't exactly excel at the game, so it's possible that there is an ending, but there's no indication of there's any way to make progress of any kind. It looks like even Al Qaeda knows they're fighting a losing battle.
You can try "Muslim Mali" for yourself here.
