“I didn’t manage to get any cabinet ministers, but last time a mob of us caught up with that snivelling baldy Covid-denier Toby Young and strung him up from a lamppost,” explains Jess Jerkin, a twenty nine year old scaffolder from Totnes, describing his most recent experience playing the underground online gaming sensation ‘Bring Me the Head of Boris Johnson. “Obviously, the ultimate aim of the game is to get to Boris Johnson himself and decapitate him – but you have to go through a lot of levels to achieve that. So far, I haven’t heard of anyone getting the bastard’s head, but it is just a matter of time.” The game, an online multi-player experience, hosted on EU-based servers, has proven a surprise hit during the UK’s lockdowns, with its popularity growing as the Covid death toll has risen. “During the first lockdown, it was just a geek thing, played by a tiny handful of nerds,” says Jerkin. “Obviously, back then, everyone still had that sense of unity and wanted to get behind the government, which we still believed was genuinely trying to protect us from the pandemic, but after that Domininc Cummings business, it began to gain traction and really took off during last Autumn as the death rates started rising again. Then, when this latest lockdown was announced, it just exploded!” One of the game’s designers, Jean-Pierre Culottes agrees that Dominic Cummings’ lockdown-busting, but unpunished, trip to Durham proved the turning point for the game’s fortunes. “We realised that the public anger being directed toward Cummings represented a huge opportunity,” the thirty three year old Belgian told The Sleaze. “We knew that we had to harness that anger by adding Cummings to the game as a character.”
Up until then, the number of ‘targets’ available for players to hunt down were limited to a handful of the most prominent cabinet members: Johnson, Michael Gove, Health Secretary Matt Hancock, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab and Housing Minister Robert Jenrick, amongst others. “Basically, we focused on the most public faces of the pandemic in the UK, the ones who fronted up at the daily briefings,” says Culottes. “At that point, nobody had really heard of shadowy advisers like Cummings, but as soon as we added him to the game, people started going crazy, wanting to kill his virtual version as violently as possible!” Following this success, Culotte and his colleagues were inspired to add various other figures who lurked around the sidelines of the pandemic, including prominent Covid-deniers and lockdown sceptics. “Toby Young, of course, has proven a popular target, worth a significant number of points if you can catch him,” he says. “Piers Corbyn has also proven popular – beating him to death in the middle of an anti-Covid rally unlocks several new weapons which can help players reach the next level.” But why did the designers choose the UK as a scenario for their game? According to Culotte, there was never any other option. “Really, with this particular government in charge, the UK’s Covid-response was always going to degenerate into a car crash,” he says. “This level of chaos not only creates a perfect gaming environment, but is also guaranteed to generate sufficient public anger to attract people to our product as a means of expressing their frustration.”
Top academic Bob Mincer agrees that the success of the game was inevitable. “With everybody’s movements restricted, prevented from leaving their homes on threat of arrest, unable to meet to form murderous mobs or even just protest, this game represents just about the only legitimate outlet for them to vent their anger,” opines the Chair of Creative Accounting at Neasden College of Dairy Studies, during a trouserless Zoom call. “In fact, this could be the future of mob violence – all carried out virtually with no real blood spilt and no consequences like getting arrested and suffering fatal police brutality in the back of a van.” Despite Mincer’s belief that ‘Bring Me the Head of Boris Johnson’ represents violence without consequences, several players have found themselves having uncomfortable encounters with the police. “Hundreds of forums, Facebook groups and Twitter hashtags associated with the game have sprung into being” says Culotte. “Players often discuss their latest ‘kills’ there in detail, attracting the unwelcome attention of the police.” Indeed, several of Jerkin’s friends have found themselves arrested on suspicion of being terrorists planning political assassinations. “My mate Harry had his collar felt after boasting online about how he and his gang had hacked Michael Gove to bits with machetes,” he reveals. “Then my sister’s boyfriend’s cousin had his door kicked in by a mob of armed filth after he had discussed on Twitter a potential ambushing and garotting of the Health Secretary. They gave him a bloody good kicking before he finally convinced them that it was only a game!”
Not surprisingly, police interest in the activities of players has led to calls for the game to be banned in the UK, on the grounds that it could encourage actual violence against politicians. “Which is why we are hosted on servers elsewhere in the EU, beyond yor government’s jurisdiction,” says Culotte. “Welcome to the Brexit!” There is some evidence, however, that some citizens, not satisfied with virtually attacking our political leaders, might actually be taking the law into their own hands. “Last week we nearly had that lockdown-sceptic Tory MP, Mark Porker,” claims Austin Vester, self-apponited leader of a vigilante group looking for retribution for the hundred thousand UK Covid dead. “A group of us chased him up a tree in Westminster and poked him with sticks before the Rozzers turned up – he was squealing like a pig and shitting himself!” Vester is at pains to assure the general public that his mobs all practice proper social distancing and wear masks at all times. “Direct action like this is the only way to hold these bastards to account,” the fifty two year old data entry clerk says. “Let’s face it, the sycophantic right-wing press in this country certainly won’t.”
The designers of ‘Bring Me the Head of Boris Johnson’ are now considering expanding the scenario to exploit public anger over Johnson’s disastrous Brexit trade deal. “There’s no doubt that there is growing anger over the reality of Brexit,” he muses. “So we are considering including as targets notable pro-Brexit MPs and public figures many of them were already in the game, but, scored you no points if you killed them. Nevertheless, many still proved popular hate figures.” Jess Jerkin admits that his most satisfying in game ‘kill’ was of a character that netted him no points. “I have to say that burning Jacob Rees-Mogg at the stake was bloody brilliant – especially when the flames shot out of the lid of his Top Hat,” he chuckles. “I know it didn’t advance me in the game, but he’s such a smarmy bastard that I just had to do it! With any luck, the next time I burn him, I’ll get points as well!”
