![]() After the Velvet Revolution in 1989 led to more democratic governance and a market economy being established in Czechoslovakia, Hrda, then 18, created a real company to sell games. In Hrda’s words, he told them, “Yeah, you guys made such a nice, fun game, but be prepared and take a toothbrush with you because when the police come to catch you, you must be ready.” Hrda laughs as he says it, but he admits that he was “a bit afraid” after that.īut he and his friends continued to make games, calling themselves Sybilasoft. At one point, Šatochín made it into the hands of František Fuka, a developer from Prague who had previously inspired Hrda and his friends. Hrda and others shared these games among their friends for entertainment rather than profit. Because games weren’t sold in shops, there was no chance of making money out of it. Game development was primarily a teenage hobby at the time. Hrda also integrated an Easter egg into the game, where binding the keys “KGB” as controls would allow the player to play as Rambo himself. Ten may be underselling it - in my experimentation with Šatochín, the Soviet soldier lost his life in a handful of gruesome ways, including being crushed against a coral reef, within just a few minutes of starting the game. “When you get the patronage of a museum… it gives you much more credibility.” So when you are playing, Rambo will kill you 10 times because you not lucky, and you made the wrong choice. “This game is making jokes the regime… and the Soviet army,” he says. He was 16 when he and some friends published Šatochín after being fascinated by the American movies that made it across the border on VHS tapes. One of the developers behind Šatochín, Stanislav Hrda, was also involved in the translation and preservation project. “I don’t want to say against the regime, but it’s very subversive,” says Brojo. In one, Šatochín, the titular Soviet Major fights with Rambo in Vietnam. They capture a part of the late ’80s in what was then Czechoslovakia, a Soviet satellite state. The 10 games that make up this first batch of translations and re-releases were selected for their historical significance. “Suddenly, people start to have a very different view of this actually being part of something important. “When you get the patronage of a museum… it gives you much more credibility,” he says. Maroš Brojo, the general manager of the Slovak Game Developers Association, pitched the multimedia collection that he now curates. The games, often programmed by teenagers, capture a moment in history when the first generation of Slovak developers were learning their craft to share among their friends. Late last year, the Slovak Design Museum released a translated collection of ’80s text adventures from the region.
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