During the late 80s to early 90s, teenagers living under oppression in Communist Soviet countries developed and released their own video games and arcade cabinets. Now, a Slovakia-based project, a collaboration between the Slovak Game Developers Association and the Slovak Design Museum, is making these games available to play in the English language.
In the late Soviet Communism era, Western inventions, art, and movies seeped through the Communist countries’ borders through underground sources. Even computers made their way in too. Using these, young people in the Soviet Union began making games and sharing them amongst friends. With limited knowledge, the best they could do was text-based adventure that could be programmed using Basic language. In Czechoslovakia, they created hundreds of such games with heroes inspired by Western pop culture. One notable example is a game where Soviet officers hunt down Rambo.
The project is ongoing and more games to be translated over the next 2-3 years, with emphasis on the text adventure games.
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