interesting russian games
i start a new thread, as i don't know where to post it.
here are some interesting ones i came across, perhaps i'll add more later, in every case i encourage the others to do so. :-)
* Гуманоид (gumanoid) - an obvious 20 tons clone. :-)
* monsterland top-down arcade/rpg
* soldier of the future - you design and program your own robots to combat against each other in laser squad - like maps.
* last battle - nice turn based strategy
* the dome - nether earth - like strategy
* gravity wars - gravity wars :-)
i got the ones not available at wos here:
http://trd.speccy.cz/g/game_full_ver.htm
http://virtualzone.narod.ru/zx-russian.htm
here are some interesting ones i came across, perhaps i'll add more later, in every case i encourage the others to do so. :-)
* Гуманоид (gumanoid) - an obvious 20 tons clone. :-)
* monsterland top-down arcade/rpg
* soldier of the future - you design and program your own robots to combat against each other in laser squad - like maps.
* last battle - nice turn based strategy
* the dome - nether earth - like strategy
* gravity wars - gravity wars :-)
i got the ones not available at wos here:
http://trd.speccy.cz/g/game_full_ver.htm
http://virtualzone.narod.ru/zx-russian.htm
Post edited by cichlasoma on
Comments
some of them look really rood, but I rarely play them cause I can't understand a word of what's happening...
There have a been a couple more I've played in the last few years but I always get lost because of language issues, and that's also the main reason why I don't remember their names, so ... sorry!
*adventures of buratino - adventure featuring great graphics.
*kick da gaga - original physics based abstract combat game.
(otherwise, i remember *stalker looked great e.g. (adventure/rpg), yet i didn´t get into it due to the languge barrier.)
Over the last couple of years, during some rather slack days at work, I have learnt to read some basic Russian, and to type Russian on a UK keyboard, and so I translated some simple speccy stuff to English.
But I still find it very time consuming, wrought with with difficulty, and prone to mistakes.
As a native English speaker, I often find it difficult to determine the precise meanings of some words, phrases or idioms.
Over the last couple of years I have managed to locate various free online courses, translators, dictionaries, and even slang dictionaries (very crucial), and this has made it a little more possible for me to do.
However, I still find it quite difficult and a very slow process (compared to Spanish say), as I can't remember more than about 100 Russian words (if that) off the top of my head! For all the other words, I have to cross reference the various dictionaries etc.. and sometimes apply a little bit of educated guess work.
But it's still a fun thing to do if it is for a purpose, like when someone requests a translation. I am happy to do this for small translations (e.g. game instructions) if anyone requests it, and if I have the time.
Something like the in-game text of a Dizzy game or a text adventure is a large undertaking though, and takes someone like me a long time to do. Whereas I'm sure a fluent dual Russian/English speaker would be a lot quicker and more accurate than me at doing this.
Also, I'm not really up on patching games directly at present, so I still use text files for the moment.
Still it is worth it if there is a game that you absolutely MUST play. :D
But for casual play, I can see why people wouldn't have the time nor the inclination to get into these games more, because of the language barrier.
as for game released after, say, 1995, i´d say, they were rather conversions/translations of classic PC games very often...
i´m quite sure, there isn´t anything more like soldier of the future, for speccy, it would be very hard to find an equivalent of monsterland.
not to speak about dungeons which i dislike generally, so cannot name good russian speccy ones, yet last hero of the light force can be named as an example - i don´t think, there´re lots of them for speccy among non-russian games.
The Spectrum was popular there until 1999/2000. There were some really nice games written and even more begun but not finished :(
Many of these games aren't present at WOS but there are Russian sites with them. I wouldn't however place any links to them here, as the word "copyright" is often understood in Russia differently then here on WOS :)
I also wanted to translate Spanish games to English (and vice-versa), but I don't have anyone to help me with the code part. I asked people in the Spanish scene for help but the feedback was almost 0. No interest. The typical reply is 'We learned English. They should learn Spanish.'. It makes me sad when I get such replies.
A Spectrum game or program should be available in English and/or in the programmer's native language, not just the latter. If I had an excellent program and it was in Portuguese, what would I be? Selfish.
We have the internet now. We don't have to limit our work to just one country. If we want to keep the Speccy scene alive and show everyone what we can do, we should think globally, not locally.
Same thing for forums. What benefit can I get from the ZX81's german forums, Speccy Russian forums, Polish forums, Italian forums? Nothing.
Knowledge should be shared. Speccy material should be available for everyone to enjoy.
Your English looks more or less perfect to me!
Why is it that people who learn English as a second or third language often seem to write it better than many native Brits? I'm sick of getting e-mails from my local (English) friends that look like
"have u got enything to re name lots of files at the same time. i want to rename the jpgs from my camera. if you have dont for get to send it to me ta. see you friday i havent playd pool all week ive been to busy down are mikes helping with the decerating."
I can see their point to some extent though. I think even a very slightest effort of learning some basic Speccy related words like keyboard & joystick in different languages is very useful.
But more importantly I have noticed that attempting to learn a little bit of other languages goes a long way towards fostering an atmosphere of co-operation amongst people who speak different languages. For example, my knowledge of Spanish is quite limited, but I have had the help of Spanish members of this forum in proof-reading some of my simple to translations English, and correcting mistakes for me, and that has been beneficial to everyone.
It feels good if you can contribute to the archive in some very small way by uploading instructions for a game in your own native language. This is a worthwhile hobby, but of course can demand quite a bit of time.
Nowadays, we have such a great opportunity to do these things, because of the Internet. The free language tools that are readily available means that having to go out and by language books or attend evening classes need not be strictly neccessary anymore. OK, we're not going to become fluent without perhaps visiting the target country for an extended time.
Nevertheless, much useful translation can be done across forums enabling greater communication between people in different countries. Also this opens up the vast body of written (or rather typed) documentation in other languages and makes it available to a wider audience. This is one of the really great things about the Internet IMHO.
It would work this way:
1. Grab the screenshot of the game
2. Make an OCR of it to extract the text from it. It should be fairly accurate with current technology.
3. Connect via Internet to translating service like Babelfish (it works with Spanish and Russian ), send the text and get the translated meaning.
It would work with arcades. I would work with Dizzy style games. It wouldn't just work with text games where you have to type words in unknown language yourself.
i have to add, this one is in english. (the patched file from this site http://trd.speccy.cz/g/game_full_ver.htm ca be run in EmuZwin.)
That's right , I agree with you that there were some good games made by russian programmers , I'm wondering if they still working to make new speccy games ! one day I hope to see and play Stalingrad but as an arcade-paltform type this time .
Do you see?
Have you tried/successfully loaded Ball Quest in Emuzwin? I can't get the TRD file to be accepted by Emuzwin in any of its clone modes (including ATM). The file gets a bit closer to working in SPIN and UnrealSpeccy before crashing.
at least the file i got here http://zx.pk.ru/showthread.php?p=70408#post70408 runs for me neither in EmuZwin nor in Spactaculator. :(
I tried that one too. It nearly works in Unrealspeccy, the emulator that is also by Alonecoder and it plays music in Emuzwin.
A .trd file on this page nearly works in SPIN
http://zxfiles.hut2.ru/eindex.htm
but Emuzwin won't recognise it at all.
I must be doing something wrong... can't be that hard.
btw, in my EmuZwin 2.6, the modela ATM and ATM turbo don?t seem to work at all (both freeze at reset e.g.).
I think I see your point, but I still disagree.
My 'moaning' isn't because I want people to please me. What I want is for everyone to have access to the great Speccy stuff that's out there. A selfish person is someone who only thinks about himself and/or wants everything for himself.
I'm thinking about the big picture here. And instead of saying 'someone should do it!', I'm actually offering my help. I want to help translate Portuguese to English, Spanish to English and English to Spanish. All I need is someone to help me with the code part.
By embarking in such a mega project, I would be spending many hours translating games that I may not even like, but I would still do it, if the Speccy community wants it.
On a side note, I understand why some people only release programs and games in their native tongue, and (I admit) I shouldn't say that they have to translate it. But if it's something that a lot of people have wanted for a long time, someone should!
Ahhh, I thought the irony was the fact that most games are available in English not because the authors specifically chose for a universal language, but because that was their native language, perhaps even the only language they spoke.
I mean, the reply from the Spanish/Russian/whatever scene is as valid as that - they wrote the games in their own language. The fact that this isn't English is not their problem, similar to why, say, Jetpac isn't available in other languages.
But anyway, I agree with the slightly mangled original point, that things should be available for all to enjoy equally, but I've always wanted the Japanese version of Tactics Ogre for the SNES to play, but until someone does eventually finish the fan translation I might as well not bother. That's not to say that there aren't around another 1,000 other SNES games I could play in the meantime that should keep me busy, many of which I will have never played before.
Does having the games available for all to share in the experience equally mean that in return for translating 100 Russian games into English, you will in return translate 10,000 English games into Russian for the Russian-only readers?
I'll put that out there in the middle, then creep backwards into a corner and observe.
Sorry, I don't think that Russian programmers are still making new ZX Spectrum games. Even if they did it later, they now moved to another game platforms. You see, Spectrum is not very popular in Russia anymore. Modern Russian teenagers and young people don't know about ZX Spectrum at all and it's not interesting for them at all. As for the ZX Spectrum demoscene - well, yes, Russian Speccy demos are still being made and you can find a lot of them at www.zxdemo.org. But again, they are made for using mostly in emulators rather than on the real ZX Spectrum hardware. And as for the Spectrum hardware: I found a rather interesting website about some Russian Speccy enthusiasts from Saint-Petersburg who made a computer called Sprinter. The motherboard of this computer is sold for $139. The computer can work in two different modes: Sprinter and ZX Spectrum. In ZX Spectrum mode the computer is compatible with lots of Speccy software plus it can load .SCL and .TRD files directly into the computer without using any emulators (wow, thats cool). In Sprinter mode it has some advanced features as the expanded colour graphics. You can also attach an IDE hard dirve and a CD-ROM dirve to the computer (that's VERY cool, I think). The only disadvantage is that you can't connect the computer to modern SVGA CRT and LCD monitots but you can connet it to and old CGA monitor and to a TV using SCART and RGB. If you know Russian and can read Russian sites in your web browser you can read some information about this computer here: http://faqs.org.ru/hardw/non_pc/sprinter.htm and here: www.zx.pk.ru/archive/index.php/t-3503.html.