House of Legends

Tag: games

  • Found a fun game about Marshrutka driver

    Here are the quote from author description of the Cow on Road game:

    My wife is Georgian and I have lived in Tbilisi for five years. We decided the driving experience here deserved its own video game, so we built one.

    You drive a marshrutka down an old Tbilisi street and dodge what the road gives you: Priuses drifting between lanes, Wolt couriers, potholes that rattle the whole bus, street dogs that run out to chase cars, pedestrians who cross wherever they want, and cows. Of course cows. There is honking and authentic Georgian yelling from the car windows.

    It is free, browser-based, no signup needed to play.

    There is a monthly leaderboard and the top driver wins a free course bundle from EasyGeorgian, the Georgian learning platform my wife and I run.

    Would love feedback, especially on what Tbilisi road hazard we forgot.

    Cow on road game illustration
    Cow on road game illustration

    Regarding feedback, it has been asked on Reddit here.

    I played this game a bit and enjoyed it a lot. It represents in a simple and a fun way the difficulties of work of marshrutka driver on the Tbilisi steets.

    Speaking of Marshrutka, this is a phenomenon of its own. They are usually (old?) Mercedes minibus with seats on each side, a narrow space in the middle and a overhead grab bar above each row of seats. They used often by passengers who ready to suffer by having a tough ride standing and holding by the overhead bar with one hand and pressing a seat with a leg or other hand to not fall.

    Random photo of famous Tbilisi marshrutka. It is yellow minibus on photo and the door is opened to take a passenger.
    Random photo of famous Tbilisi marshrutka. It is yellow minibus on photo and the door is opened to take a passenger.

    To me they become a social mirror of energetic, intense, zero-regulation freedom vibe of years when Bendukidze & other reformers from Saakashvili team made their unique reforms and projects. One of key aspects of this period was hyper-expressiveness of anything and vibe that anything possible. Including having a ride being stuck standing between plenty of random people busy their lives in a hurry. Meanwhile driver do few things at once, like drive, speaks by phone, screams at other drivers on the street, takes cash payments from passengers, gives them the change, and all this immersed often into loud music or radio air.

    Now marshrutkas are used primary as a way of inter-city transport, and it is a bit civilized a bit, but jokes are still here about Tbilisi Marshrutkas and their unique atmosphere.

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  • A thing I miss from my childhood

    In this post I will not use any illustration. Because I am writing about absence of something today that was one of nice thing that was part of some masterpieces games of 1990s. Some games like C&C had real video cinematics in them as cutscenes. With real actors playing there as characters and surrounding people and so on.

    Today I miss this kind of cinematic cutscenes in games.

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  • It could be another game review

    It could be another game review

    But instead it would be two thoughts about the Yaga game, full of Slavic folklore like babushka1 who always have a story to be told to cheer you up or to calm you down or to give a bit of wisdom.

    First, I see sort of missing branch on the large oak tree of game plot.

    Vasilisa is missing from the start

    Playing game few times, I thought that there is a plot branch with an ending when Ivan founds Vasilisa somewhere, may be saves her from some danger, and marry her.
    For example, it can be that Vasilisa went to Underworld, kingdom of Veles, to find that Sheep of Fate, to make a magical thread, and make a healing scarf with it, to help Ivan get lost arm. But Vasilisa lost in her travel, and got imprisoned by Zmy Gorynich, three-headed fire-breathing serpent/dragon.
    In this branch Ivan can get blueprint for sword, weapon that missing in game, and for something else, such tool as plow, which may not have a combat use, but necessary for some plot quest, likely to open the portal into Underworld.
    After Vasilisa saved, but before the ending she can make/sell the magical scarfs for Ivan – not only something like Scarf of Scorn, but more interesting, like Scarf of Perun, as soon as Ivan shares Rune of Perun with Vasilisa. With such scarf there is probability of lighting striking enemy who touching Ivan in melee combat. Scarf with Veles rune would allow to dodge of projectiles. Scarf of Chernobog would cause “evil eye on enemy touching Ivan with some probability, and so on.
    Other thing that can such update can provide is the mere idea of some armor, a clothing slot for torso, then Vasilisa would instead of scarves would make vyshivanka with runes for Ivan…

    Other thing is a global and a bit sad

    It seems that Baba Yaga and Fates sorts of playing a tabletop game, and while Baba Yaga seems to be a Game Baster in this tabletop game, and Fates, as players in this twisted upside down tabletop game, give more and more difficulties for Ivan to overcome.

    This idea of people and their lives being just board game miniatures in a tabletop game, sometimes joyful, sometimes grim, or even boring, for The Great Powers, at some moment stroke my mind like some Arrow of Sadness, because, for person who lived 95% of own life with idea that we, people, have some control over our lives, it is still sad for me world in this way.

    At least I am not getting angry now about idea of some limits we have on what we can control and not in our lives, not speaking about being a tabletop miniature in someone else game.

    And even the final words of Baba Yaga can’t disperse away this a bit sad feeling I told about.

    Conclusion?

    Don’t get me wrong! The game is great! The things I told about – like possible missing plot branch or not being used to living outside of “me-centric” worldview, all this does not make worse or bad. Some things can be added, like it happened with plot branch about Leshy. And some things can be part of me either taking something too seriously or me growing up a bit as person.

    Lets enjoy the game, folks!

    1. I don’t know whether there are still such babushkas who remember folk tales and using them such way, but I find this interesting as part of folk tradition that could be revived as well ↩︎
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