Today it seems that the Russian video game industry is in decline, and just fifteen years ago, many domestic projects were not inferior to their foreign counterparts. A special place among them has always been occupied by quests, which would be more correctly called adventure games. However, they entered the history of the domestic game industry with exactly this name. We decided to recall the top ten key games of the genre that have shaped the face of domestic quests.
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“Ivan Lozhkin: The Price of Freedom” (1997)
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Trailer for the game “Petka and Vasily Ivanovich Save the Galaxy”
Heroes of folk bearded jokes Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev and Peter Semenovich Isaev, better known simply as Petka, are the most popular characters in Russian quests. The game series about them has nine titles, with the last one released in 2009 (not counting the remasters).
The adventures of the Red Army in many ways resembled those jokes: in the very first game of the series, Petka and Vasily Ivanovich went in search of the regimental banner, allegedly stolen by the White Guards, and eventually prevented the seizure of the Earth by aliens. The latter decided to start with the native village of Chapaev Gadyukino precisely because they saw the sign: “Gadyukino is the navel of the Earth.”
Since then, the couple has pretty much left in time and space: part of their adventures takes place in modern America, Ancient Rome, France in the 1960s, and far more than once – in space. A mixture of anecdotes, pop cultural references and parodies, albeit not always successful, gave the franchise a long life, but with each new part, the people’s love faded away. Whether the series will receive a continuation is an open question: the demand for remasters has shown that Petka is more alive than all the living.
“Rendezvous with a stranger” (2001)
Screenshot from the game “Rendezvous with a stranger 3: Holiday romance”
Anyone who has found display cases with discs and disorder in the markets will remember boxes marked “18+” on strange game crafts. A special place among them was occupied by the series “Rendezvous with a Stranger”: the obscenely primitive gameplay, consisting of unpretentious mini-games and dialogues with obvious answer options, led to light eroticism with the participation of real girls. The formula “communication leads to striptease” was loved by many, and the series grew to indecent sizes. In addition to the main franchise, in which more than a dozen games differing from each other only in the setting and the set of girls, competitors were not asleep either. For example, Akella created a subsidiary studio Macho Games, which successfully released two parts, Behind the Wall and Fruit of Desire.
Today, erotic crafts look extremely clumsy and ridiculous – thanks to the unprofessionalism of actresses, often recruited from among the representatives of the ancient profession. And yet, many still remember the episode with warmth in their hearts.
“Last year’s snow was falling” (2003)
Screenshot from the game “Last year’s snow was falling”
The famous Soviet cartoon by Alexander Tatarsky found a second life in the form of a game. The Man has another trouble: someone stole his favorite bathhouse. Of course, he does not intend to put up with this, and remembering what a simple hike after the tree turned into, it already becomes clear: it will not be boring.
More precisely, it shouldn’t have been: they tried to preserve the style of the cartoon, but it didn’t work out very well. Frankly, three-dimensional backgrounds try to look like plasticine, but it turns out so-so. In addition, the proprietary skirmish between the Man and the Author became much easier, and the original music was replaced with inexpressive synthesizer tracks. However, even in this form, the story looks good – it just does not reach the original source. A couple of years later, a sequel was released, which was received even cooler.
“Nuclear Titbit” (2003)
Screenshot from the game “Nuclear Titbit”
Danya Shepovalov, a well-known journalist in the early 2000s, was not only the author of the cult “Hacker”, but also a screenwriter for video games. It was he who came up with the series “Nuclear Titbit”, heavily mixed with nuclear waste, hallucinogens and St. Petersburg realities. The result was so provocative that the publisher of Buk released the game under the Byaka brand, created specifically for Titbit.
A strange game in which one could meet Dostoevsky the warlock and the rastaman janitor, and the riddles were solved by sex and unmotivated violence, society fell in love, and the series grew to five games: in addition to two numbered parts of Nuclear Titbit, Byaka also released Nuclear creatures “, a collection of strange arcades” Nuclear Titbit: Flashback “and the shooter” Nevsky Titbit “. Genres changed, but psychedelics remained.
Full Trumpet (2003)
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Sublustrum teaser
Another representative of a more serious approach to the genre. The developers at Phantomery Interactive took inspiration from classic quests like Myst and Scratches, but brought in a unique atmosphere that combines lucid dreaming, retrofuturism and steampunk. The story itself is built around the invention of the protagonist’s brother. The latter recently died and asks to destroy his developments, but keep the capsule, which is in one of the rooms. Judging by the records, the deceased scientist discovered a way to penetrate into another reality, either created from the subconscious, or really existing.
A difficult quest both in passing and in understanding, the plot of which is still controversial, won many awards and went abroad. Following Sublustrum, the studio released another quest, again building around experiments on the mind – “Phobos: 1953”. Alas, the third game Phantomery Interactive never saw the light: a project called “Quarantine” was frozen, and the studio has not shown signs of life for more than ten years.
Today the quest genre is in oblivion: players have opted for more dynamic titles, which are much more suited to English Adventure. Nevertheless, the memory of good old toys, no, no, and even make your hand reach for the shelf with dusty disks. And with the modern trend towards retro love, we may well see a genre revival in one form or another.
