[HN Gopher] The Alternate Universe of Soviet Arcade Games
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       The Alternate Universe of Soviet Arcade Games
        
       Author : SerCe
       Score  : 54 points
       Date   : 2021-09-10 05:18 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.atlasobscura.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.atlasobscura.com)
        
       | beebeepka wrote:
       | One of the very few advantages of growing up on the east side of
       | the iron curtain was access to the entirely electronic Japanese
       | arcades and the Russian mechanical games. The volleyball wasn't
       | half bad. There was also a space fighter with a periscope like
       | divece and an array of mirrors. Some of these games were most
       | fine, especially for their time
        
         | squarefoot wrote:
         | I recall in the 70s electro-mechanical games were pretty common
         | here (Italy), just a few years before Pong, Asteroids and later
         | Space Invaders and Pacman changed it all. There was that
         | shooting game with the base projecting beams shaped as flying
         | birds on a big screen and real size rifles with photocells that
         | would score a point when hitting a bird, or the bear hunting
         | game, probably using IR as I don't recall any visible beams,
         | then F1 racing games, naval warfare ones, and many others I
         | don't recall atm. And of course pinball, the king of all
         | mechanical games. If I invested 10% of what I spent there I
         | would have some serious money by now:). Those games were mostly
         | electro-mechanical, built to perform one function and of course
         | not programmable, they likely had just the minimum electronics
         | necessary to play sounds or drive actuators. Taking one apart
         | would have an enormous instructional factor.
        
       | xook wrote:
       | title needs (2015)
        
       | eukgoekoko wrote:
       | I remember how Konyok-Gorbunok
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpWkJuXGQic was just driving me
       | nuts, I was just 6 y. o. and couldn't handle the frustration from
       | losing on the 3rd screen. This game was just inhumane, I've only
       | seen 20-year olds being good at it.
        
       | question002 wrote:
       | Kinda weird this quality article has 6 comments, but there
       | hundreds about Medium being a bad website. This is ridiculous. Is
       | this just bots at this point?
        
       | xattt wrote:
       | The tarragon drink mentioned in the article is widely available
       | in Russia, and even in "exclaves" such as Russian grocery stores
       | in Toronto (Yummy Market).
        
       | atemerev wrote:
       | Yes, I was growing up with these, and spent a lot of 15-kopeck
       | coins in these devices. The graphics was awful, but the games
       | were... playable. The shooting games worked flawlessly. The "sea
       | battle" torpedo launcher simulator was awesome, with realistic
       | ship silhouettes. The games were not unlike Tetris: simple, but
       | ingenious and addictive.
        
         | AussieWog93 wrote:
         | >15-kopeck coins
         | 
         | Honestly, that is the strangest thing about this whole article.
         | Why would the Soviets mint a coin that can't be combined with
         | other coins of the same type to make a full ruble? It just
         | seems really unnatural.
        
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       (page generated 2021-09-11 23:00 UTC)