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Rare East German Arcade Game Unearthed

Posted by michael on from the capitalistic-tendencies dept.

Lancey writes "While hunting for work stuff I found this press release about an old Soviet games machine, apparently there are only three surviving units from a production of 1500 - most of them were destroyed after the Berlin wall came down. Thought you might find it interesting..." There are screenshots and photos in this BBC story.

14 of 368 comments (clear)

  1. literal translations rule by ack154 · · Score: 5, Informative
    Games include:

    Hirshjagd (Deer Hunt)
    Hase und Wolf (Hare and Wolf)
    Abfahrtslauf (Departure Course)
    Schmetterlinge (Butterflies)
    Scheissbude (literal translation "crap booth"!)
    Autorennen (Racing Car)
    I wonder what you have to do to win at Crap Booth... Get to the toilet paper on the other side of the river? Flush the toilet to avoid the evil crap monster? Or is it like whack-a-mole, but with turds? What's the objective?
  2. Screenshots of actual gameplay by lawpoop · · Score: 4, Informative
    Here.

    "Crap booth" is not as interesting as it seems, but apparently communist Germany and capitalist America aren't really that different.

    --
    Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
    -- Pablo Picasso
    1. Re:Screenshots of actual gameplay by Rob+Parkhill · · Score: 5, Informative

      But the TV in this thing is not a stripped down unit, it is a whole TV set, little legs and everything!

      --
      "Tomorrow's forecast: a few sprinkles of genius with a chance of doom!" - Stewie Griffin
  3. U of Bath is in the UK by gevmage · · Score: 3, Informative

    For those like me who are geographically challenged, Bath is in the United Kingdom, a couple of hours west of London.

    --
    Craig Steffen
    http://www.craigsteffen.net
  4. What by stratjakt · · Score: 4, Informative

    When it was first launched in 1985, the computer technology was 10 years out of date by western standards. It has text-based graphics generated with a Russian 8-bit processor compared to the 16-bit processors used in western home computer games, or 32 bit processors used in western arcade machines at the time

    In 1985 where was MY 16 bit game console and 32 bit arcade machines?

    Hell, Super Mario Bros 2 came out in 1985. "Western life" wasn't that advanced.

    --
    I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
    1. Re:What by master_p · · Score: 4, Informative

      Dude, In 1985, SEGA created Outrun: 2x68000, Z80 for sound, a tremendous sprite scaler engine that could scale many many hardware sprites at real time...the 68000 had a full 32-bit architecture, but a 24-bit data bus. You can easily google arcade Outrun specs.

      Furthermore, many mainframe systems used the 68000 with some version of Unix.

      Furthermore, in 1985, you could buy an Amiga 1000 in US.

  5. Re:MAME? by strictnein · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's been in MAME for quite some time.
    PolyPlay is one of the the (few) legal ROMs for MAME. From Mameworld.net:
    (C) 1985 VEB Polytechnik Karl-Marx-Stadt.
    Owing to the collapse of East Germany, there does not appear to be any copyright holder for this software.

    There's a link there to download the game. So go grab your favorite version of MAME and play the game! Interactive news! It's the future!

    --
    Casual Games/Downloads
  6. Re:MAME? by grm_wnr · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's on MAME. Google for "MAME polyplay". I actually played it. Problem: It's really boring.

  7. Green Mode by trifakir · · Score: 4, Informative

    I wonder what is the power consumption of this gadget. Probably you have to switch-off one or two districts in the neighbour and it needs an additional water cooling. A Soviet refrigerator, for example, consumes probably 1Kw and most of the energy is converted to sound as it is louder than a truck...

  8. Re:MAME? by k98sven · · Score: 4, Informative

    Owing to the collapse of East Germany, there does not appear to be any copyright holder for this software.

    I'm not certain the MAME guys should be so sure of that though. Had it had any commercial value whatsoever, you can bet someone would've claimed it.

    There have been cases of rights disputes over Soviet creations, not to mention the big fuss over Tetris back in the day.

  9. 3 in existance ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I had one of those. And I know about a dozen of other PolyPlays

    Its rare, but not that rare. there are more PolyPlays in Germany (east&west) than PacMans.

    There are several different cab versions of it (due to lack of rescoureces)

    And its really not worth anything........not really.

  10. It is. by Gorath99 · · Score: 5, Informative
    Isn't that "Schiessbude" (shooting booth)? See Schiessen vs. Scheissen...
    It is. See an image over here (the text on the page spells it wrong though).

    Is it just me, or do a lot of native English speaking people seem to have a problem with the difference between "ie" and "ei"? I would understand if they always wrote "ei", but I see too many instances of "wierd" for that to be true. Odd...

  11. Re:Itchy & Scratchy by daviddennis · · Score: 3, Informative

    Worse than that, actually. A Trabant in East Germany was issued after you saved most of your spare money for 10 years.

    if you did the same thing in West Germany - an act that would admittedly take tremendous willpower - you could afford a 911, easy. A 911 is only about ten times as fast from 0-60 as a Trabant. Well, a Trabant can't even make it to 60 (it has a top speed of 56mph) but you get the idea.

    Not much of a joke if you have to live it, alas :-(.

    D

  12. If you want to play it yourself by Baumi · · Score: 3, Informative

    The page linked above also has a link to a MAME file.