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North Korea’s First Computer Game: Pyongyang Racer

86 points| danielhitome | 13 years ago |techinasia.com | reply

57 comments

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[+] redact207|13 years ago|reply
Heroic officers of the army, members of the Worker-peasant red guards, compatriots, comrades and friends. Today we have achieved great victory of technical excellence in honor of our Dear Leader, who is a perfect incarnation of the appearance that a leader should have, who has returned to Heaven from where he first descended.

We have proved to the world our superior technical and scientific achievements, for which we are now envied. The technology that powers Pyongyang Racer is the same divine and glorious codebase that sent Unha-3 into the heavens that was gifted upon us by the Highest incarnation of the revolutionary comradely love.

The sun flag of the great Comrade Kim Il Sung and Comrade Kim Jong Il will forever flutter in the van of our revolutionary ranks that display only victory and honor and will always encourage and drive us toward a new victory.

Move forward toward the final victory, Pyongyang Racer.

[+] dguaraglia|13 years ago|reply
I know this is not supposed to be the kind of comment HN encourages, but... whatever, you had me at "technical excellence" and it only got better from there :)
[+] mechnik|13 years ago|reply
Dear Leader is dead, long live the Supreme Leader!
[+] kitcar|13 years ago|reply
This article is incorrect - this is not North Korea's first video game, they have been producing video games for quite a while, there are a number of companies which even outsource production there. From an article in 2010 (http://www.pcworld.com/article/198555/the_worlds_most_unusua...) :

The outsourcer with the highest profile is probably Nosotek. The company, established in 2007, is also one of the few Western IT ventures in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.

Nosotek's main work revolves around development of Flash games and games for mobile phones. It's had some success and claims that one iPhone title made the Apple Store Germany's top 10 for at least a week, though it wouldn't say which one.

Several Nosotek-developed games are distributed by Germany's Exozet Games, including one block-based game called "Bobby's Blocks."

[+] RaphiePS|13 years ago|reply
Last summer I had the pleasure of visiting North Korea (with Koryo Tours). I think it's worth noting that the company is not North Korean -- it's based in Beijing and run by British expats.
[+] jvrossb|13 years ago|reply
So it's all the more puzzling it's this bad then?
[+] pbateman|13 years ago|reply
The only thing stopping this from being really funny is how awful the life of the average North Korean is.
[+] taligent|13 years ago|reply
Actually the average life of North Korea is not that different from those in rural China, Phillipines, Thailand and arguably some parts of the US.
[+] dfc|13 years ago|reply
What does it say about a tech news website when the writer cannot be bothered to google "open source screen capture" before posting a story.
[+] obstacle1|13 years ago|reply
Nothing, since the writer is a freelancer and doesn't represent said website.
[+] swalsh|13 years ago|reply
I wonder if the people who developed the game inside NK had the opportunity to play games made from the outside?
[+] sebastianavina|13 years ago|reply
I wonder if they even had access to unblocked internet.
[+] jpatokal|13 years ago|reply
Oops -- looks like the bourgeous running dogs of HN have just DOS'd the North Korean video game industry. Here's hoping Kim Jong Un doesn't consider this a declaration of war and transform the Web into a sea of fire...
[+] jlgreco|13 years ago|reply
From the name, I was really hoping this would be a re-branded Tux Racer.
[+] jayfuerstenberg|13 years ago|reply
The instructions read "don't hit other cars or vans!" but I think I counted around only 6 of them in the entire city.

Is it because it's on DEMO MODE?

[+] dualogy|13 years ago|reply
No, it just adds a lot of realism. I'm not being snarky, NK roads are mostly devoid of cars most of the time from what I've seen (on the Internet, didn't have the privilegue to visit yet).
[+] 1wheel|13 years ago|reply
> Or just watch this video of me playing a little bit of the game (apologies for the hideous “demo mode” watermark; my usual screencapture software is broken but this should do until I can fix it)
[+] Fantastix|13 years ago|reply
How to get backdoor into North Korea...

Convince the game designers to be on your team.

hmm...

[+] rootedbox|13 years ago|reply
if it was from NK then why does the game use english?
[+] astine|13 years ago|reply
It was commissioned by Koryo, the NK tourist agency as a promotional tool. It's not for Koreans to play, but for foreigners who might want to visit North Korea.
[+] pbateman|13 years ago|reply
Because it's a promotional tool made by the travel agency Koryo. As a foreigner you can travel through North Korea and see a truly strange country.

It's probably going to do the job quite well just because it will pique the curiosity of a few and they might end up going.

[+] hayksaakian|13 years ago|reply
seems like the site (of the game) is down from my end
[+] frozenport|13 years ago|reply
North Korea's goverment will report the website outage as a CIA plot carried by an elite group of hackers called "Hacker_News".
[+] ender89|13 years ago|reply
Complete with realistic Pyongyang traffic!
[+] telepoiss|13 years ago|reply
I hope they'll release an iOS version soon.