When some of Soviet adults played big and serious Cold War Game, the happy children of U.S.S.R. were spending their time in different way. The culture of arcade machine games was blossoming in both city and country side. To be honest, not every village have got its electronic playground made on military factories, but there was pretty plenty of, and I was one of that happy children who has access.
That time has gone as soon as Iron Curtain fell and cheap game consoles (Mario, we remember you too) and then PCs became available to the regular families. But memory lives, and there are people in Moscow who does remember the old-school Soviet Arcade games, a big metal boxes with fancy, colorful reality inside, with controls and buttons, with a lot of fun. Alexander Stelmakh have founded the Museum, there are some details in the Wired’s Soviet-Era Arcade Games Crawl Out of Their Cold War article.
Now, some of the Soviet Era Arcades are online and playable
And now anyone can visit the Museum of Soviet arcade machines, that just opened today! At the moment, only its Russian version is fully functional. But you can actually play the favorite arcade games of Soviet kids. We thank the Flash Developer of Artemy Lebedev Studio, Dmitry Bezverhii and Anton Sidorenko, we also want to respect the whole ArtLebedev Studio for this cool work. These games probably not for everyone, but here they are, virtual Arcade Mashines of the U.S.S.R. At present, only four have been created in flash, but I hope more to come:
Also, there are a huge quantity of nice illustrations of the development process.
The question is, can these games be popular in wide auditory, except the fans of 8-bit art, old school and vintage junkies, and the ex-children of Soviet Union?