Robbbert wrote on 2025-07-04, 03:15:

I'm looking forward to the promised Neo-Geo port.

If politics is becoming an issue, rename "soviets" to "aliens", because everyone hates aliens.

It worked for Starpath, arguably.

Robbbert wrote on 2025-07-04, 03:15:

If politics is becoming an issue, rename "soviets" to "aliens", because everyone hates aliens.

Terrible idea. Not what was advertised and not what I signed up for. I happen to like the comical Soviet era theming going on in this game. The dev should stick to their guns and make the game as they intended. The MS-DOS red disk big box looks awesome.

Terrible idea was to bring that soviet motive in the first place.
The dev should recognize how inappropriate that is considering what the soviets do right now to your future.
The soviets are not dead. The ussr just got rebranded, and the very same people sing the very same anthem and pursue the same goals.

vstrakh wrote on 2025-07-04, 16:07:

Terrible idea was to bring that soviet motive in the first place.
The dev should recognize how inappropriate that is considering what the soviets do right now to your future.
The soviets are not dead. The ussr just got rebranded, and the very same people sing the very same anthem and pursue the same goals.

No sir. I support my country (U.S.A.) helping the Ukraine defend themselves, but I also fully support freedom of speech. As an artist myself, no one is going to tell me I cannot create something because someone doesn't agree with it. For some reason, you are not getting the satire from this game. This is not glorifying anything, rather, it's actually making fun of the cold war era Soviets. Get it straight man.

LocoMJ wrote on 2025-06-29, 19:03:

We never intended to offend anyone with SovietBorgs. If any content in the game or trailer made someone feel uncomfortable, we s […]
Show full quote

We never intended to offend anyone with SovietBorgs. If any content in the game or trailer made someone feel uncomfortable, we sincerely apologize.

This is the first chapter of the pocketbook that will be included with the game.

We've extended the campaign to two months to cover the summer and hopefully spark more interest in the community.
Since the game is still in its demo phase, everything —including the pixel art— is subject to change in order to make it a better experience. We’re aware that some aspects of the game can be improved, and if the campaign is successful, we’ll do everything we can to turn SovietBorgs into a great arcade title.

Any feedback is truly appreciated

When you're creating some form of art, you can't please eight billion people. Do your thing, and I assure you there are lots of people who will appreciate that.

liqmat wrote on 2025-07-04, 16:15:

No sir. I support my country (U.S.A.) helping the Ukraine defend themselves, but I also fully support freedom of speech. As an artist myself, no one is going to tell me I cannot create something because someone doesn't agree with it. For some reason, you are not getting the satire from this game. This is not glorifying anything, rather, it's actually making fun of the cold war era Soviets. Get it straight man.

Yeah, I've noticed in these trying times people can't seem to separate satire from glorification. I also think Freedom of Speech / Freedom of Expression is incredibly important. Art is art, no matter what it is.

I definitely wouldn't appreciate being accused of heinous things just because I enjoy stuff like Cruelty Squad, Psycho Patrol R, and also Urban Assault and it's developer leaked expansion pack. (particularly the Ghorkovs campaign I recently finished playing through again)

vstrakh wrote on 2025-07-04, 16:07:

Terrible idea was to bring that soviet motive in the first place.

By that logic, it would be impossible to make any games about WW2 or the Cold War.

the very same people sing the very same anthem

No.
The melody is the same, but the words are completely different.

and pursue the same goals.

No.
Current goals have nothing do with the "export of communism" ideology of the USSR.

Grzyb wrote on 2025-07-04, 16:43:

By that logic, it would be impossible to make any games about WW2 or the Cold War.

Everybody loved / praised Panzer General back in the 90s, even though it starts with the invasion of Poland and the player is literally helping bring about the Holocaust, if you look at it from the historical perspective.

Although the "Soviet" theme in this game indeed looks strange and arbitrary (and I'm not really getting any humorous or satirical vibes from it, it's just very odd), it's way more detached from any conceivable reality than Panzer General, or any other WW2-themed military game where you can play as the Wehrmacht.

BTW, what platform is the current demo for? It's not for DOS as far as I can tell.

MrFlibble wrote on 2025-07-05, 12:18:

BTW, what platform is the current demo for? It's not for DOS as far as I can tell.

Sega Genesis a.k.a. Mega Drive.

the very same people sing the very same anthem

Reminds me of the music video by the Pet Shop Boys, Go West. 😉

Although the "Soviet" theme in this game indeed looks strange and arbitrary (and I'm not really getting any humorous or satirical vibes from it, it's just very odd)

Hm. Humor as such is universal, but taste is very individual I guess. 🤷‍♂️
Especially German humor is said to be, *um*, different at times.
Or rather, not so popular. It's also a generational thing, I guess.

There's modern stand-up comedy or blund/rude comedy on TV (Heuteshow)
vs not-so-common Monty Python style humor (Sketch History has some such moments, but I can only find one English example clip)
vs something like satire/dry humor/intelligent humor (Loriot, H. Erhardt etc).
Just to name a few. I vaguely remember that Traumschiff Surprise hadn't been so much of an international success, at least. 😅

it's way more detached from any conceivable reality than Panzer General, or any other WW2-themed military game where you can play as the Wehrmacht.

Good point.

But to be honest, I personally didn't use to associate UdSSR with war so much but rather with former East Germany, the eastern bloc satellite states and the space program (Sputnik, Luna/Venera probes, Apollo-Sojuz, MIR).
Edit: Oh, and the Chernobyl accident, of course. Atomic waste, hard radiation etc.
The dystopic wasteland 'theme', in short. But that was in Ukraine, unfortunately. Not sure if I can say that. 😬

Especially MIR (as an exception) had a surprising positive effect, I think :
It was all about peace, international co-operation etc. Officially, at least.
But that was from another time, the late 20th century, when the wind of change could been heard (near the end of UdSSR and past it).

I remember how I bought astronomy magazines in the 90s,
reading about hubble telescope, MIR, Space Shuttle missions and the upcoming ISS (aka Alpha aka MIR-2).
But yeah, that was just my point of view here. No offense. 😟

Kids in former East Germany had a less dreamy point of view, I guess.
Except of thinking of eventually becoming Cosmonauts, maybe.
I've seen GDR youth magazines that were heavy on UdSSR topics.
Tanks, guns and stuff. Very para-military. To western eyes, at least. It was normal to them.
The system tried to "program" them early on to "protect" peace (with force).

But that's enough now, I just meant to talk about pros/cons for sake of fairness. Hope that was okay.
I have the bad habbit to explain my thoughts, which causes posts that are a tad bit too long at times. 😅

Grzyb wrote on 2025-07-04, 16:43:

No.
Current goals have nothing do with the "export of communism" ideology of the USSR.

Yes, because the communism wasn't an export product. It was a pretext/facade for establishing a dominance.
Wherever communism was "exported" - it was controlled by a local kremlin puppet. Any attempt to take away local control back would be crushed with the tanks.

vstrakh wrote on 2025-07-06, 06:44:

Yes, because the communism wasn't an export product. It was a pretext/facade for establishing a dominance.

Good point.
But if we dismiss communism as just a pretext, then there's no difference between Russia/USSR and other great powers.
That's exactly how *all* great powers work: they establish dominance, they watch over their zones of influence.

I guess it's not a consolation for you that it's not only Russia who starts wars, but that's how things are.
You can't expect the entire world to have the same point of view as yours.

Very well made - props!

^^Balance of Power comes to mind, a geo-political and socio-economical game about two competing systems/powers.
The original edition of 1985 was notable for being the first commercial game for MS Windows, which even shipped with a Windows 1.x runtime.
The 1990 edition was a Windows 2.x game, which also ran fine on Windows 3.x without doing.
Edit: Never mind, it just came to my mind. It's historically significant, at least, I think.

Nice to see something different. Reminded me of the times playing the original C&C Red Alert.

Hopefully the DOS version comes out. It's been so long since we had games released in big boxes and floppies and printed manuals!