I wonder if the people who developed the game inside NK had the opportunity to play games made from the outside?
I wonder if they even had access to unblocked internet.
North Korea’s First Computer Game: Pyongyang Racer
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Re: North Korea’s First Computer Game: Pyongyang Racer
#32The 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?
Re: North Korea’s First Computer Game: Pyongyang Racer
#33The 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?
[deleted]
Re: North Korea’s First Computer Game: Pyongyang Racer
#34Wonder whether the game has somesecret subliminal message in the executable? Something like the Trolls game for PC
http://www.mobygames.com/game/trolls/trivia
Re: North Korea’s First Computer Game: Pyongyang Racer
#35I wonder if the people who developed the game inside NK had the opportunity to play games made from the outside?
I wonder if they even had access to unblocked internet.
My wild guess is: they might not have had any internet connection at all. But it really depends whether the Koryo Tours guys thought the extra cost would be worth it. I don't have any updated pricelist from Nosotek (the North Korean/Dutch joint venture outsourcing firm which wrote Pyongyang Racer), but back in 2010 they charged an extra €40 to €60 per day surcharge to clients if they wanted their team of two outsourced Pyongyang programmers to have direct internet access; otherwise the team would work "in a cleanroom environment and can not connect to the
internet" and all email contact would be with the Nosotek managers only.
http://www.nkeconwatch.com/nk-uploads/nosotek-pricelist.pdf
To put this in perspective, that charge is almost the same as the charge for one of the programmers themselves. My guess is, Nosotek most likely have to pay for a third guy from the government to watch the browsing habits of the first two, and that third guy has to belong to both the set of political reliables and the set of internet-savvy people --- two sets which are already small in North Korea and whose intersection is even smaller. Not to mention the cost of the extra computer and internet connection itself
More links about Nosotek:
http://www.nkeconwatch.com/category/organizaitons/nosotek/
Re: North Korea’s First Computer Game: Pyongyang Racer
#36The 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?
> 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)
Re: North Korea’s First Computer Game: Pyongyang Racer
#37For some reason I was expecting it to be written in Python.
Re: North Korea’s First Computer Game: Pyongyang Racer
#38The 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?
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).
Re: North Korea’s First Computer Game: Pyongyang Racer
#39i think the site is down. Did anyone have a chance to mirror it?
Re: North Korea’s First Computer Game: Pyongyang Racer
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if they even had access to unblocked internet.
My wild guess is: they might not have had any internet connection at all. But it really depends whether the Koryo Tours guys thought the extra cost would be worth it. I don't have any updated pricelist from Nosotek (the North Korean/Dutch joint venture outsourcing firm which wrote Pyongyang Racer), but back in 2010 they charged an extra €40 to €60 per day surcharge to clients if they wanted their team of two outsourc…
Very interesting contract. Did you use them for a project?
4. Communication
Communication between the engineers and the customer will only take place by email or Nosotek's bug tracking server. Phone calls are not possible. Chatting is only possible with members of Online Programming teams.
Emails exchange will only take place once pay day, answers to questions will be giving on the following day, sometimes two days later. The customer accepts that it might happen that email communication is interrupted for one or two days for technical or administrative reasons.
In case the customer sends political propaganda or agitation, Nosotek has the right to cancel the project without returning the prepaid fees.