from Hacker News

North Korea’s First Computer Game: Pyongyang Racer

by danielhitome on 12/21/12, 3:36 AM with 57 comments

  • by redact207 on 12/21/12, 5:02 AM

    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.

  • by kitcar on 12/21/12, 1:22 PM

    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."

  • by xanfred on 12/21/12, 5:46 AM

    Nope. North Koreans made "The Big Lebowski Bowling" back in 2007: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-06/kim-jong-il-bowls-f...

  • by RaphiePS on 12/21/12, 4:39 AM

    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.

  • by pbateman on 12/21/12, 4:35 AM

    The only thing stopping this from being really funny is how awful the life of the average North Korean is.

  • by xentronium on 12/21/12, 1:49 PM

  • by dfc on 12/21/12, 4:56 AM

    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.

  • by swalsh on 12/21/12, 5:43 AM

    I wonder if the people who developed the game inside NK had the opportunity to play games made from the outside?

  • by jpatokal on 12/21/12, 5:49 AM

    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...

  • by jlgreco on 12/21/12, 5:27 AM

    From the name, I was really hoping this would be a re-branded Tux Racer.

  • by malkia on 12/21/12, 8:13 AM

    Wonder whether the game has somesecret subliminal message in the executable? Something like the Trolls game for PC http://www.mobygames.com/game/trolls/trivia

  • by jayfuerstenberg on 12/21/12, 7:40 AM

    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?

  • by Fantastix on 12/21/12, 4:45 AM

    How to get backdoor into North Korea...

    Convince the game designers to be on your team.

    hmm...

  • by lawlypop on 12/21/12, 5:09 AM

    For those of you who want to skip the site and check out the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3...

  • by rootedbox on 12/21/12, 4:25 AM

    if it was from NK then why does the game use english?

  • by hayksaakian on 12/21/12, 4:22 AM

    seems like the site (of the game) is down from my end

  • by frozenport on 12/21/12, 5:04 PM

    North Korea's goverment will report the website outage as a CIA plot carried by an elite group of hackers called "Hacker_News".

  • by ender89 on 12/21/12, 9:23 PM

    Complete with realistic Pyongyang traffic!

  • by telepoiss on 12/21/12, 1:18 PM

    I hope they'll release an iOS version soon.

  • by jagermo on 12/21/12, 10:11 AM

    i think the site is down. Did anyone have a chance to mirror it?

  • by JediZX on 12/21/12, 6:19 AM

    Now the NK citizens will be arrested if they don't play this game day and night...

  • by kennywinker on 12/21/12, 8:52 AM

    For some reason I was expecting it to be written in Python.