The gameplay is inspired by classic adventure games. It shows everyday life and tells the stories of ordinary people against a backdrop of historical catastrophes. Many artefacts from the epoch, research texts, and historical eyewitness accounts can be discovered over the course of the game. The documentary is combined with elements of fantastical realism, quotes with fantasy, adventure with classic arcades.
Rodina.doc is a documentary game from the Department of Pain, a group of critically minded documentary artists. This is a journey through the history of modern Russia, from 1991 to the present. Each episode is a catastrophe – the coup, the shelling of the Russian White House, the First Chechen War, terrorist attacks, politically-motivated trials, protests – everything that makes up our contemporary reality, the place we all came from. Our uncomfortable past, our invisible Russia. History is us, and “coming to terms with the truth is a recipe for civic solidarity”.
Game features:
- Point-and-click quests with historical backdrops. Try to live in 1991, stand up against the totalitarian coup, and shop for wallpaper.
- Varieties of mini-games, inspired by classics from the ’80s and ’90s.
- Historic documentary evidence: books, video, radio.
- Music from 1991.
- Invented characters and real historical figures.
- Authentic Soviet newspapers.
- Deficits of toilet paper.
Episode 1. “The Start: 1991-93”.
Late-USSR, 19 August 1991. Typist and translator Nina Alesina wakes up at 7 a.m. in her Moscow apartment. Today Nina is only interested in her renovation work. For some time now, she has dreamed of new wallpaper. At the same time, a fraction of the Soviet government has for a while dreamed of stopping perestroika and returning to late Stalinism. Throughout the country, there are deficits, unemployment, strikes, and glasnost. Starting with the attempted coup in 1991, our story will continue with the constitutional crisis of 1993.
