Will Sand Put Hungary Firmly Back into the Video Games Scene?
The upcoming video game Sand promises a unique twist in that the narrative transports players into an alternate timeline where Hungary leads the space race. Will it be a success and add to the relatively small list of video games that have featured the country heavily? We can get a feel for its chances by looking at some other games set here.
Hungary’s History in Video Games – Yoomurjak’s Ring
Many of the video games set in Hungary are based on sports or warfare. Yoomurjak’s Ring takes a different approach. Created by Hungarian musician Pierrot and released in 2005 by Private Moon Studios, the action takes place in the beautiful, historic city of Eger. Here, American adventurer Jonathan Hunt is visiting his mother’s birthplace when he gets caught up in a mysterious tale involving time traveling.
Yoomurjak’s Ring is a point-and-click game that does a terrific job of introducing players to Eger through numerous photos and more than an hour of filmed footage. The town hall and local museums are among the locations to be discovered, while Hungarian actors László Görög and György Bárdy play key roles in the game.
Dracula 4: The Shadow of the Dragon Travels to Budapest
This Dracula-themed game, which was released by Koalabs Studio in 2013, provided another chance to play in a Hungarian setting. Although games featuring the famous vampire typically take place in Transylvania, this game has art restorer Ellen Cross visiting Budapest to track down a missing painting. While in the capital, she finds the great-grandson of Bram Stoker and embarks on an adventure to find out more about the painting and its history.
As well as video games, Dracula has also featured in several casino slots. We can see titles like Book of Vampires, Blood Suckers II, and Vampire Night at Vegasslotsonline. While these games leave the exact setting up to the player’s imagination, they typically include many of the theme’s classic images such as bats, castles, and garlic. So it’s easy to imagine that they’re set in Dracula’s infamous castle rather than Budapest.
Sand Puts the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Space
In mid-2023, it was announced that Ukraine-based Hologryph was working on a new game titled Sand. It’s set in space and the idea behind it is that the Austro-Hungarian Empire was able to discover new energy sources that allowed them to travel to space and colonize some of the neighboring solar systems.
According to the report in PCGamer, the events in the game take place before World War One. The characters come from the Galicia region in the former Empire and they’ve landed on a planet named Sofia. They were enticed there with the promise of rewards for building up the planet’s industry from scratch. However, this once resource-rich planet is now a desert wasteland after some sort of ecological disaster struck it.
The settlers from Galicia use giant vehicles known as tramplers to cross the desert and look for valuable items. Each player needs to modify and improve their trampler, which is also their main base. They can work alone as part of a team as they look for abandoned islands to plunder. The Steam description of Sandy points out that the release date is yet to be confirmed. They also use Sophie, rather than Sofia, as the name of the planet where the game is set.
Could This Provide a New Wave of Austro-Hungarian Steampunk Games?
The popularity in recent years of steampunk and retrofuturistic games suggests that we might see more games like Sand if it’s a success. In 2017, Viktor by Studio Spektar was released as possibly the first Austro-Hungarian steampunk adventure. Based on a boar who wants to become the Emperor of Austria-Hungary, it wasn’t a great commercial success but it showed the potential of this empire for steampunk game developers.
The intriguing setting in an alternative history of Europe gives Sand an interesting twist that could encourage more players to give it a try. In the trailer that was released in 2023, we can see more of the unique setting and it was well-received by gamers judging by the comments and feedback.
Credit to the Ukrainian developers for coming up with this idea that lets us re-imagine the past. Time will tell if the Austro-Hungarian Empire turns into a rich source of inspiration for other game companies looking for new stories to tell.
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