Students of Novosibirsk State Technical University (NETI) are working on creating a computer game in the genre of "quest", which takes place in besieged Leningrad. It will help schoolchildren and students to immerse themselves in the historical events of our country.
Active development of the project began in the spring of 2024, and the team has already done a tremendous job: the plot for the prologue has been written, sprites of the main characters, the first locations, environmental objects and equipment have been drawn. The project brought together students from different universities: NSTU-NETI, Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University, Novosibirsk State University of Architecture, Design and Arts named after A. D. Kryachkov, as well as participants from other cities in the TuderDev team — almost two dozen people worked on the project at various times.
"Initially, the idea was to do testing for schoolchildren in a game format in all subjects. Then they decided that they needed to focus on history, looked at the curriculum of schoolchildren and came to the conclusion that very little is being told about the event that everyone should know about — the siege of Leningrad. We decided to dedicate a game to this. Our hero is a 16—year-old boy, Kolya, who was supposed to go to the 10th grade. He will be directly affected by all the events of that time. Among the heroes are Kolya's mother, his friends and neighbors," said Vlada Redut, the team leader, a 2nd—year graduate student at the Faculty of Automation and Computer Engineering of NSTU-NETI.
According to Vlada, the game format was taken in order to make it possible for as many people as possible to convey historical events in an accessible and interesting way for them. The game is scheduled to be released in episodes. Players will perform various tasks together with the hero. In mid-September, the first scene of the first episode was released.
"There are three scenes in the first episode. The first is from the moment of the hero's birthday to the moment he is sent to the front. The second scene is the day when he is called up, and the third is when he is at war. As we develop, we will post new episodes. We try to work out everything as reliably as possible — costumes, characters, the setting, in order to convey the spirit of that time," added Vlada Redut.
The game is aimed at schoolchildren in grades 9-11, college students studying the history of the 20th century, including the events of the Great Patriotic War and the siege of Leningrad, as well as university students who have a research interest in this period of history and who can become mentors for younger generations. In the future, the team is going to develop an interactive quest for other stages of the story.