Dragons, mazes and the impossible cube: what games are made in Belarus

Who is "the next Wargaming" here?

On 13-15 July, Minsk hosted the "Mobile Optimized" conference, the largest IT conference of its kind in Eastern Europe. On the evening of the last day, young developers presented their games at the open exhibition.

Everybody is used to Belarusians making "tanchiki" - a hundred million people all over the world play Wargaming games. Another big project of the Belarusians, "Legends of Eisenwald", has recently gone on sale. But many Belarusian programmers and designers make small projects - teams of a couple of people create full-fledged games, some of which have a serious chance of local or even global success.

Some projects are already out, some will be out soon. All of the games are free of charge: today, it is common for small projects to make money from purchases in the games themselves or simply from advertising.

The Pras.by studio also came to the exhibition and showed... chess. But with unusual rules. One day in 1999, professor Ales Astrowski from Grodno University had a dream about a 9x9 pyramid with bumblebees and bees on one side and wasps and hornets on the other. They were struggling, like in chess (only with an extra "piece"), to climb to the top of the pyramid. A few years later, Pras studio decided to modify this into chess, refine the rules and release a full-fledged board game. In addition to the board game, a computer version is being developed. But the main direction - the physical chess, which will be sold in a cheap version (linen board, epoxy pieces, the price of about half a million) and expensive collectible version (oak boards and handmade figurines priced from $ 500). The electronic version is more for familiarisation and preparation for the tournament, which is due to take place in the autumn together with the presentation of the game.

The project is in three dimensions

"Belarusian Chess" exists in digital, noble and gift versions. Get to know them.