This is my short review of ATOM RPG Trudograd. Game is in early access, nothing is final, but after playing for about 5 to 7 hours I couldn’t find any game-breaking bugs or anything like that. Everything is looking very good. The game is a sequel, basically an ATOM RPG 2, but you can just play it without any knowledge about the first part whatsoever and it is a stand-alone project. You will miss some content, but it’s not very important actually. Although I can even bet that after you finish Trudograd you might want to try the first part anyway because this game is great. It starts with a cool live-action intro movie, leads you to the cool menu, and lets you import a character from the previous game or create a completely new one. Although you can’t create the appearance of your character, and that sucks, you can create everything else. Like chose to be a sexy beast. You know, at least in-game, right? Also, there are many cool abilities for you to pick and study. Actually I think that you can immerse yourself for at least an hour if you want to learn everything and try to determine which traits are better for you and which ones are useless.
The game has great graphics. They really seem better than in an original ATOM game, it looks like details are even sharper and there are more of them overall, although original was also made very well. Even the trees are moving in the wind, that is nice. Moving is nice in general. Imagine if you were a rock. Not that one, just a rock that cannot move. That would suck, right? So, what is this game all about? Well, the story is quite cool, not what you usually expect from Soviet based game. It’s not a spoiler, you start the game with this information. An asteroid is gonna hit the Earth and you have to find some secret weapon to destroy that asteroid. Cool, huh? You just have to save the Earth, simple task indeed. But when I first gained control of my character and spent 5 minutes trying to exit my room, my brain was like are you retarded or something. Yeah, Earth is doomed. I couldn’t find how to pick locks, I completely forgot how to do that, and only after some time passed I realized that I have to click and hold the mouse button to get a menu. To hold, not just click. Geez.
So, after I finally escaped my room, like some Houdini, I immediately got myself a prostitute and tried to forget everything that happened before. You know, how they say, love is the best medicine. Or do they say that about vodka? There is no lack of both in this game, believe me. And making love looked like that. Yeah, early access stuff indeed, but anyway 300 rubles spent well. After that, I just ran into a minefield and died. Yeah, that really happened. I just ignored some “Danger – Mines” signs and went to communist paradise with angry people standing in long lines to buy some doctors’ sausage, perestroika everywhere, and belomorkanal cigarettes. Or to communist hell, full of capitalist money, sex, and supermarkets. Anyway, this wasn’t my last encounter with a minefield. But first I have to tell you about the wonderful writing in this game. Quests are amazing. You will not find anything like “brings me ten pelts of savage barsukas” or “kill seven bandits and bring me their left testicles”. No. Creativity is way better here. For example, I encountered a woman who said that her husband is a dick and does not help to support their child. I was like, “oh what a piece of… and then I saw the baby. It was a turnip with a smiley face carved into it. She was… breastfeeding it”. Women were obviously crazy, but you know, I agreed to help her extort some money from her husband anyway. Money is money, right?
Another time I helped a man to recover his jar full of golden teeth from a minefield. Do you know how he got those teeth? He just dug them out along with bodies. But you know, if you’re ok with that game will not judge you. And this is the sequence of me trying to get that jar. I was so pissed, but also so happy when I finally got it right. Oh my… There is a secret of doing that, I will not spoil it for you. I hope you die even more times. The game consists of several small territories, you can freely travel between them and take jobs, search for information, and so on. The game is really beautiful, there were times when I just stopped and admired how cool everything is done.
Although I have no nostalgia for those times, it was bad to the bone. And as you probably already guessed, the majority of the action is performed in the city of Trudograd. Trud in Russian translates as hard work, you know, hard work for better communist tomorrow. And grad means the city, like Ville, do. So it would translate in English like Hardworkville or similar. And there is a card game implemented. Soviet Hearthstone named Bombagun. It is quite hard to win against the opponents, but it is really cool to play. And I liked the art, look at it, so original. Maybe they will release this game as a stand-alone project one day. And of course, you will find radioactive toilets there.
Probably from all that radioactive piss you generate while drinking radioactive vodka, so the signs are everywhere. Be careful, do not slip. And if you ask me, does this game is worth playing, I would definitely say yes. Also, it’s not expensive at all, it is new and it costs like 11 Euros, there is no big loss even if you don’t like it. But, anyway, I cannot recommend you to buy a game in early access. I haven’t found many bugs, actually almost none, but I can’t be sure that you won’t find any too. So, buy it on your own risk, but definitely put it into your wishlist if you like games like Fallout.
