Red Comrades Save the Galaxy

Lore & Background

The game's plot adapts elements from Dmitry Furmanov's novel Chapaev and borrows heavily from Soviet-era Russian anecdotes. In the story, an alien colonist ship loses control and becomes Earth's Moon. A shot from the cruiser Aurora's main gun during the October Revolution of 1917 accidentally hits the Moon, awakening the alien crew, who then decide to invade Earth. Misled by a wooden sign reading 'Backwoods is a Hub of the Earth', the aliens target the remote Russian village of Backwoods, which is split by the front line and the Ural River during the Russian Civil War. The stalemate between Bolshevik and anti-communist forces sets the stage for the alien invasion.

The main characters are Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev, a Red Army division commander inspired by the folk hero; Pete, Chapaev's holder of an order and oddball trusted ally; and Anka, a skilled scouter and expert in arms and demolitions. The idea for the game arose in early 1996 among editors of SBG Magazine, who decided to make their own adventure game featuring the three main heroes of popular jokes. Development began in mid-1996, with the entire editorial staff involved. The game was announced in December 1997 via issue #797 of SBG Magazine, and a contract with Buka Entertainment was signed around that time. Development took two and a half years, one year longer than planned.

Reader's Guide

Red Comrades Save the Galaxy is significant as the first 3-CD game released in Russia, with its 'jewel box' development model recognized for cutting production costs and increasing total print runs. The game helped propel the Russian adventure game genre and expanded Russia's recognition as a video game producer on a global scale, alongside other releases such as Pilot Brothers: Chasing the Striped Elephant and GAG. A non-interactive demo was released in June 1998, and a video demo was shown ahead of the Q3 1998 retail release. The game was released in early November 1998. On September 11, 2014, the original version was released for Android devices as shareware, ported by ElTechs via virtualization. A remastered version was released on February 18, 2016, on Steam, compatible with newer Windows operating systems and wide-screen displays. It features revocalized dialogues, more detailed backgrounds, English subtitles, and a portrait of Vladimir Putin as the Emperor of Russia (inserted after the original release, when Putin was head of the FSB). The remastered version also allows switching between traditional and touchscreen-based interface systems.

Did You Know?

• A remastered version was released on Steam on February 18, 2016.
• The plot is partly adapted from Dmitry Furmanov's novel Chapaev.
• The original version was released for Android devices on September 11, 2014.