Perestroika (video game)

Perestroika (also known as Toppler) is a Russian video game released in 1989 by a small software developer called Locis (Nikita Skripkin, Aleksander Okrug and Dmitry Chikin, currently - Nikita online[1]) in the Soviet Union in 1990, and named after Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of Perestroika. Its splash screen shows Gorbachev and the Kremlin, the seat of the Soviet government. The splash screen includes imagery suggestive of crumbling masonry, perhaps symbolizing the deterioration of public infrastructure in the twilight years of the Soviet Union.

Perestroika
Developer(s)Locis
Platform(s)
Release1989
Genre(s)Puzzle game
Mode(s)Single-player

The game consists of controlling a small frog-like creature which jumps from one lily pad to another, trying to collect dots in four colours symbolizing grocery goods, currency transactions, progressive taxes and adventures and to reach a certain pad in the right-top corner of the screen. The lilies, symbolizing the ever-changing laws and acts in the USSR, constantly shrink and disappear only to appear in other places. Higher levels also feature one or more evil creatures called "bureaucrats" which follow the frog and try to eat it. The frog dies if the lily pad on which it is standing disappears, if the player moves it to a place where there is no lily pad, or if it is caught by a bureaucrat.

Perestroika runs under DOS, it was written in Borland C++ using the Borland Graphics Interface and has a resolution of 640×350.

Nikita Online [1] released a remake of this game for Windows—Toppler for Windows—and chose the frog from the game as its logo.

The frog itself and the second game name (which is mentioned in the file name toppler.exe) may be inspired by the Tower Toppler game.

Other versions

Sinclair ZX Spectrum

The game exists also in a version for computers Sinclair ZX Spectrum and compatible. It was programmed by a Czech programmer group GCC under a Czech variant of the name Perestrojka.[2] The producer was a company Proxima - Software, the game was published in 1992 as a part of compilation Mah Jongg.

Webbased

The game also has several look-alikes in Javascript[3] and in Flash.[4]

Mobile based

This games also has several remakes for mobile (smart)phones, e.g. iPhones Perestroika Revival[5] and Toppler.[6]

References
  1. Nikita Online, Nikita Online Company website
  2. Perestrojka at World of Spectrum
  3. Perestroika JavaScript Remake by Michal Biniek Javascript remake by Michal Biniek
  4. Perestroika Flash Version Flash remake by Matthias Ziehe
  5. Perestroika Revival for iPad & iPhone
  6. Toppler remake for iPhone
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