11 VIDEO GAMES YOU DIDN’T KNOW WERE MADE IN

When you think of the hot spots of creation, your mind probably goes to places like Japan, the US, and South Korea. While those places may be hotbeds, there are plenty of amazing titles that come from all over the world!

Take Poland for example, where GOG.COM resides, and titles like series from CD PROJEKT RED come from. You may have known that series came from Poland, but there have been many other amazing games to come out of the country, so we thought it would be fun to highlight some of the fantastic titles you may have played but didn’t realize were made in Poland. Check out the full list!

1 FROSTPUNK

Developed and published by and released in 2018, Frostpunk is one of those titles you may not have realized that originated in Poland.At its core, Frostpunk is a city-building . It takes place in an alternate version of the late 1800s where volcanic eruptions have blotted out the sun and caused a terrible winter that threatened the survival of the human race. In Frostpunk, you are tasked with building up civilization to not only help your people survive but, hopefully, flourish.

TOWER OF TIME

A variety of amazing games have come out of Poland, including some great, classic RPG titles. Tower of Time, developed and published by Event Horizon, is one such example. First released in 2018, Tower of Time takes classic RPG elements and combines it with real-time combat that allows you to both slow and stop time. Tower of Time is great for players that are looking for an interesting story or someone who just likes grinding cool loot in an awesome setting. If 50+ hours of classic RPG goodness is your style, then this one is definitely a title from Poland worth checking out.

2 SUPERHOT

One of the more unique titles on this list is also one of the more unique games to come out in the past few years. Developed and published by the SUPERHOT Team in 2016, SUPERHOT is a first- person shooter with a unique twist — time only moves when you move. That means you can quickly (or rather very slowly) assess a situation by stopping your player’s movement. What you’re left with is a unique shooting title that oozes with style and cinematic flair. WEEDCRAFT INC

Created by Vile Monarch and released in 2019, Weedcraft Inc is a management sim game that looks at the budding (pun very much intended) world of legal cannabis growing and selling.Thanks to its subject matter, it holds a unique place in the world of tycoon-style management games. In it, you start off as an illegal dealer and slowly work your way up making decisions that will (hopefully) help you become a legal organization. On the other end, you have to make sure you are using the proper nutrients, lights, and more to produce the best plants possible. If you want a management game with a unique twist, we have you covered with Weedcraft Inc.

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One of the most iconic zombie games to release in the last decade, Dying Light was developed in Poland by and published by Warner Bros. in 2015. In the game, you play as Kyle Crane, an undercover agent sent to check out a quarantine zone in the city of Harran. You have to retrieve an important file, but to do so you’ll have to fight your way through waves of grotesque zombies. It features dynamic lighting cycles, which has players scavenging for materials and other items during the day, while at night, the stagnant zombies become much faster and powerful, so fighting for your becomes that much more difficult. COOKING SIMULATOR

Now for something quite different than zombie killing. Cooking Simulator, developed by Big Cheese Studio and Wastelands Interactive, takes the cooking genre and flips it like a pancake. Instead of many titles in the genre that focus on creating an efficient order of operations among your line cooks and sous chefs, in Cooking Simulator you are tasked with actually making the food yourself. The game is played in the first-person mode and features realistic physics which are sure to cause plenty of laughs as you get your bearings straight around your new kitchen.

4 LAYERS OF FEAR

Another scary game to come out of Poland, Layers of Fear was first released in 2016 from Bloober Team. You play as a painter who is trying to finish their grand masterpiece, but things quickly take an odd turn as you start hallucinating. You’ll have to solve puzzles and search your ever-changing home to figure out all the secrets. With three different endings, Layers of Fear offers plenty of replayability for players looking for an interesting plot where they control the outcome.

SOLSTICE

Time for a beautiful visual novel from MoaCube, a small indie studio based in Poland. In Solstice, you find yourself in a dystopian mystery thriller where stories between people help drive the narrative. Set in a city in the middle of a frozen wasteland, the story starts with a missing person and a group of people dead set on finding them. It doesn’t take long to realize things are a bit off. You can switch between two playable characters during your investigation in order to unlock all the secrets in the game. 5 RUINER

With titles like 2077 coming out, it should be of no surprise that Polish developers love a good cyberpunk setting. Ruiner is one such example. Set in a cyberpunk future, Ruiner is a top- down shooter with some gorgeous gameplay and artwork. It was developed Reikon Games and first released in 2017. Bold lines and colors set off the top-down action where you play a man on a bloody task to save his brother. If you are looking for a bold title with amazing artwork and compelling gameplay, this one is definitely for you. DARKWOOD

Another top-down game on the list, Darkwood is a game developed by Acid Wizard Studio and released in 2017. On top of being developed in Poland, the game also takes place there, as well. You find yourself in a mysterious forest where you have to scavenge materials and repair your home base before night falls. During the night, you must protect your base from intruders. On your journey, you’ll meet other characters as you try to solve the mystery of the forest.

6 WE. THE REVOLUTION

We. The Revolution is one of the more unique titles to come from Poland. Developed by Polyslash and released in 2019, you play as a judge who presides over various cases, with you ultimately deciding the fate of those on trial. In between cases, you’ll also learn more about the French Revolution, with your decisions in these trials affecting how the state and other political factions perceive you.If narrative-driven titles are your style of game, it’s definitely one to check out.

So, there you have it, 11 unique titles that range from cooking and horror to fast-paced shooters that were all made in Poland! Be sure to check the Made in Poland Sale on GOG.COM!

7 CLASH

DISCOVER A CLASSIC STRATEGY GAME AHEAD OF ITS TIME Now, after over 20 years, GOG.COM brings back Clash, a unique fantasy strategy game, from obscurity. Check out why we want to remind you about this DRM-free classic.

GENERALS AND DRAGONS The mix of strategy games with a fantasy setting has a long history behind it. Not surprisingly — many of the first game developers were hardcore J.R.R. Tolkien and Dungeon and Dragons fans. Games like King’s Bounty, Warlords, and Heroes of Might and Magic were hugely popular in the 90s. Gamers loved them for the opportunity to command armies containing fantastic beasts like dragons or vampires. At the same time, all those titles contained RPG style features, like treasure hunting.Turn-based strategy games at that time had one huge advantage over then-popular RTS games like Warcraft. Thanks to the Hot Seat option anyone could invite their friends over for a multiplayer duel. Playing those games together became a tradition for many gamers, and was something players could have fun in groups even before the days of LAN parties. And then, out of the blue, one developing studio from Wrocław, Poland, decided to take this game genre one step further.

A CLASH OF IDEAS Before turning into the direction of turn-based strategies, Leryx Longsoft studio (founded in 1993) had one considerable project behind it — the platform game Lew Leon. The title enjoyed considerable success in Poland, so the ambitions of the young development team grew even higher. In 1996, they announced that they were working on a new game.

8 The head developer and score composer, years, I still remember it with lots of Adam Skorupa (alias Scorpik) described the sentiment, because it was, at least in terms title as one that combines elements from of the script and game mechanics, my child. Warlords, Heroes of Might and Magic and… Civilization 2. GAME AHEAD OF ITS TIME

In Clash, the gamer would be able to not Released in 1998, Clash was welcomed only expand cities and recruit knights and warmly by game critics. They praised the fantastic monsters but tackle advanced beautiful, almost fairytale-like graphics and diplomacy options and even create their interesting game mechanics. Adding own future dynasties, as well. Moreover, diplomacy and royal dynasty creation added the military and battle options in Clash were a new flavor to the strategy-based fantasy far more advanced than what could be games and the fans of more complex battle found in the then-considered almost perfect strategies found something interesting with title — Heroes of Might and Magic II. the game, as well. Why is it forgotten now? Developing such a mixture of ideas wasn’t Probably because in those times games easy. Even today one of its creators, Jerzy from Poland didn’t stand much of a chance Poprawa (alias Mac Abra) remembers the against big studios from Western Europe or process of working on Clash as being “a bit the USA, mainly due to advertising budgets. fatiguing.” But then he concludes: After 25 Luckily for us, times have changed and now

9 we can enjoy Clash game on GOG.COM. So maybe it’s time for good old-fashioned Hot Seat game with friends? Formerly mentioned Jerzy Poprawa says it best — Clash still holds the test of 19 time.

That’s why I still recommend playing Clash, the first big-budget strategy game with fantasy elements made in Poland. Today it may look a little vintage […]. On the other hand, I can say with a small dose of pride that it still is very playable after 25 years from its release. Especially great soundtrack composed by Adam (Scorpik) Skorupa still outclasses many modern video games that have budgets in the millions. Have fun playing it!

Jerzy "Mac Abra" Poprawa

10 NOT JUST THE WITCHER 5 ESSENTIAL GAMES FROM POLAND

BY MARCIN KOSMAN

When it comes to Polish games, you My answer is far from spectacular — you see, probably can name some of them in it is all about hard work and being stubborn. no time. Polish flavor in The Witcher There wouldn’t be a Witcher series or if CD PROJEKT hadn’t trilogy is hard to miss. Dying Light is worked on an epic localization of Baldur’s from Wroclaw just like Gate first. There wouldn’t be a Dying Light if before it. And The Observer does not Techland had not created some smaller and even try to hide its roots, having you sit lower budget games for the Polish market in a Polonez car right at the beginning first. There wouldn’t be a Lords of the Fallen of the game. if CI Games hadn’t first found success in the budget games sector, producing low-cost This War of Mine and Frostpunk both feature games. And so on. Behind each success, there unique settings, but probably wouldn’t be as is a story and each of these stories happened great if they weren’t made in a country which because someone had the vision, patience, faced so many tragedies in the past. Polish devs and work ethic to see it through to the end. are brave enough to sell their own idea of the Wild West () and soon they will Of course, there was a dark age. Transitioning showcase their vision of cyberpunk with, of from 2D to 3D in the ’90s meant death to course, Cyberpunk 2077. Seems we just know many small Polish studios, as smaller 2-3 how to make games, right? As the author of person teams simply couldn’t produce “Not just The Witcher: History of Polish video successful games utilizing the latest games”, I am constantly being asked how it is technologies. I also remember years like possible that Poland has become such an 2008, where literally no decent Polish important player in the industry. games came out at all. It was the year after 11 The Witcher and Two Worlds (also Polish) released, and even then we were still struggling. Now we publish dozens of games a year. Indie, AAA, AA, you name it. So, let’s take a moment to look back on some of the Polish titles that helped define Polish gaming history and helped build the foundation for its current success. If you want to give them a try — you are more than welcome to do that, being a digital archeologist can be fascinating. Let’s start!

EARTH 2140 TRILOGY

The Polish answer to Command & Conquer and Warcraft 2. It may not have been “as good”, but that also wasn’t as important in 1997. What mattered was the price. For just 10 euros, you got a decent game that did some RTS elements better than its famous competitors. Gaming in the 90s, especially in Poland, piracy could be found all over. Earth 2140 started a price revolution that showed many publishers that people would love to choose legal games if they were affordable.

TEENAGENT

Some may find it hard to believe, but if this “Polish Secret of Monkey Island” game hadn’t succeeded, there probably wouldn’t be any The Vanishing of Ethan Carter or Frostpunk games. Teenagent was made by (now The Astronauts) and Grzegorz Miechowski (now 11 bit) and is still a great game after all these years — like many of the great point-and-clicks. Teenagent was meant for the Polish market, so a nice marketing asset was that Polish gaming journalists became voice actors for this game. Remember the journalist Geoff Keighley showing up in Death Stranding? Well, Poland was first. Sort of.

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3D games don’t often age well, but I have played CC recently and still found it cool. It is like “Descent meets Valerian and 5th Element”. Techland had some fight with a publisher over Crime Cities but fortunately managed to survive to give us their zombie parkour mayhem many years later.

TWO WORLDS EPIC EDITION

I love the story behind that one. It was supposed to be the next big RTS game from Reality Pump (guys behind Earth 2140 and Knightshift), but due to the fact that RPGs elements in Knightshift were cool, Knightshift II morphed into Two Worlds. The point is, Two Worlds was the Polish answer to the Elder Scrolls series and has some bold design choices. So bold that you could have even kill the main NPC at the beginning of the game and be stuck forever. That’s what the free world idea is all about!

A.D. 2044

A game remake just five years after its initial release? Yeah, in Poland we did that before it was cool. A.D. 2044 is a complete reimagination of the 1991 Atari hit with Polish puzzle guru Roland Pantoła behind the wheel. The idea of a world inhabited only by women was borrowed from movie blockbuster “Seksmisja”, and the game looked stunning… for a Polish game at least.

13 GOG is best known by gamers for GOG.COM — the digital store with hand-picked selection of DRM-free games, and GOG GALAXY — a gaming app that brings all your games and friends in one place.

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GOGAMER, November 2019. All rights reserved. GOG.COM and GOG Galaxy are registered trademarks of GOG sp. z o.o. All other logos, trademarks or game artworks are property of their respective owners.GOG Sp. z o.o. 2019. Part of CD PROJEKT group.