Kolkhoz: The Red Wedge

Kolkhoz: The Red Wedge is about a political cadre in the Soviet Union during the collectivization campaign of the late 20's/early 30's following the end of the New Economic Policy (NEP). Your job is to convince workers and peasants to join the local collective farm while having to deal with all of their views, personalities, and problems. You're forced to face and overcome various contradictions that come to life when translating theory to reality. It plays as a 2-D story-telling game that involves using dialogue and puzzles to solve problems. The puzzles take the form of abstract shapes that once completed often take the form of an object relevant to the problem. Along the way your journal (J) gives you historical facts to explain the sociopolitical background of the period. Overall, Kolkhoz: The Red Wedge is a very honest and neat game. It's a new approach to such a specific and often controversial period in Marxist history. However, being a 2-D puzzle/dialogue game it can get dull after awhile. It's not a game to binge, but one definitely worth playing. 3/5 stars.

A good debut for a solo game developer. Lovely graphics and succesful storytelling, average but acceptable gameplay features for a interactive novel kind game. With in game info about era and fine atmosphere, I especially recommend to people who interested in Bolshevik Revolution, 1930's collectivization process, CCCP or enjoyed novels such as "And Quiet Flows the Don " or Gladkov's "Cement".

Such a nice game placed in a well studied historical context. It makes the player go through a storyline full of day to day political, economic and human-driven issues of the Soviet peasantry which is facing the history's first great collectivization process. Very good for a first game.

Место и время действия игры: Советский Союз, "Год великого перелома". Мы играем за молодого пропагандиста Глеба, присланного из Ростова-на-Дону в село Красный клин агитировать местных крестьян организовать колхоз. Описание геймплея: бегаем из края в конец по двум с половиной линейным локациям, попутно решая проблемы социализма в отдельно взятой деревне. В голове Глеба эти проблемы принимают форму головоломок, выполненных в стилистике раннесоветского авангарда ("Красным клином бей белых", вот это вот всё). Иногда, после решения головоломки, нам предлагают выбор -- забить на решение проблемы или продавить решение силой (имеет ли этот выбор хоть какое-то значение для развития сюжета, я так и не понял). Что понравилось: отсутствие бросающейся в глаза клюквы. Правдоподобное изображение расклада сил в деревне, без апологии или очернения коллективизации: есть батраки, которые связывают с колхозами надежды на новую жизнь; есть середняки, которые не понимают, почему они, своими руками создавшие крепкие хозяйства в годы НЭПа, вынуждены передавать свой скот в коллективную собственность; есть кулаки, поднявшиеся еще до революции, ни в чем от Советской власти не зависящие и готовые саботировать любое её решение. У каждого своя правда, в общем, и это подкупает. Обращение к авангарду в головоломках. Что не понравилось: всё остальное. Беганье по деревне затянуто и уныло. Головоломки, если отвлечься от эстетической составляющей, неинтересны. Графика посредственна -- как анимация деревянных персонажей, так и фона; за четыре полных внутриигровых дня вечер на заднем плане наступил лишь однажды. Не считая перемещений по деревне, игра очень короткая. Сюжет кажется куцым и неоконченным, по крайней мере, та концовка, которую я увидел, меня не впечатлила. Возможно, есть и другие концовки, зависящие от выбора по ходу игры, но у меня нет никакого желания выяснять это. Тем паче что отсутствует система сохранений -- только автосэйв каждые сутки. Всё это не располагает к повторному прохождению игры. Итог: моё уважение создателям за взвешенный взгляд на ту эпоху, как и за саму попытку обратиться к ней -- в конце концов, не каждый день увидишь игру по коллективизации -- но как таковая игра ниже всякой критики, вот совсем.

What could be better than a game set during the specific point following the October Revolution, when a new social order is put into practice, starting with the villages far from Moscow? This is the hook, but unfortunately, this game does not deliver on this promise. There are some glimpses of this; the tension between those who were slightly better off before this process began, and the way that the new order is used to settle old scores. But mostly the game involves moving left or right through rows of houses, trying to remember where a particular peasant lives. The English translation is very rough, and the text is implemented in such a way that it is very small (or sometimes very large, or cut off the screen) and progresses very quickly. The game is linear and there are few options. A traditional visual novel format would have been more appropriate and less distracting from the story (the long walks past the houses, listening to repetitive short piano loops and wind samples do not add anything). The lack of save points was also quite frustrating, as there is no indication of when the game saves, which means that my time with the game was spent repeating sections that hadn’t saved before. The ending was abrupt and did not resolve the story, such as it was. The Constructivist puzzles themselves, while obtuse, are quite original. I particularly liked the one about making a rivet. This probably should have been offered as a free game, so that the developers could get more feedback and improve their next release.

Nice little indie game, if you like constructivism, puzzles and Soviet history then you'll like this.

Wow. Just wow. I've seen lots of games filled to the brim with far-left propaganda, but this one surely takes the cake. We're talking about the farm collectivization in communist Russia; the violent submission of land owners to Stalin's "master plan", and the subsequent famine of 1932-1933. Yes, we're talking about more than 10 million dead people - especially in Ukraine; this was without a single doubt an absolute genocide, masterfully executed by Stalin, the bolshevik dictator whose atrocities can only be equaled by Hitler himself. Farmers who dared to oppose the bolshevik regime were either exterminated or sent to gulags; their possessions forcefully, violently confiscated, their Christian icons burned, priests arrested and their churches closed by the godless communists. Their farmer class (kulaks) completely eradicated. Even the children were encouraged to "rat" on their parents (if they dared to hide any grain to avoid confiscation by the communist state agents). Such was the extend of this famine, that even cannibalism was not uncommon. That's the true legacy of Stalin and his communism: millions upon millions of dead - because human life in a bolshevik regime has zero value; it means absolutely nothing; the complete submission to the party is all that matters. The only alternative is death - through starvation, or worse. Did you think the Katyn massacre was horrible? Think again; that was nothing, compared to this; and it was just one of the famines that would befall communist Russia. And yet in this "game"-piece of shameful communist propaganda, the main character tries to.... "peacefully reason" with the farmers, "get in their head", in order to... "peacefully convince" them to give up their property and become a part of a "collective". Indeed, it will all be done "peacefully"... Because, otherwise.... there will be "peaceful" starvation.... "peaceful" imprisonment in gulags.... and "peaceful" executions. As a closing comment, I'd like to urge anyone who feels too lazy to read about the Dekulakization, the Holodomor, the Collectivization, etc., to, AT THE VERY LEAST, watch the 2019 movie "Mr. Jones". (and while at it, maybe even learn what inspired George Orwell to write the "Animal Farm" and Big Brother's absolutist-totalitarian-regime-exerting-control-through-massive-propaganda, that was depicted in his seminal book, "1984").

I fell asleep playing this game. Now, I'm a leftist (but not a Marxist-Leninist or Stalinist), but my gripe with this game isn't the politics (unlike a certain red-hatted reviewer). It's just an incredibly boring game. This game is presented as a story where you try and slowly convince everyone to support kolkhoz, but it barely even fulfills that. There is some influence and changing of sides, but it seems to be somewhat vapid. "Your kolkhoz farmers fixed my fence, I shall join you. Take my oxen!" My brain was just like, "huh, what just happened?" It's unclear if my decisions even have an effect on the game. Walking from place to place looking for people takes up about 70% of the gameplay. I literally dozed off while holding the left arrow key for more than a minute. And then missed some of the actual conversation. It would probably have been better (and a lot shorter) if the player was allowed to travel on a map. What I did like about it: The puzzles are nice and creative. Good historical background. Some thought-provoking questions about fairness, truth, government, loyalty, etc especially during the meeting.

If the collectivization of soviet agriculture in the 1930's is something that interests you , this will be fun. It's a side scrolling walking sim with dialogs (with rough translations at times) and with a really unpolished, abrupt and unfinished ending. I'm glad i played it but i must say it was quite disappointing (the ending).

Finished the game. The puzzles were sometimes obtuse but the biggest problem was the forced walking back and forth through the map. without that the game would last less than half the 2.6 hours. Dialogues and plot were childish and amateurish. It was actually way less political than I thought going into it but it was "disappointing" on every aspect. I am no English native speaker but the number of spelling errors and other grammatical horrors was very high. Not suggested to anyone. And it sounded like as a game for me...