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[Optical Brothers]
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["OBS" news (in Russian)]
Here you will find every game ever released by Optical Brothers.
Clickmania!
Release date: 29.02.2000
 Download!  Run in browser
Size: 350 sectors. Archive size: 90890 bytes.
Where does the Motherland begin?
It all started nine months ago, when we saw this game on the PC. Let's say it right away: it made
an unforgettable impression on us, i.e. it was love at first sight ;). Playing it, we realised that this
really was a new idea, and not yet another (how many have there been already!) sequel to the famous Tetris. Only
one thing remained - to make up our minds to write this game for the Speccy, which turned out to be no easy task. And so, as
M.S. Gorbachev used to say, "the process has started".
At first Spectre resisted, the reason being the arrival of Fallout II, but later, as the latter
got boring (although that's hardly possible, but we have to explain it somehow...), he agreed,
on condition that he liked a demo version which One Man was to write in BASIC.
Beta-Basic was chosen for the job. And so, two days later a raw
BASIC demo with a 10x10 playing field was ready. Naturally, there was no scoring, no
graphics, no music or anything like that, not even a trace of it. Nevertheless, at the secret
o.b. hideout, during a secret meeting of no less secret members (don't get me wrong ;) ),
the verdict was passed: CLICKMANIA SHALL BE ON THE SPECTRUM!!!
Then began an agonisingly long search for a producer for the future project, which ended just
a few minutes later, when an unreasonably cheerful Mentat burst into the secret hideout, holding in his hands,
glittering and shimmering in the sun... no, not a shotgun at all (his father's, covered in notches - Mentat
loves it), but a 1.5-litre bottle of "Minskaya 4" mineral water. A few minutes later, with mineral water
sparkling in the glasses, it was decided that Mentat, and nobody else, should be the producer of this project. Fortunately,
he didn't resist at all (no wonder, he didn't have to do a thing ;)), and graciously agreed
to supply us with everything we needed while working on the project. For his work he intended to get 50%
of the profits, which we agreed to, since we knew that making money on the "Spectrum" these days is absolutely
impossible. So we acquired a young and promising producer without spending a single cent ;).
The team is assembled, so what's next?
Next came the work. In no time a demo version was made to show to
"the powers that be", i.e. Mastsoft, the man we were counting on for the game's music.
Arriving at "vulitsa Karastayanavay", we were warmly received by Mast HIMSELF, who saw the demo, was
quite happy with it, and gave us a whole disk (!) of tunes, of which he allowed us to use one. Oh, I almost
forgot to mention that this disk had been "trashed" beforehand by Mast's disk drive, so in order to listen to
the masterpiece on it, we first had to "untrash" the disk, i.e. recover it. That is
exactly what we did as soon as we got back to the safe house. And so the job was done - the masterpiece from Mast's
pen was successfully dug out of the broken disk. True, after listening to it and comparing it with the tune given to us
by Set, we came to the conclusion that the latter suited a logic game better.
So we had to "dump" Mast, for which we apologise to him (and his fans) and promise
never, ever to do such a nasty thing again. By the way, as it turned out, Mast wasn't offended
at all, despite the "canard" published by the Minsk newspaper "Body".
A blow below the belt.
Everything was going well. The work was moving along. The press, having sniffed out the development of a new computer game, kept
warming up the public every now and then with reports about the project. We want to thank the following publications:
"Polesye", "Listok" and "Always" (how could we do without it?). It was these publications that published more or less objective
information about the project. Life seemed wonderful and cloudless, when suddenly something terrible happened...
Ivan calls and says:
- Listen, you guys are making "Clickmania" or something?
- Well, yeah, why?
- Tough luck, it already exists!
At these words the ground slipped from under our feet, and for some time we couldn't recover from
the horror we had been through. Then, pulling ourselves together, we decided to find out what the competitors' product was like.
We got a copy from that same Ivan. At an emergency meeting of Optical Bros., after a careful look at the quality
of the rival product, it was decided that not all was lost. The toy was made, to put it mildly, "not that great",
and could hardly compete successfully with our project.
Having survived this blow of fate, we carried on working.
To be or not to be, that is the question?
Meanwhile, many users began to worry about the fate of the project. The O.B. office was stormed by crowds
of logic game fans. The phone was ringing off the hook with calls from people who cared about this project.
And then came another blow of fate - the resignation of the Optical Brothers organiser, Filosof, and
the global reorganisation that followed. At the board of directors meeting, Mentat was unanimously
accepted as the candidate for organiser; he promised that if elected, work on
ClickMania would not stop for a single hour. Unfortunately, that was the only promise he kept
after taking office as organiser ;). Nevertheless, we must give him credit for his business acumen and
innate organisational talent. The work went on, but not as fast as before -
we felt the absence of Filosof, who, although he did nothing for the project, was like a lucky
charm to us...
Spectre became deputy organiser; he has an amazing ability to unobtrusively impose
his ideas. Thanks to this ability he put pressure on the designer (One Man), which in the end
led to a high level of graphics in the game, making it even more attractive.
By the way, most of the graphics were accepted in the third or fourth revision, which drove One Man up the wall.
He tried many times to wriggle out of working on the project, and only thanks to dumplings (pelmeni) bought by Mentat
just in time (which Mentat ate himself) did he get back to work. Mentat fleeced us like sheep. Sometimes, instead of
the wool, he sheared off the skin as well...
We groaned, we gnashed our teeth, but we kept on working...
Here they are, our heroes!
Sooner or later, the job was nearing its end. And then came the moment when the project landed on the organiser's desk,
although absolutely nothing depended on him, it's just a tradition ;). The organiser accepted the project
and gave the go-ahead for its release. The work was done. An army of beta testers set about testing the toy,
and the testing went successfully, i.e. not a single bug was found, which speaks of a high level of coding.
So let's take a good look at the faces of these simple Belarusian guys, thanks to whom we get to play this
wonderful game on the Spectrum, and say to them all together: Guys, thank you for being there for us!
Chainick: Horror in Flat
Release date: xx.xx.1999
Download! Run in browser
Size: 161 sectors. Archive size: 43141 bytes.
Backstory:
Never drink more than you can handle!
Waking up the next day, Chainick found that his head was literally splitting with pain.
All would have been fine, if not for the bouts of alcoholic diarrhoea. The headache he could still have put up with, but
the dreadful call signals of a stomach worn out by its heavy load were impossible to ignore. So Chainick decided
to go to the toilet. But here's the snag: all the doors of the flat turned out to be locked with heavy locks, chains, bolts
and similar security devices.
Lelya had made herself comfortable on the sofa, late for work yet again. Apparently, on this day she
was going to let her bosses down big time. Lelya opened her eyes and stared at the exhausted Chainick. From his
dreadful look, she realised at once that something terrible was about to happen, but didn't ask any unnecessary questions...
Nearby, a rat was quietly rustling. Chainick remembered that yesterday it had got thoroughly loaded on beer and, after the guests left,
slowly shuffling its booze-tangled little paws, had disappeared under the sofa. Now, hearing the familiar rustling,
Chainick realised that the rat had proudly endured all the hardships of the binge and was ready for a new push.
Memories slowly began to come back. He vaguely remembered One Man, Spectre, Mast and Equator leaving. But
as for how Serg left, his memory had kept no information at all. But that was secondary. Right now,
Chainick faced his main task: TO REACH THE SAVING TOILET AT ALL COSTS... AND YOU MUST HELP HIM!
From the authors:
This software product should under no circumstances be regarded as a FUCK (a scene diss)! It is just a friendly joke
and nothing more. We apologise in advance to everyone who for one reason or another might take offence at us,
namely: Chainick, Lelya, Mast, Serg and Chainick's grandpa. Before giving vent to your emotions, we ask you
to remember these words:
IN CREATING THIS FUNNY GAME,
WE NEVER SET OURSELVES THE GOAL
OF OFFENDING YOU!
Warning! All characters appearing in the game are fictitious and have nothing to do with real people. Any
resemblance is purely coincidental and carries no malicious intent.
Any Tank
Release date: xx.xx.1998
Download! Run in browser
Size: 106 sectors. Archive size: 25977 bytes.
Unfortunately, neither of the game's two founding authors, Spectre and Mentat, could remember the events of three years ago that led
to the birth of this extraordinary game. Only a short word from the authors inside the game itself helps a little with the question
"How did it happen?". Nothing more, not even the exact date of creation, has been preserved by history.
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