INTERNATIONAL GEORGE DUBYA BUSH SIMULATOR by Jim Waterman
INTERNATIONAL GEORGE DUBYA BUSH SIMULATOR by Jim Waterman for ZX Spectrum 48K
I never tire of repeating how internationally magnificent this competition is thanks to its participants. Fun, knowledge and culture have been given as a gift. This time I was left speechless by the great work presented to us.
"An educational game about geography and non-Roman character sets" - explains the author on his entry. And when he says non-roman, he means it.
I am amazed by the enormous amount of work that has gone into this game. Not only the spectacular redefinition of alphabets that we will see later, but the author has also been extremely careful in choosing the places referred to in the programme. Quoting:
"For reasons of a very current and ongoing nature, any Ukrainian cities that are in Crimea, Donetsk or Luhansk oblasts, or which are under control by the Russian army in other oblasts, or which have recently changed their name in 2024 for (presumably) political purposes, have all been excluded from this game. Nothing against the people living there, but they've got bigger fish to fry.
ALSØ:
Iraqi cities are given as their name is on the Wikipedia page listing Iraq's largest settlements; some are given with the ubiquitous "Al-" prefix, and some are not, even though the article in Arabic adds the "Al-". Any districts that are a conglomerate of smaller towns that make the top 50 when added together have been removed in favour of single defined settlements.
ALSØ ALSØ:
Translations, where possible, are official; nearly all the Ukrainian settlements had an article on the Arabic Wikipedia, and about half of those in Iraq had an article on the Ukrainian Wikipedia. Google Maps was the next port of call, which can be viewed in a vast variety of languages, and provided a few extra names. Those I did not get from either source, most of which were the smaller Iraqi settlements, I've bashed together from a combination of the Russian Wikipedia, Google Translate, and what I've learned about Ukrainian spellings from putting this game together. Only once did I have to use my intuition to its maximum extent."
I'm sweating already...
This creation was inspired by a slip of the tongue made by a well-known politician. Once again, the author explains it in detail in the document included with his game:
"Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with whom I Zoomed the other day, by the way, cool little guy. The Churchill of the 21st Century. He was empowered by electoral legitimacy, he won 72% of the vote, and now he's leading his nation heroically, against Russian invading forces, and defending his country. In contrast, Russian elections are rigged. Political opponents are imprisoned, or otherwise eliminated from participating in the electoral process. The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia, and the decision of one man, to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq... I MEAN, OF UKRAINE!"
(...pause...)
"...Iraq, too. Anyway..."
(...pause and nervous laughter from the crowd...)
"...75."
- George Dubya Bush, 19 May 2022 - reminding us how old he is.
Ahem, ahem...
After the very good loading screen, the game is presented with the following text and both flags of the represented countries alternating in the background while a very familiar tune sings along. This immediately shows the level:
???
I had no idea that I could read Arabic better than Cyrillic. Please note that at the end of each attempt, the name of the location is displayed in Western script. This is just amazing. Our competitor must be receiving visits from Encyclopaedia Britannica scouts.
After a series of entertaining rounds, during which I searched in vain for patterns in both Arabic and Cyrillic writing that would reveal whether a population belongs to one country or another, I arrived at the final ranking. This is presented with an excellent animation, similar to those seen on TV quiz shows.
Comments
Post a Comment