A JavaScript clone of Nu Pogodi, a Soviet hand-held game
nerdlab.pl
nerdlab.pl
From memory (remember that I was only 6 back then, so I might have screwed up some things):
* There were two levels of difficulty, denoted "игра А" and "игра B" ("game A" and "game B"). The A version was easier: in it, the bottom-left roost was disabled and eggs would never fall off of it. In game B, all four roosts were in use.
* There were multiple stages of the game: - Score 0 to 5: only one egg falling at any given time, the next egg appears only when you catch the previous one - Score 6 to 20 (?): two eggs active at any given time - Score 21 to 50 (?): three eggs active at any given time
And so on, up to a limit of, I think, six or so at a time, at certain thresholds. Also, at certain score thresholds the game speed would accelerate. I think this didn't start to be noticeable until the score of 200 or so; by the time you got to score 500 falling eggs would become moderately fast, by score 700 quite fast, and getting past 800 or even 900 would require your fingers to be extremely snappy.
* If I remember correctly, getting past 999 would cause the score to wrap back to 0 and the speed to wrap back to as slow as at the start, but you wouldn't get three lives back and you would still have six eggs to catch at a time. I managed to do this only a few times ever; I think my high score ever was approximately 1050-1100, and average score might have been around 700-750. This was in game A, which I mostly played.
* Also if I remember correctly, the order of falling eggs, at least in the beginning phase of the game, was deterministic (top-left roost, then top-right roost, then bottom-left roost (skipped in version A), then bottom-right roost, and so on). The order of subsequent eggs was probably deterministic as well, but this wasn't noticeable anymore. The initial roost might have been chosen randomly.
Says "(C) Nintendo Co., Ltd. 1981" on the back.
I guess since the 60s or so, Soviets just started to copy all the CPU designs and electronics from the West. Apparently it included children's games.
The Polish original -- http://i.imgur.com/w7Q9aw1.jpg (a great game of space trading with a supply/demand system, space combat and a unique feature where you could predict future events and act upon them). Many years later I found all those cheap games were translations of American cheap games, published in the "Ares" magazine: http://i.imgur.com/islQ8gW.png
1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Game_%26_Watch_games
One thing I found interesting while playing was that the game never deals you a losing hand. It got faster, sure, but only one egg is added per step so you always have time to move.
First attempt: 484. In a way, it almost gets easier at higher speeds. And it's always obvious which egg is next, or you can just watch what order they appear in and collect them in that order.
Also, it came as no shock that each and every Elektronika brand game was a copy of sorts from similar or identical Nintendo products.
As this is very approximate clone of original handheld, sound was closest to version everybody remembers. It triggered nostalgic feeling all around the room.